In our house, we had two polaroid cameras. Brother and I, being young, were never allowed to touch them, but we saw parents use them often. On every birthday party, every gathering, we’d have a lot of pictures taken and then developed — you know how it used to be and is with polariod cameras.

Then one miserable day when I was still in school, some miscreants broke into our house and stole the cameras. Ever since, we have been deprived of cameras.

We do have digital cameras in our cell phones now. Brother is obsessed with taking pictures of himself with his cell phone all the time, while dad enjoys snapping cats when they aren’t looking. And mine’s just not good enough (at slightly more than 0.3 Mpx (mega pixels), you can hardly dream about becoming a photographer). But, that’s the conundrum: these cameras are just not up to the task. Granted, I could probably invest in a sophisticated cell phone equipped with a better camera that might cost me an arm and a leg, but cell phones don’t appeal to me. Furthermore, if you are from around here, you already know the perils of keeping an expensive cell phone. And, it is not like you can separate out the camera from the cell phone without decapitating it completely.

All these years I have waited for occasions where friends would bring their cameras, to take snaps of myself. That may probably paint me as desperate, come to think of it. I have also been to some exotic places and wished dearly that I had had a cam.

Finally, last week I decided to reach out on a limb and buy a proper, standalone digital camera. A friend from Down Under, Grant, helped narrow down the choices of cameras, constraint by my self-imposed budget, to the Canon PowerShot A580, and the Nikon Coolpix L16. I nearly went for the A580, but on the day I was going to place an order for it, I had a reeking afternoon (which I may if I feel up to it blather about another time), and decided to settle on the Nikon L16, overkill features and therefore price being the reasons for turning down the A580.

I have been playing with the Nikon L16 since the last week. I am no seasoned camera owner or photographer to be able to expertly judge how well the camera fares, but I find it satisfactory. The product page is here, so you can check out the features of the camera without having to rely on my words. I have been playing with different shooting modes, exposure settings, flash settings, and whatnot. These are all novel to me, and I am enthralled by what something so small as this camera is capable of. The fruits of my toying with the camera are on display on my flickr account. The camera works seamlessly with the MacBook. The installation CD that came with the camera has a Nikon Transfer utility and a copy of Panorama Maker 4 for OS X.

As an aside, people who frequent my blog will have have noticed instantly that I have reverted back to the simple, clean theme for the blog. The previous theme was neat, if you can put it that way, and I have tried some other themes too, but I always find myself at home coming back to this theme.

Stay safe, folks!