Think Before You Buy That "Gift" Camera!Think Before You Buy That "Gift" Camera!Not long ago, a very nice recently retired woman came to one of my one-on-one tutorials. Her retirement gift from the company was a good quality digital camera and matching printer. It was a gift many of us would have been happy to receive.
The problem was that this nice person seldom took pictures. If she loaded her Instamatic in December, it was hard for her to finish the 24 exposures by the Fourth of July! She simply wasn't "a picture taker"! Apparently nobody at work thought about this, even after her 20+ years of employment. The camera will probably either end up in a drawer or in the happy hands of a relative.
Another person entered my digital camera classroom on the first night, proclaiming that her camera was a gift from her (grown) children and she had NO IDEA WHY they would give her such a thing! She said even a gift card for a restaurant would have been better.
This kind of thing happens repeatedly, with men and women staring at camera equipment the same way I would a gift of a pro hockey outfit with stick and skates. So here are some rules about digital camera gift giving:
If a person walks around saying, “Me and computers, we don’t get along,” find another gift.
If a person comments they are still trying to finish a roll of film so they can see the shots of the USA Bicentennial celebration, find another gift.
If a person is still using a computer running Windows 3.1 or Windows 98 and sees no reason to upgrade, find another gift.
If a person treats electronics harshly, as in every radio antenna in the house is snapped off, or knobs are missing on appliances and the answering machine is liberally coated with spilled cola, find another gift.
If a person wants tight close in shots of deer in fields or eagles on bluffs, or if they want frozen action shots of their kid/grandkid scoring the winning goal or stuffing a basket, put your hands up and walk slowly away from the point and shoot digital camera display. Those cameras can't do what they want.
If the person is pinching pennies, and you want to give them an outfit to make prints at home….well, you know the rest.
Where is the easy to use digital camera?
Until camera makers finally wake up and build a camera with virtually NO buttons, digital cameras will remain in the realm of the enthusiast or technically inclined.
I am waiting for some venture capitalist to fund my “Socha-Flex” digital camera.
It will have a dial with settings for :
-Pictures for prints (uses full resolution and no image compression).
-Picture for email (uses smaller resolution and some image compression).
-Flash automatic
-Flash off
There would also be a single, large, rubberized ring around the lens for zooming and NO so-called “digital zoom.”
Each camera would come with a special edition of my CD tutorial, of course!
Produce this camera and watch the sales soar! Heck, even I’d buy one! And, it would even make a great gift for those people described above.