Kodak.

[dragonlady7]

OK, this is a long, long overdue rant about Kodak.

Several years ago I purchased a Kodak DC250 digital camera from a friend of mine who was an intern at Kodak for years.
It was a great camera. I had a blast using it, it took great photos, and it was among the first digital cameras out there. I liked it. The only downside to it was that it ate batteries like there was no tomorrow.

So, when my graduation came around, I thought perhaps i'd ask for a new one. Now, this was a complex issue. I was content with the DC250, but my mother wanted to get a camera for my baby sister to use, and yet was worried because Ann had never had a camera and she didn't trust her to not lose one.
I came up with the solution that I'd give her my old camera and get a new one, and everyone was happy.

So I shopped around a little bit. This friend of mine, who had been an intern at Kodak, naturally recommended their product line to me. (Perhaps the fact that his primary camera was a Canon should have tipped me off-- but it didn't.) I happily purchased a Kodak DX3900 and its accompanying Easy-Share Dock, at a price tag of something around $400 as I recall. That was my sole graduation present and thus was A Big Deal.

To be honest, the DC250 was a better camera. DX3900 has a very weak flash and exceedingly poor performance in low light situations, so basically once it gets dark (or, indeed, once you go inside) you can't get a picture worth a damn. But I'd made my bed so I cheerfully lay in it, and haven't really complained about the camera in the two years since. I've taken probably 2000 photos, and can attest that the camera is perfectly comfortable to use. i've even taken some decent photos in that time, so it's not that my photography has suffered terribly.

But the damn thing died at my sister's wedding shower. I turned it off and set it down, as I had thousands of times before, and then I picked it up again, turned it on, and instead of turning on it said, cryptically, "E 12".
I've done all the troubleshooting stuff and it persists: "E 12."
That's it.

Sigh. To make a long story short, I have to send it away to be repaired. it's no longer under warranty. They can't tell me what's wrong with it, but they can tell me that to fix it will cost $150 plus $10.50 shipping and handling plus my state sales tax.

So, it'll be nearly $200 in ransom to get the fucking thing to work again.

In the meantime, I shot my sister's wedding using her Canon digital Elph. It was beautiful. Beautiful. I went through all the settings and played with it. Its flash is powerful. I prefer to shoot without a flash, and I got wonderful low-light shots-- there's a picture that I'm quite proud of, of some friends of the family looking at a photo album by candlelight, that I got by using my elbows on the table as a tripod. I took hundreds of great pictures with that camera, and have only now realized what I was missing.

So, I have this dilemma.
A camera like Katy's is around $500 unless you can find a good sale.

To fix the camera I have, which I've never really liked, and which I can't guarantee will work much longer even after a repair, will cost $200.

How much money do I have? Well, very little; the Buffalo Jobfinder is kinda bleak, and I have about a month and a half more of unemployment before that runs out.

My sugar daddy? Well, Dave's no longer working at all. He's living off his savings, which i think will dwindle rather more rapidly than he'd hoped, given the price of gas even with his super-efficient hybrid (which costs more in monthly car payments than his rent will this coming year). He was never really a sugar daddy anyway, and I'm happier that way, but since I haven't got a rich uncle there's nobody else who buys me lavish gifts. Yes, my birthday's coming up in a few months (end of August), but I don't think I've got anybody who'd spend that much on me. I can't spend that much on myself, so I'm sort of stuck.
I could possibly ask someone to help me pay for the repair, as a gift-- maybe there are people who love me enough that they could go halfsies on the repair or something. I just feel a little betrayed by the damn camera in the first place-- it was never that good and now it's flashing me stupid error messages? Bastard.

So... I am going to sit here and sulk. it seems stupid to just throw away a camera that seems to have nothing physically wrong with it, but the fucking thing isn't going to fix itself and is only giving me a cryptic error message, which isn't much to work with.

And I'm absolutely miserable without a camera. I just took pictures of everything, and it was one of the little joys of my life. I love taking pictures. I couldn't afford to take film pictures of everything, but digital pictures are a harmless obsession. They don't cost much, once you have the camera.

If it works.

God damn it, Kodak, I really wanted to have regional pride and be loyal to you, but this fucking camera has never been what I thought it would be, and your customer service is somehow less than stellar. (She had to ask me six times to spell my first name. Come on, people, it's not that hard to listen the first five times.)

Also, ironically enough, it took me half an hour to find out the number to call on their website, and I only found it because I instant-messaged this buddy of mine, who worked on their site for years....

Sigh. I haven't ranted in a while, and that felt good. But i'm still pissed, because I still don't have a camera. God damn it.

And oh-- Ann never used the DC250. She claimed it didn't work, though when i came home and turned it on it was fine for me. