Ugh, I've had a few bad cameras too, and I discovered the hard way that megapixels are only referring to the size of the file (a 12 MP would make for a good poster size pic if you so desired, where as that old 3 MP wouldn't make for a clear 8x10 no matter how good the image looked at 4x6). You really need a camera with a good lens -- it's all about the lens! Look for a high true optical zoom number (as opposed to a digital zoom). I subscribe to Consumer Reports - they usually don't cover things that I'm interested in, but the camera reviews are awesome, and I'm pretty sure you can subscribe online only, so you can review all the past reviews since they don't do every product every month (for obvious reasons).
Anyhoo, blah blah blah, hope this was mildly helpful. LOVE your blog (while not divorced, I am occasionally drunk, frequently covered in cat hair, and I knit -- and even if I weren't any of those things you'd still make me laugh, and you are part of my daily fun)!

Wow. Over an hour she stared? That's pretty intense even for a cat.

Interesting about your mittens... maybe one of your hands is just slightly smaller anyway?

Tension is one of my life companions and I'd like the insta-answer versus the work-through. Ah well...makes for good inner-conversation. I'm sure there are hands (shoulders, necks) out there that communicate tension to the brain and then the brain nurtures it right away...but not mine yet. When I do knit (not often) my stuff can get bigger/smaller within a single piece, yikes.

Cats get so still when they stare - she seems at one with those pretty light rays on the ceiling.

Oh my goodness! When I saw that picture of Soba staring up at the light the first thing that jumped into my brain was the light at the top of the stairwell in Poltergeist! It looks just like it! Remember, where all of the jewelry and stuff fell out?

*shiver*

I have this camera and I love it:

http://www.amazon.com/Photosmart-R967-Digital-Camera-Optical/dp/B000HWHOA0

It is my second HP digital point and shoot and I have been super pleased with both. I am not blessed with much photography talent, but this camera makes it look like I am!

TENSION is why i had to rip out my baby doll dress and start over. i crocheted that thing so tight i think it would have held water.

I have a fancypants camera that has gears, bells, whistles and even pasties. but i also have a handy little Nikon L12 point and shoot that takes freaking amazing pics. it's a 7mp, so the prints are gorgeous too.

i lived in a haunted house when i was pregnant. apparently the spirit was attracted to fetal Cameron because it followed me around only during my pregnancy. it was kind of cool. but not when i was home alone.

is that coffee mug a Target Home mug? i have 8 of those. that colour too lol

have a lovely one all

I had two cats that stared intently at the light switch one day. I got suspicious and called maintenance (I lived in an apt.) and there was a short in the wiring. You might consider that or maybe even a bug trapped in the fixture. But the other cats didn't stare too? hmmmm... that's interesting. That kind of shoots my theory out of the water.

Ah, well, thanks for sharing your pictures and perspective on life. I enjoy reading your blog. :)
Christina

I have the Kodak EasyShare M863 (in pink no less!) and I really like it. I've decided I need to start carrying it with me 24/7 because it's never there when a photo op rears its head!

Thanks for sharing the pictures - they're entertaining, blurry or not!

One of my cats not only will stare at something in the house for a scary length of time, but she will also start talking to whatever imaginary (or not) invisivle-to-the-naked-eye entity she thinks she is communing with. Ghosts of tenants past? Dead relatives? Solving the mystery of the black hole in the dryer that makes the other sock disappear? Unlocking the secrets of the universe and life itself? It's a mystery.

Looks like she, and Soba, may have mastered the art of meditation for enlightenment after all!

Janice -- leave it to my cat to master meditation before I do! LOL

Actually, I think cats might be "master meditators." They seem so much more relaxed than I am usually.

Thanks for all the camera suggestions everyone, I'm going to remember this thread come January. I'm so disappointed in my camera. And taking pictures is a big part of my life! I can't let a bumper sticker go by, you know....

I've bought three Kodak digitals. The second was the best and I still use it a lot, but it is too big to fit in my pocket which is why it is the one with the hard-to-turn knob.

Wait. I left out the part about knocking over a glass of wine by bumping the little patio table with a lawn chair that I was turning to get the sun out of my eyes. And because the camera will not fit in my pocket, it was on the table, right in line for the deluge de vinho.

