I bought a new camera tonight. I have been watching a particular line of cameras and I’m really impressed with the reviews and stats on the newest model, announced last Spring - the Canon Powershot S2 IS. I’ve been waiting for the price to drop, and it finally did.

The one problem is that I found the camera listed at one place for nearly $100 less than the others. The lower price is good, but it’s low enough that it makes me a little curious why it’s so much lower. The seller seems to be a reputable company, and it goes through Amazon.com, but the fine print says that purchases will not be guaranteed. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Maybe they think they’ll run out before they update the site, or maybe the product has been opened and returned. I don’t think either of those will be a problem since going through Amazon gives me some protection as a buyer.

So this camera isn’t super fancy, but I’m not ready to move onto Digital SLR. I like being able to point and click most of the time. It has the swivel screen that I love in my current camera, but it will do much closer macros and much further telephotos. It also has image stabilization. Unfortunately, it uses different batteries and memory than my last camera, but it takes double A’s, which will be easier to find in a pinch. And I’ll have a bunch of small items, like filters and memory that I can add to my Christmas list.

For now, I’m going to hold on to my current camera, a Canon G3, especially until I confirm that this ordered camera is shipped. And afterward, I might just hold on to it for a bit longer as a backup camera. The orchid was taken with my current camera.