I think my new camera is smarter than I am

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I went to the camera show today and bought a nice little point-and-shoot camera. It has a face-recognition mode that causes it to focus on the faces in view, and it even has ‘smile recognition’: once it recognises the face, you can set it to take the picture only when the subject smiles. I hadn’t heard of this before.

I also bought an eight-gigabyte memory card (SD HC format) for it. Now it says that it has space for 3190 pictures before I need to dump it to my computer. The memory card is flat, but it has little hinges and folds in half to reveal USB contacts that go straight into a USB port. I don’t even need a card reader.

When I plug the camera into my computer via the supplied USB cable, the computer recognises it immediately and offers to download the pictures.

2

Very cool indeed … just a bit creepy though…

That is the coolest part !

Now tell us how much it set you back. :wink:

3

Camera? $260. Card? $130. Tiny tripod from the clearance bin? $5. Add in the tax and show discount and it came to a whopping $435, which was comfortably less than the bonus I got at work on Friday. :slight_smile:

4

Several makers were touting their face recognition software. One had a camera connected to a big video screen, and when you walked up to the screen and your face appeared on it, the camera drew a box around your face and kept it there as you moved around.

The card. There were cheaper cards, but reading reviews on websites convinced me to get the brand I did. Reading reviews, and seeing the card’s built-in USB connector. I was with someone who is a very good professional photographer–I have four of his prints–and he recommended the Nikon as well.

5

That’s ever so wild.

Have you taken any photos yet? Or are you still all frozen up?
Get a pic of one of those walking hay bales!

6

Memory cards, for the most part, are commodities. As long as they meet the right specs I buy whatever brand is cheapest at this point. Some features (like the USB connector) are nice, but my card reader cost $10 and works fine.

You could have bought that card for half the price however. NewEgg is very reliable, I buy all my cards from them. If you dropped the USB port, you could have gotten one for
$100 less. I haven’t found any difference in reliability from the various brands.

But all that is done, enjoy the camera and take lots and lots of pictures.

7

Just remember to not actually do that. If you take months’ worth of photos and then something goes wrong with the card, or it breaks, before you get them all off, you’re going to be very disappointed.

8

ah–what a philosophical problem then arises: if you are disappointed, then instead of smiling, you will frown.
But can the camera detect frowns, too ? :slight_smile:

9

Only if you turn it upside down.

10

Does NewEgg ship tp Canada?

Edit: no. (Checked FAQ on site)

Thanks!