With a very large (for Iowa) upcoming car show this weekend, I felt it was time to upgrade my camera. And by upgrade, I mean purchase my first new digital camera, in stead of buying someone else's super out dated one.

For me, the biggest concern was price. It needed to be sub $300. And the closer I could keep it to $200, the happier the wife would be. I did very little research honestly. I price shopped Best Buy, and CompUSA. I asked a co-worker about his thoughts. I wasn't sure if I should go for a 5+ megapixel or if I should go for 4, and get extra features, like higher optical zoom, shoulder strap, etc.

I learned that although 5mp would be great, 4mp would be just fine for my amateur needs. So, I went to my local CompUSA, to look around. By this point I was already pretty set on getting  FUJI. In fact, I was pretty much set on getting the FUJI S3100. However, the store had none in stock. NOO!! The car show is less than 48 hours away!!!

Longer story shorter, the kid (who was actually quite knowledgeable) showed me the S5100. It looked entry level paparazzi'ish. Had 10x optical zoom, records short moves, 4mp, and even came with a shoulder strap!! I was sold! I walked out with the S5100 and a 256mb memory card.

Once I got home, I put everything together, and got ready to show off my photography skills to my kids and the neighbor kids. In doing so, I actually did what every person thinks they will never do, but ends up doing. I was looking at a black LCD screen wondering why I could not see anything. damn lens cap....

Moving on. I shot about 100 pics and 2 short videos in about an hour. I only used the manual to figure out how to view the pics I had taken. Needless to say, 95% of my pics were blurry. So after thanking the wife over and over for 'letting me' get a new toy, I put the kids to sleep and read the manual. It's gonna take some time to master this thing. There's a ton to remember. Hopefully for the show I will be able to figure out a few basics so I can walk away with some digital memories.

But for now, I have this thanks to my son. For some reason, every pic I take of him looks pretty much like this  :-)