The third camera fits easily in my pocket, but I have never figured out how to get consistently good snaps with it. So I end up carrying a bag just to have a place to put the second camera.

Just a passing thought - it's not set to manual focus instead of auto, is it?

Love from me. and nose rubs from Tigger and Chloe to your family of felines :)

No, Heather, it doesn't have a manual focus. It's a point-and shoot. Also, trust me when I tell you all I have tried everything on this camera, I even (gasp) read the freaking manual! LOL

It's just sadly a bad camera. I am glad to hear that Andrea likes her Kodak EasyShare M863, though, I like Kodak products and like the skintones you get with a Kodak camera. This one is just a dud.

Kitty Joey is a "man of few words." He never, ever speaks to me. Even when I forget to feed him before I leave the house in the morning (oops!). However, he stares at the wall above the bedroom closet door and talks up a storm. All different sounding mews and meows and chirps. He has been doing this for years! He also likes to speak to the ceiling fixture in the hallway. I don't know what he sees, but it obviously is something very special to make him open his little yapper. I'm thinking Angels???

Oh, my, but your writing makes me laugh. Thank you for writing so faithfully every day, even with your busy schedule.

I am notoriously hard to buy gifts for because I have never had a moratorium on shopping. I asked my family to all pitch in and buy me a digital camera for my birthday a couple of years ago. My one stipulation was that it couldn't be complicated and I could take it out of the box and snap away. It's a Casio Exilim. I love that little thing.

On staring cats: My previous cat, Shalimar, would stare at things, places, corners, doors, whatever like Soba is doing. When I would try to figure out what she was staring at, she would stop, look at me, and say (well, would have if she spoke human), "Made ya look! Ha Ha Ha!"

Your mitten yarn is so warm you will love it. Have you tried to do two at the same time on two circulars, a good way to avoid guage problems, or two on two sets of dpn's works too.

My first pair of mittens was like that. One mitten knit while I was relaxed and pregnant, the second knit after the birth. I was so unprepared!

I gave up on my Kodak and switched to Canon and I'm SO happy I did.

I love the way the light splays on the ceiling in that shot!!1

I love the art on your wall. Very nice.

The mittens will probably work out perfectly because one hand tends to be bigger than the other.

So I'll just pipe in on the camera a little because I love mine. To be honest though, my sister-in-law got the same one and feels the battery doesn't last long enough. I think it is because she takes a lot of movies of my nephew. Me, I take photos of cats, dogs, knitting, and strange things the dogs do to my stuff. Not unlike what you take photos of.

So mine is an Olympus Stylus 740. I grabbed it at Costco because it was less than $200. I love it. I love how small it is (it is in a sunglasses case in my purse all the time with the cord so I can download anywhere), I like the pictures I get, and I like how easy it is to use.

I bet there is a itsy-bitsy little spider up there.

HA HA, tension.
you got that rght!

Another thing to try with your camera: is there an ISO setting on it? Some cameras (even point and shoots) have an ISO setting (like film). Maybe you could jack it up to 400 or 800, although your printed pics might start to get a little grainy at 800...

Thanks for the blog...makes me laugh out loud!

Canon PowerShot SD1000 "digital ELPH". Love it. It's our second PowerShot, the first one having had a mere 3 or 4 "mega pickels" as my MIL says. This one has 7.1. I tend to use the Automatic Everything setting, switching it to macro and possibly turning the flash off. I've recently been playing with some of the manual settings (of which there are many), like telling it I'm photographing in icky fluorescent lighting and it can somehow adjust the color.

I feel your pain with Kodak - I have a v7590 and it does ok on "auto" setting but most of the "modes" have proven disappointing. I did use it to take knitting photos for Ravelry last night. A combination of good natural light, ignoring the warning to open flash and the flower setting in mode produced decent results. After using other people's cameras - both point and shoot and digital slrs, I say my biggest gripe is shutter speed. It seems very slow.

Kate, I'm also not a fan of the shutter speed on this one. But your comment about natural light is right on -- I am usually able to get a few good shots if I have good natural lighting. Sadly, I am only in "natural lighting" on the weekends!! LOL

My silly life.

I don't know if you are familiar with Jane Brocket or her websites, Yarnstorm and Jane Brocket.com? Her photography is consistently of good quality and a sidebar on her site mentions her use of a Fujifilm FinePix F30. Personally I prefer the latest Canon Ixus for size, price, fine resolution and intuition-y point and clickiness. But anything's better than disappointment when it comes to photography. Greetings from small historic market town near Cambridge, UK.

