Digital Camera with 10k shots uneconomical to repair?

In article , Steve says...

My little Canon S400 also sends it's regards. I got that back in 2003
and it's still going strong. From what I see of the crop of small P&S
cameras out today, it's as good as they are for everyday snapshots. If
I had "upgraded" every 18 months, I'd have spent a fortune and have
nothing better than what I have now to show for it.

Are you saying that since the Canon S400 no better camera has been
launched?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:33:19 +0200, Alfred Molon
wrote:

In article , Steve says...

My little Canon S400 also sends it's regards. I got that back in 2003
and it's still going strong. From what I see of the crop of small P&S
cameras out today, it's as good as they are for everyday snapshots. If
I had "upgraded" every 18 months, I'd have spent a fortune and have
nothing better than what I have now to show for it.

Are you saying that since the Canon S400 no better camera has been
launched?

Ok, instead of saying I'd have nothing better I should have said I'd
have not much better. The only thing I see that's better today than
the S400 is the LCD size on the back has gotten larger. But that's at
the expense of an optical viewfinder, which the S400 has but most
today do not.

The picture quality has not gotten any better in general. Sure,
mine's only 4MP and new ones are 10MP. But really, who needs 10MP on
a pocket camera? 4MP is more than enough for a shirt pocket camera
because all you're doing with 10MP is resolving all the lens system
defects. If you actually blew up a shot taken with a 10MP pocket
camera to the point where you really needed 10MP (i.e., poster size)
it would look horrible compared to one taken with a 10MP DSLR. So
realizing that about 8x10, 8x12, maybe 10x13 is as high as you'd want
to go with any pocket camera, 4MP gives you 150dpi at 10x13 on the
S400 and that's enough. 10MP is just marketing hype. The low noise
performance of the S400 is better than the 10MP pocket cameras today
so that more than makes up for only having 4MP.

In operation, the S400 feels very snappy. Reviewing pictures, zooming
in and out, turning the camera on and having it ready for a shot,
that's all just as fast or faster than today's cameras. It uses
compact flash cards, so it's compatible with my DSLR and I don't have
to carry around 2 different memory types. It's hard to find a CF P&S
these days. It has many of the other bells and whistles of todays
cameras, like taking movie clips, ability to add voice notes to a
picture, assisted panaromas, etc. etc. It focuses well without
gimicks like face recognition, shoots fast (2.5fps isn't bad for a
P&S). The batteries last a long time and recharge quickly and they're
tiny so it's easy to carry a spare or two in a little case. 3X
optical zoom in a tiny package isn't bad. I don't use the digital
zoom, I keep it disabled.

I could go on and on, but it should show that I really like the
camera.

The only things I wish it did better was have a bigger LCD (which I
could get today) and a better flash (which most P&S cameras are
limited by even today).

So yes, for me, there's not much out today in the shirt pocket size
camera range that's enough better to make it worthwhile upgrading from
the S400 I bought 5 years ago. Until they make them significantly
better or until the S400 dies, I'd just be wasting my money replacing
it.

Steve