Canon A590
Looks like my old Canon Powershot A60 has kicked the bucket… again… and this time, I think it’s staying dead. No more zombie camera. wTwNjzVFVU
Now it won’t power up properly regardless of the battery state and the memory card used, so I’m going to junk that sucker. But I’m really torn between what kind of camera I should replace it with.
The Canon A590 has all the manual control options I want without the price tag. But Canon’s reputation has taken a beating because of how it’s dealing with defective cameras.
Here’s a link to some info about a class action lawsuit filed against Canon in 2005. Basically, people are asserting that Canon knew about these defects but continued to ship the cameras out anyway.
Unlucky consumers who encountered these problems were then charged for repairs, or offered a used and refurbished upgrade to the next model up for a charge. PCWorld also reported on the issue in this article.
It looks like Canon will be out of the running, so the question now is whether I should spend more on a decent digital camera with manual controls, or make do with a reliable entry level model without manual controls.
Granted, my photography needs may not be demanding, but having manual controls can be extremely useful, especially when it comes to macro photography which is what I think I’ll be doing most of in the coming days now that the Trapped in Plastic blog is virtually ready to go.
But I won’t really now if I’ll truly miss not having manual controls until I get a new camera, and ramp up the amount and the type of photography I do.
But considering that I plunked down cash on Maschinen Krieger boxed sets and two resin kits, maybe there’s really no wiggle room here: go with the less expensive camera. 
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Heh. A co-worker of mine just bought an A590. He’s currently in Europe taking lots of pictures probably. I’ll wait and see how it stand up. The only other camera maker that I would probably put my money behind would be Nikon. (Maybe Fuji) Canon certainly dominates though.
My brother-in-law has owned a Pentax Optio digital camera and it’s still going strong after five years. I was looking at the E60, which has garnered good reviews. It has some decent features, appears to be pretty durable and it’s inexpensive but the only problem is that it lacks manual controls.
I think that if I want manual controls at a low price, I’ll have to stick to Canon. I think that’s how they’ve come to dominate the entry level range. They stuff in features you’d normally find in more expensive cameras. Unfortunately, it’s obvious that to keep prices down, they skimp on quality in other areas.
It looks like I don’t have many options at this point. I’ll have to go with a less expensive point-and-shoot like the Optio E60 and just accept the fact that I’ll have to make do and forego exposure and aperture control if it isn’t worth paying more than twice as much for a decent digital camera with manual controls.
I haven’t exactly been snapping a lot of shots as of late so it would be hard to justify an expensive camera.