I have a sony cybershot (the new slim one) and it has a super macro setting. It is really a great camera and would recommend it to anyone.

I use it for the pictures on my blog if you want to check.

tension- yes I found that if I knit when like my kiddies are driving me up the wall my tension is way off - that is probably why I have a pair of socks that are 2 different sizes. One knitted after the kiddies were in bed the other while I was making them do their homework. =)

And maybe after you discover why Soba is staring at the light fixture, you can help me figure out why my 5-month old Chihuahua puppy barks hysterically at the cords to the window blinds in my bedroom. Don't you wish we could see what our animals do?

My tension is different if I drink before/while knitting, so I have to have drinking projects and sober projects. It was either that or start drinking in the middle of the day so my knitting would like right.

I only just got a digital camera because I took a long time selecting one. I finally splurged and spent about $250 on an Olympus Stylus 790 SW.

It's 7.1 megapixel and the real reason I wanted it is because it's shockproof from 5 ft [dropsies! I have them and I knew my child would want to take pictures too, and he *definitely* has the dropsies] and waterproof to 10 ft. While I doubt I'll ever actually take it into the pool, I wanted to be okay with it getting wet.

I am still getting used to having a digital camera, but so far I like this one okay. It has many of the features of the other cameras listed above such as about three different settings for different kinds of fluorescent lighting. And it has a setting just especially for self portraits, fireworks, shooting things behind glass, etc., and lots of other features I'm still figuring out.

The thing I'm most baffled with so far is that when it comes to actually printing pictures onto paper, they look a little...pixely? You know, as compared to a 35 mm shot that looks all clear and crisp. So, I'm still working on how to fix that but I have to say that all of your random pics makes me want to make sure I have my little camera with me all the time.

I once had an older Japanese buddhist tell me that that heretical priests were reincarnated as cats. It explained so much about mine though I am not sure what staring at light fixtures could have to do with being a heretic.

I suppose you could try blocking out the smaller mitten.

Haven't you seen the ceiling cat posts on I can haz cheezeburger? http://icanhascheezburger.com/

In regards to cameras - I have two of the little Sony point and shoot - and they seem to work fine -

I know you didn't ask, but I love my camera so much I want to recommend it...Fuji FinePix F20. If you use Photoshop for your pics then you'll need a card reader for it. Fuji wants you to **only** use their (substandard) software for getting pics off the camera.

Ok, I'm finished with the unsolicited advice now...no wait. About the mitten? Relax. :) HEHEHE.

Laurie, How many balls of the Patons Rumor yarn do you think I need for a pair of mittens? I found some on sale but they only had 1 ball left. Do you think that's enough?

Debbie, I will probably need to block these mittens anyway because I've got a few wonky places (like where I was trying to learn how to pick up stitches and one place I cannot even explain).

But maybe I will just leave them how they are... a good reminder that I need to relax more or I'll end up hunched over and grumpy LOL.

Gina, you definitely need more than one -- it took me almost a whole skein of Paton's Rumor for the first mitten.

If they have another color left and are still on sale you could make striped mittens though! I have a still-unfinished stripey scarf using this pink color and that grey/black/red color of Rumor and it looks awesome.

Unfinished but awesome.

Could Soba be watching for bugs? Hoping one flies down within reach?

Regarding the tension, I noticed the same thing when crocheting potholders, but there it doesn't matter if they're hourglass-shaped! If you ever want to try a bit of easy crochet, I can send you my abbreviation-free, double-thick potholder pattern. Or, heck, I might even blog it. What an idea!

Regarding the camera shopping, I'd recommend choosing one with the display sunk into the back so there's no edge to catch. I'm not hard on equipment, but I managed to break the display on mine by catching the edge on something in passing.

Both of my Canon cameras have been awesome. After five years -- yes, FIVE WHOLE YEARS of good stuff -- I finally upgraded to something smaller. My young cousin is still happily using the now-7-yr-old camera without issue.

Canons are easy to use, durable, and cheap to fix if you drop it and crack something. All that, and you'll have a hard time spending more than $250 for a more-than-decent one. I currently have the SD750 ($169 on Amazon), and my friend equally loves her SD1000 (also $169).

