I almost feel like giving away my USD 200 Fuji Finepix and switching full-time to the camera that Laurel donated to me. Yup, the single megapixel, CMOS-based piece of junk that I lost the cord to, and then ended up just buying the same camera on eBay when the cord proved impossible to replace by itself. The new camera cost me USD 15.

See, when I use the Fuji Finepix 340 (4 megapixels), I end up apologizing to everybody for the fuzzy pictures because I mostly use it indoors and hate the washed-out colors that I get when I use flash, so I often go flashless. And it's a good camera, so I should be able to get good pictures, but I don't and then people complain.

But with Laurel's camera I have an excuse. "Sorry! Bad camera, bad pictures!" And other advantages:

• It doesn't even have an LCD screen, so you just snap and don't worry about whether it came out or not. And nobody can bug you to see "how ugly" they looked.
• Since it's CMOS-based, the shutter speed is higher than on the Finepix. Better action shots.
• It still has problem in poor light, but like I said, it's supposed to!
• It feels more rugged than the Finepix, and it's cheaper to replace, and I have two of them. So I stick it in the pocket of my jeans and carry it around anywhere.
• I worry less about it getting stolen.
• It runs forever on two AA batteries.

So it makes taking pictures much more stress-free.

Oops, it's only 0.3 megapixels. As samples, most of the pictures on my old photo weblog (proxy) were taken with Laurel's camera (an RCA CDS1005, to be exact). Also, see the cameras page on my wiki.