Camera, iii

Yup. It arrived.*

It is, it is, it is. Yaaay.

I hadn't even started eating the wallpaper** or anything yet. I should have taken a picture of the parcel, of course, but I didn't think of it in time: I was too busy tearing into it because I was all primed for a meltdown, you know?*** and was therefore immediately convinced that the parcel wasn't heavy enough and I'd get in there and find a handful of Styrofoam munchies and some cardboard origami and . . . no camera.

Fortunately there was a camera. I wasn't liking my vision of running (barefoot) down the street after the delivery van. But the camera† genuinely is pretty tiny. Somehow even the precise measurements on the page (or the camera-review site screen) don't translate into real thing in my mind, especially when I'm busy obsessing about the fact that it's two-thirds of a micron larger than whatever the next one in the size queue is.

Oh, no! It's a lens cap!

And the real news? It fits just fine in your pocket. Don't camera reviewers wear jeans? It fits in my pocket. I think the significant point is that you're not going to want to put it in your pocket: this is serious kit. And speaking of serious kit, which is to say camera, the bad news: there's a lens cap. Groan. I might as well order two dozen now and keep a spare . . . in my pocket.

I promised you—those of you other obsessives and/or anyone perhaps calmly and sanely†† in the market for a new camera—the skinny on this one. Ajlr sent me the address of the site that sent this particular Panasonic immediately to the top of the chart: http://www.cameras.co.uk/ and the specific review: http://www.cameras.co.uk/reviews/panasonic-dmc-lx5.cfm This is, as Ajlr promised, a very reassuring site for those of us trying to get wet slowly and gently in the great heaving sea of camera reviews.

But eventually I took a deep breath and a stronger grip on my web-broadsword-equivalent, and took courage to read some of the longer, geekier reviews: http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2010/09/19/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-LX5/p1 ‡

Almost itty bitty.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/compact-digital-cameras/panasonic-lumix-dmc-lx5-review-49306130/ ‡‡

Bored yet? Bored rigid yet? No? What's the matter with you? http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_lx5_review/

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/digital-cameras/1279717/panasonic-lumix-dmc-lx5

http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4956/panasonic-lumix-lx5-camera-review

The lamp that the genie came in. Looks like a camera box. Very misleading.

So. Anyway. I am sorry to report that I did have one or two other things I had to do today‡‡‡ so I have not learnt EVERYTHING about how to exploit the new toy to the top of her bent. § But I did go so far as to point-and-shoot The First Symbolic Photo. Of course it's hellhounds. And before you observe (loftily) that it's not quite in focus . . . this is, I guess, the Panasonic's infamous 'soft' jpeg habit, but their bed is nearly in the dark and the camera managed to take the photo in the available light anyway with the result that this is the first photo I've ever taken where they actually look like what I see. I'm happy.§§ And I'm who matters. §§§

* * *

* As anyone who follows me on Twitter already knows.

** There is no wallpaper at the cottage. Just paint. And bookshelves.

This is where it starts getting surreal. Notes on identification. I needed the one about the digital camera unit. I might have thought it was a few styrofoam munchies if I didn't have instructions.

*** Or maybe you don't know. I have noticed that I seem to use more italics, bold and CAPITAL LETTERS than most people.

† THE. CAMERA. Speaking of capital letters and so on.

†† What?

††† I do get cranky sometimes when pundits start declaring that the object of their punditry is excellent in (almost) every way except it costs too much. Everything costs too much. Fancy kit costs too much by definition. You brace yourself for this when you decide to go for the high end. I suppose they're striking a blow for Jo/e Consumer who just wants a nicer-than-ordinary camera/car/Converse/coatimundi^, and sure, I wish my new darling cost about half what she did cost^^ but I find the standards the pundits are measuring by cryptic.

^ I don't care! Coatimundi is a much more amusing word than mere coati! Why couldn't the scientists have decided in the other direction?

And those necessary instructions on How to Open a Cardboard Box. I'm sure the camera itself will be a snap after this.

^^ I did get a deal a lot better than the list price

‡ Anyone who does stick it out with any of the anorak corps reviews, be sure to read customer comments. Half of them are seriously nuts and the other half are (usually) about really using the camera. A well-informed anorak is an excellent guide.

‡‡ These guys, for example, seem to assume that as soon as you find out you could get a full-blown SLR for the price, you will rush out and do so. I don't want an SLR. I want the best single-lens compact I can get.

‡‡‡ Hurtle hellhounds in the rain, for example. A uniquely rewarding experience. Cancel the frelling washing machine man^ since the washing machine at present is only shooting everything sitting on top of it across the kitchen, which is a nuisance, surface area being, as you know, at a premium at the cottage, spilling a little water on the floor, and occasionally going tick-hiccup during the spin cycle when I'm standing there waiting for it to do something disallowed. Arrgh. There were also handbells. I may not have had my total attention on the handbells this evening. Please don't tell Niall.

^ No, he's a very nice washing machine man, and his wife and phone-answerer has obviously heard it all before and makes soothing 'mmhmm' noises at you.

§ AAAAAAAAUGH. —You knew that was coming.

§§ Actually I'm more like amazed. Clearly I really do have to learn to use this dazzling creature.

§§§ Ask me when I've struggled with the operating instructions a little more.