New Digital Camera

On our trip to Park City I had a pretty bad fall on one of the more difficult runs. While my ego wasn't bruised, my digital camera unfortunately was. After almost five years, my trusty Sony CyberShot DSC-P71 finally died. I thought that I had the camera well cushioned in my backpack but when I took that backwards spill, the LCD broke.

So I spent the next two weeks researching our next digital camera. Ultracompact or digital SLR? After reading many reviews, I finally settled on the new Canon Digital Elph SD450. I figured that an ultracompact would be more useful to us than a dSLR like a Nikon D50.

The next two weeks were spent researching the best price. After much thought, I decided to purchase the camera from Costco.com, mainly because of their legendary return policy. Their return policy is the equivalent of a lifetime warranty, in my opinion. They also listed it $50 off the list price, bringing the total to $299.99. Not bad, considering I spent over $350 on the Sony a few years back.

The camera is filled with so many features in such a tiny package: 5.0 megapixel CCD, 3.0X optical zoom, 2.5" TFT LCD screen, several shooting modes, and a movie mode, among other things.

I already ordered several accessories: a 2GB high-speed SD card, a camera bag, an LCD screen protector, and an extra battery.

I will keep updating as my impression of the camera continues.