Aiken Horse Show

The above is not a photo run through some sort of plug in filter to make it look “artistic”, but an actual image captured by my digital camera (click on the image to see what it should look like.) It started today while we were at the 2011 Aiken Horse Show in Hitchcock Woods. All of a sudden the LCD on the back of the camera looked all purple and scrambly. I spun the mode dial and it cleared up. It happened again and I cleared the same way. It would crap out randomly, sometimes I’d get 10 pictures and others only a couple. After awhile nothing would get it out of “Purple Expressionist” mode, even resetting the camera to its default state. Do you think I need a new camera? I do.

So I did some shopping this evening and ended up buying another Panasonic. The recently deceased TZ3 was purchased in August of 2007 and if I can interpret the file numbering system it took 5,946 images. The new camera is a model ZS5 that is 12 megapixels instead of 7 and has a 12x zoom instead of 10 with a slightly wider angle setting of 25mm instead of 28. It has a panorama assist mode and those manual exposure controls I wanted back in 2007, but didn’t get. At 7.3oz it is 2oz. lighter and is almost exactly the same overall size. The LCD viewfinder is a bit smaller at 2.7 inches instead of 3, but that should help increase battery life. (I wonder if they use the same one?) It is black in color instead of blue, $100 cheaper and should be here Wednesday.