You will need to drop another $50 on a bigger memory card, but I think that's the norm when buying digicams.

One other great thing about my Canon model is that I can use a wrist sweatband to cover the screen and lens instead of buying a carrying case.

I have that same size difference issue when I knit doubles of things...usually socks. My second is always smaller than my first for some reason. No idea why I tighten up on the second...I don't have the public transportation commute excuse. :}

She's waiting for Ceiling Cat to appear in a blaze of glory. lol

I have a Sony DSC-W100. It's a nice little point and shoot camera. It has a Carl Zeiss lens. (I dont know who Carl is, but he makes nice lenses) I inherited my camera from my dad when he got a newer version on the DSC-100. Not sure which version, but it's a year newer than the one I have.

Both cameras take excellent pictures. They have ISO settings, and macros. Both take great pictures with the flash turned off. (seriously, you dont always need to have the flash on) Another plus, is they both do video. Took mine on vacation to SD last year, and just had a blast taking video of things, and caught a nice video of a tornado starting to form in Western Nebraska on the way home. Both mine and my dad's cameras are 8.1mp. The pictures turn out great.

My other camera is an Olympus CZ-2000. A digital camera that my dad bought in 99 or 2000. Cost him tons of money, and it's only a 2.1mp, but I LOVE the pictures that I take with that camera. I think it takes much clearer pictures than the Sony's, but the Olympus is so old, and it weighs a lot more than the Sony's do. So, I just save it for taking pictures of crocheted and knitted stuff.

My boyfriend, who hates all that is Sony, actually made an exception when he bought his camera a few months back. He used my Sony to take some pictures when we were in SD, and apparently fell in love with my camera. He found another Sony on clearance at Cabela's a few months ago, and ended up buying since it was a really good deal. His dad borrowed it for a trip, and now he wants one too.

I also have a Sony Handycam DVD video camera. I dont like how I cant transfer my video onto my computer with that one. I've taken video with that and wish I could upload it, but for some reason, Sony didnt make my Handycam compatible with computers...the jerks. Next time I'll get a videocamera with a hard drive instead of a dvd burner.

Yesterday your cup was half full and today it's... empty.

My dining room has a decorative false ceiling that's about an inch below the real ceiling (long story). The space in between is a Garden of Mousely Delights, so my cats spend lots of time gazing fixedly up there. But then, they spend lots of time gazing fixedly at Tiny Invisible Bugs, too.

I have a Canon A710, which I mostly like but the pictures aren't as good as the ones I took with a ancient 35MM. My favorite things about the A710 are that it takes AA batteries and I put a ginormous memory card in it.

Hi, Laurie! Yay for cats and mittens...

Regarding your Kodak, someone on one of the woot.com discussion boards suggested dialing back to a lower resolution. Seems counterintuitive, but the reasoning was that there might be some manufacturer fudging as far as the megapixels go. You might get a better picture at, say, 10 megapixels...

Thanks for the blog and the knitting and the book!

I have a Nikon D50, it has been the best camera I have ever used. They do not make it any more but I have seen photos from the D40 and they are wonderful too. My Nikon has taken some of the nicest photos and I am more than happy with it. Actually, don't tell my husband, it is more camera than I need. Easy to use and very sharp photos. I don't work for Nikon or get any kick backs from them so I have nothing to gain from sharing my love of the camera.

Jill in Florida

I'm planning on getting a new camera someday real soon now (at a point in time when I have some money).

This is what I plan to get; http://astore.amazon.com/losart-20/detail/B000Q3043Y/102-0618191-9884134

Yes, it has all the bells and whistles you don't care about, but it has one feature that you will LOVE--it has anti-shake technology. It has an actual mechanism that keeps the camera from shaking while you're taking a photo.

And you can just set it to "auto" and it will do everything on it's own. Plus it DOES have a macro setting.

And you can use filters with it (with an adapter). Sure, you can do some of the effects you get with filters in PhotoShop, but this is much easier.

Good luck with the new camera hunt when that eventually happens.

We're going crazy picking a new camera too. We have a Kodak DX3900, which is totally fine most of the time, but not if you're trying to take a picture of an owl from 60 feet away. (The woods near me are full of owls. Really.) We have just about settled on a Sony DSCH50, which has many megapixels but even more zoom. I am all about the zoom too: I don't want to blow things up humongous, but I do want decent owl pictures.

