Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Camera obscura.

I had been talking about wanting a replacement for my shirt-pocket camera for a while now, and while I was up in New Hamster I found a neat little Nikon Coolpix S6500 at Best Buy. It's got a full 12x of optical zoom, a brilliantly sharp AMOLED display, and good Nikon optics.
Standing in front of Twenty Tap, looking south on College Ave.

Zoomed in on the Moe & Johnny's sign.
It's just under four inches by roughly two inches by about an inch thick at the fattest point over the lens (you can only get so clown car with those lens elements); about the size of a pack of filter king cigarettes. It has WiFi, a host of cutesy art effects, and a partridge in a pear tree. Best of all, it was an open-box unit for only eighty bucks.

It's a class of camera that seems on the way out, squeezed by the ultra-tiny pocket cams on one end and the more fully-featured "superzooms" on the other, but it's perfect for putting in a pocket of my gun burkha when I'm out riding my bike, or any other occasion that doesn't warrant dragging along the DSLR.

7 comments:

Paul said...

I picked up one of those some time back. they are handy if you can find them when needed.

Robert the Biker said...

That guy on the sign looks like Dick Tracy!

Jennifer said...

Very nice! I need a pocket cam too. I'll have to check that one out.

Alien said...

Sharp, well balanced pics. Nice.

Have you used it enough yet to determine battery life?

Tam said...

Alien,

"Have you used it enough yet to determine battery life? "

Not yet. The battery gauge is still showing a full charge, though, and it's still using New Hampshire electricity. :D

Seerak said...

"ultra-tiny pocket cams"

Never heard cell phones called that, but yeah, the cheap point-and-shoot class is going away because of them.

Tam said...

Seerak,

Heh. No, I meant ultra-tiny pocket cams.

Cell phones are gutting the cheap end of the market, but boutique cameras seem to be lingering.