anyone here?

[ADAM]

so how did everyone enjoy a nice peacefull night...

[Logan]

Power came back to Peterborough around 9:20.
It wasn't too bad for me.
I can't imagine the chaos in Toronto / New York though
Yikes!

[ctenche]

I live and work in downtown Toronto and frankly I thought it was awesome! Tons of people were out. Lots of people directing traffic and helping each other out. I drove my mom home and on the way I saw a lot of people out and about; gathering at hot dog stands, pizza vendors, walking in the parks and sitting on patios with candles and a beer in hand. Frankly, short of the poor folks that had problems getting home I thought it was fantastic.

[ADAM]

it really shows you how in some ways our technology isolates us....and makes us less of a community....

[ADAM]

the HADA site is down now..it was up for a while this morning...i was talking to taylor....

[Dobe TT]

-

[Dave]

just got our power back in Ancaster around 10am this morning. Debb and I had great fun last night...went across the street and spent the night drinking Caesars (well, in Debb's case Fruitopias) and gossiping about all our snooty or insane neighbours. Good clean fun! After that I played with my new digital camera by candle light.

[JohnC]

Dave - which one did you get? I'm shopping for one right now. Interested to hear what you got.
John

[Dave]

Hi John,

I ended up opting for a Nikon Coolpix 4500, which is a 4 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom and a few other features that appealed to me (like the ability to take pictures in TIFF mode, meaning they're raw and uncompressed which is desireable for publishing in magazines and such). I also went with a Nikon again because I dropped and damaged by previous one (Coolpix 950) and Nikon Canada was kind enough to offer me a credit towards new camera by trading in the damaged one. I also have some lenses that fit my 950 that also fit the 4500 I just got, so that was another consideration for me.

There's an excellent website at www.dpreview.com that has some fantastic reviews and information on pretty much every digital camera out there. I highly recommend you checking it out. In terms of pricing, have a look at the 'cameras' section of www.ebay.ca You'll be surprised how much you can save on a brand new, legitimate, and warrantied in Canada camera on ebay or by printing off the best deal on ebay and taking it in to the local camera shop that you want to buy from :)

If I was buying from scratch, I'd probably go with a Canon G5 or possibly the Canon S50 if I wanted something more compact. The S50 is a really nice camera in a compact and strong body that will take beautiful point-and-shoot pictures at very high resolution (it's a 5 megapixel camera). The G5 allows the user to control everything in manual mode or allow the camera to do all the work in auto mode (and there's a bunch of intermediate modes too), and also being a 5 megapixel camera the image quality is very high.

Other cameras I was considering inlcude the Olympus C5050, the Fuji Finepix S602Z, the Minolta DiMage 7, and the Nikon Coolpix 5000. You really can't go too wrong with any of these cameras. For something more affordable, cameras in the 3-4 megapixel range are a fair bit cheaper than the 5+ megapixel cameras. You can, for example, get a very good deal on a Canon G3 these days, since the replacement G5 is out now. Costco sometimes has some very good deals on digital cameras, so you may want to check them out too.

Hope this helps,
Dave

[Martini Focus]

We got our power pack at 2am, but it was a great night. I was on the phone to a builder in Connecticut when the power went out there and 30sec later I'm sitting in the dark. Thank god for cell phones I was able to call him back and we finished the deal for his house. Cactus festival is this weekend in Dundas and last night was the parade. We went down for to watch and then came home to a huge street party/BBQ.

[JAYh]

Darkest night I've seen in ages... I had my telescope out for some good views of Mars (which is really close to Earth right now.)

The power came back on for me at about 4:00 AM, rudely waking me up with the lights shining in my face, haha. Thought I was being abducted by aliens for a minute. :P My sister who lives about a mile away says her area is still in the dark.

- J

[DareBee]

I picked up a Canon powershot S230 not long ago.
Use for my Industrial/Automation business. To my knowledge its the only line with a full metal jacket. The salesman beat the crap out of the display model to prove its toughness. It is really small which is good and bad all at the same time. good when you are carting it around (even in a shirt pocket) can be clumsy to use with big man hands.
All in all i am very pleased with this unit.

[Moose]

I am a big fan of the metal cased Canon's ... VERY durable ... I have dropped mine numerous times with no ill effect (other than some small dents and scuffs) I have droped a plastic cased 35mm point and shoot camera' and they have all but exploded ... i would assume that a digital cam would be just as susceptable.

I currently have a Canon S20 ..one of the older metal cased 2 meg camera's and love it. My only dislike about this particular camera is that its metering/exposure with the flash SUCKS !!!! it does a poor job of flash compensation. I would hope that Canon has improved this with there later models.

My reccomendation is to go to Henry's or a similar quality camera shop and try out a variety of camera's ... see which one(s) work for you ... You have to be comfortable with the operation and controls for you to enjoy using it ... Once you have found 2-3 camera's you like, use the comparasin web-page Dave suggests to see which one of your short list is the best bet

Cheers

Moose

[JohnC]

Thanks, Dave, DareBee and Moose for the replies and suggestions. I've got research to do!
John

[AcidGord]

Originally posted by Moose
I am a big fan of the metal cased Canon's ... VERY durable ... I have dropped mine numerous times with no ill effect (other than some small dents and scuffs)

Amen, I love my S200 which replaced my old S100. Great cameras. I've taken thousands upon thousands of pictures with them and toted them all around the continent and they've never let me down.

[Marsh]

I love my S200, I just wish it had a longer zoom, but hey I can carry it in my pocket at the car show, or while course marshaling.

I takes GREAT macro shots too:
http://www.cockyracingguy.com/pictures/Personal/ice-27.jpg