You can probably even out the mitten sizes some in the blocking.

I agree with Jeanne - clearly Soba believes in the Ceiling Cat. (And if you navigate over to ICHC and you have never been there before be forewarned - do not be drinking anything or else you may need a new keyboard/monitor/laptop.)

Lucia, my dad was having that same problem -- they have a bald eagle family nesting in the island across from them (they live on a canal, also long story) anyway they wanted a camera for those long-shot pictures. Don't know what they ended up getting, I'll have to ask.

I've already got the resolution on mine set to 8 MP and I have anti-shake on all the time and it still gives blurry images, it's the most frustrating waste of money this camera.

It also didn't come with a charger (had to buy separately) and it has a proprietary battery (loathe that) and I think it's an Aries, too. We're so not compatible.

I also have a Kodak EasyShare camera (C875), and am disappointed with it. It takes some of the worst flash pictures. Ever. You have to be outside with the sun at high noon, not a cloud in the sky, to get a clear, crisp picture.

My first (and only completed so far!) socks have a lot in common with your mittens- maybe we should introduce them? I like to pretend one foot's a bit larger to make that okay. And I'm quite certain that cats (mine, anyway) see things that we can't- don't know what, but they sure spend a lot of time looking at it. Also, my girl cat will bite my finger tip off it has the merest whiff of greenie on it- what the heck is in those things? Kitty hooch, yeah? ps- I love my old Canon Powershot A510- takes wonderfully clear photos, even close up (has optical zoom), especially when I remember to half press the button first to focus!!

Don't you hate the whole tension thing on knitted items that come as a set. I have a pair of socks on my Ravelry page where the gauge is WAY different between the first and second sock? I Mean WTF?

Block the second mitten to match the first and all will be well with the world. Oh and think snow. Yeah in LA. Fat chance huh?!

I have no camera savy, sorry...I do have 4 cats ranging in age from 1 to 16, so I have seen a LOT of cat crazy. The Soba stare of death is pretty familiar -- my cats all do this when there is some other animal in the yard, which is pretty often since I live out in the woods. They usually accompany the stare with a very dog-like growl.

Thanks for sharing. I have just finished reading your archives (not quite over Roy...still crying a bit) and I am very sure that you are helping MANY of us -- certainly helping me. Keep up the good work. Also, my husband shares your 6/22 birthday and is a Cancer's cancer :) He is however, a LOT older than you are!

I just have to make a generic comment that I love how you post so regularly; your take on life, knitting, cats, traffic, gardening,etc, creates a happy little up-swing to my day! Thanks!

Cat staring at ceiling fixture - amusing. Dog barking into corner - downright unnerving.

I hate to ask, but you are using the AutoFocus function aren't you? You're not just pressing the button all the way down right away and not giving the camera time to focus?

I have to second (or third?) the emotion on the Canon SD1000 Digital "Elph." I've had mine for about six months and love it. I chose it after extensive online research - I must've read 8 zillion reviews. It's super, super easy to use and is small enough to take everywhere. I made a little knitted, felted carrying case for it so it would have a "cushion" in case I drop it (my last camera died from being dropped twice).

Oh, and I forgot - my husband's b-day is 6/22 as well! (He's quite the homebody.)

I have two Canons and I love them both. One is a point and shoot and one is a total bells and whistles version one step removed from a SLR. I have an A550 and a PowerShot S2 IS. The IS stands for Image Stabilization and it can correct for wobbly photos, especially with zoom and low light. Both have very easy to use macro (never use it with the lens zoomed - it won't focus) and easy menus.

I also did TONS of research and played with every model available at Best Buy and Circuit City before I bought mine. Canon makes even smaller cameras that I love to bits, but they were out of my price range.

If you check out my blog, you can see a lot of macro photos of knitting and flowers because I'm all about the macro.

You could check and see if the camera has a "sports" setting. That can sometimes make the more pernickety digitals act nicer
Niall

I can't say enough about my cheap ol' Fujifilm camera. My sister gave me her old one when she decided to upgrade, and I used it constantly (I have a blog and animals, too, after all), loved it with abandon -- and then dropped it on a concrete floor. It didn't die immediately, but started melting (seriously!) in one corner about a week later. Talk about a toxic-smelling stench! It was probably 6-7 years old. So I went and bought the Fujifilm model that looked most similar for little more than a hundred bucks, and am using it just as much and as carelessly. So far, no melting....

I have an older Canon Powershot A85 with 4.0 megapixels - over a year ago when you talked about doing a Photo-a-Day blog, you inspired me and I actually did it(!) everyday(!) all of 2007(!), as a New Year's Resolution and it helped me to get through one of the roughest years of my life by making me think creatively a little bit every day. See my photoblog link if you want to see those Canon results. (OK, yes, divorce therapy required buying many beautiful shoes and taking photos of a few...) I bought a newer Canon (Powershot SD700 IS Digital ELPH 6.0 megapixels 4X optical zoom) with the image stabilization to reduce any blurries at the macro level, and a smaller size so my handbag doesn't have to weigh so much, but I really haven't made any effort to use it yet. I think I have the 'save it, don't use the good stuff' mental block. The time is coming though, because the older one has been dropped a few times and now occasionally it has strange horizontal lines running through the viewscreen and the photos. Have a friend who has a Sony and the depth of color her camera captures is very impressive, FWIW.

Hi. I discovered your blog today after you left a message on Purly victorious blog. I went back and read your very first post b/c I do that when I discover someone's blog. I want to know what they first posted about. Anyway, it was interesting that you wrote about that train derailment and today that guy was found guilty of murder. I also listen incessantly to the traffic report. I live in the Westside.

Let us know if you find a good camera. I'm going to be in the market soon too.

I know this is completely off topic, but I just wanted to say thank you. My husband of 10 years recently left me, and while I realize my path out of this likely won't be the same, I think it's helping me to read through your experiences. So, thank you.

Hey'

I buy my cameras off of woot.com they are a one deal per day shop but it keeps me from shopping too much ;-)

they've all been ok. I haven't paid more than $70 for any of them. oh and the reason I have had to buy so many cameras is toddlers, not actual camera issues.

Soba IS worshipping Ceiling Cat, I'm sure. (Cats do have an unnerving habit of doing that; someone a while back said they're looking at little things invisible to people called "mackerals", not the fish) I LOVE your pix, had no idea you were having problems. But my DH got me a new camera recently - it's a Panasonic DMC-T25 (I have NO idea what that means.) But it has a really long zoom (says "10x") and that anti-shaking thingie (perfect - 'cause I have a "benign tremor") and it's blue, which I like, and best of all it has a pretty BIG window in the back to look at, and it's pretty much a pointy-shooty thing. It has a setting for pets (I am NOT making that up! 'cept I don't know for sure how you do that, but it takes very good kitty pictures of which I have several hunnert thousand but nevermind). I always have it with me too in case I see an accident or Sean Connery walks by or I see a unicorn or something. And I'm not getting any kickback or anything either, although I might be just tawdry enough to accept one if it was offered. Maybe.

Once I watched one of our cats stare at "nothing" for a long time -- staring straight at a completely blank wall, but intently, as if she were watching prey. Close scrutiny revealed a tiny, baby, pin-head-sized spider on a denim blue wall.

Reflecting on the bed incident: does your house sit above a subway, major sewer line, etc? A passing train, a sudden rush of water might set off a vibration and if your foundation is poor you might have problems. Scarier than ghosts -- does a natural gas line run under your house? You might call the gas company to report that your house shook on a night when there was no seismic activity. They could check it out.

If not, go round the house and look for cracks in the slab, the house could simply have settled a little.

Maybe, though, it was a Southern ghost who finally got sick and tired of the sweathouse down here and moved West to find a former Southerner to live with? How can you call youself a Southerner without iced tea and a proper ghost?

Our cat just likes to attack doorframes. and legs. and string. and beds. and chairs. mostly doorframes.

Yours, I don't know--trying to get an eyeball tan? Gone crazy from living in LA? Gone crazy from being a cat? The world may never know.

My camera, i feel justified in boasting, is way worse than yours. It's not even mine, that's how bad it is; plus it's only got 5 blurry megapixels in it. blech. It can't take a picture of a variegated yarn to save its battery.

Clearly Soba is staring at the ghosts of gauge past. They are just letting him know that if the mitten fails, it will be stuffed with catnip, and the world will be his.

just sayin'

I too had an old Kodak easyshare D4330 3.1mp that lasted about 5 years. Then I got another easyshare 8mp and it broke in less than a month - luckily got my money back. Decided to try another kodak -- now have a Z1285
I love it.

The trick I think is to (if you can) switch to lower mp on your camera. Like you I had lots of blurry pics till I lowered it to 10.2 mp and now I get better shots -- check out my blog the photos are all from my camera.
Good luck

Thanks for your comment!!!!!!!!

SObo reminds me of last summer when Minou was staring into the darkness of the tent I was sleeping in with her. ALONE. She has me so freaked I wouldn't leave the tent to pee - so I peed in her food dish. heh heh. Turned out - after what felt like hours - she just wanted a sip of water.... I watch too many celebrity paranormal project episodes I am afraid.

Go with a Cannon camera - once you leave the Kodaks you'll never go back! :)

I have an 8.1 MP Casio Exilim EX-Z850 that I love. It's very compact, but has a nice large view screen & takes nice shots. Also, a great site to read reviews & compare/contrast cameras is: http://www.dpreview.com/.

I have the Kodak Easyshare V1003. I was worried after reading some reviews but decided to give it a chance. As long as you turn off the Digital Zoom (which you should do on ANY digital camera, it is useless and blurs photos on 95% of the cameras!) it takes great pictures. It's small and easy to use! And did I mention it comes in a variety of colors! http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=10492&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=5573

When the moratorium is over, I highly recommend the Canon Elph line of little bitty point and shoots. I'm on my 5th model, having traded up at a local camera store that lets you trade in your older model for a discount on the new one, (A big help in the budget department) and I love them. You point, you shoot, you get great pictures, even in the Getty without flash, or out on the deck in the dark with flash, and they have a macro.

Still knitting mittens in the California heat? When do you start knitting bikinis?

http://old.canadianliving.com/CanadianLiving/client/en/Today/DetailGlossary.asp?IdSection=17169&bApercu=1

Sorry, couldn't help it. ;)

Thanks for letting us know what camera not to buy!
Have you contacted Kodak? It could be a real lemon.
Of course if Kodak have a blog crawler worth squat they should've contacted you by now...

The first digital camera I bought was a disaster because I didn't know which of the zillion technical specs to pay any attention to. The second camera, I knew by my frustrations with the first that I wanted a camera that got good reviews for indoor, low-light picture-taking situations, and one that didn't take too long between when I pushed the button and when it took the picture ("shutter lag") and one that after it took a photo, was ready to take another in a reasonable amount of time. I ended up with a Fuji FinePix 30, but any camera that gets good reviews for those three things will be a good camera for taking pictures of kitties. I use mine for taking pictures of toddlers, and it's much the same situation. Don't worry about the zillion other things they will tell you about (megapixels, digital zoom). Also, some of the digital camera review sites are really great for learning how to use any new camera you end up with, much much better than the manuals sent with cameras.

I had a pair of socks turn out like that! 1 big and comfy, one small and tight, all because of my stress level! don't feel bad, you aren't alone

I LOVE that art that Soba is guarding...

just found your blog while troubleshooting the problems with my Kodak Easyshare M886? Anyway...only had it since beginning of April08. Now I am having problems with the lines running horizontal across photos. Oddly enough..someone in my office with another easyshare started having problems within the last week. I am attempting to find a solution before attempting to return it.

BTW, does your cat need kitty prozac? Just kidding. Thanks!

1 - Mittens - take along a set of needles 1 size larger when you're commuting; measure gauge, frog, and redo on bigger needles as required.

2 - Sobe - is either communing with the universe, or waiting for the emergence of a moth that crawled into the light fixture and died.

3 - Camera - I have a little Canon that I love - don't remember the model, but I got it for $120 when the new model was coming out a couple of years ago. Only has 4 or 5 Mpix, but it's great on macro work - I needed it for shots of jewelry. It also gets very good mileage from regular AA batteries, is small and compact, and has a real-live viewfinder, as well as the power-gulping screen mode. WHY can't the new models offer us this simple choice?? It will shoot a small, silent movie, should I suddenly encounter a crime in progress. Lots of other features that I ignore.

When I download my photos, they usually are underlit, but it's easily fixed with my photo editing software. Nice, clear shots, good color repro - think about it!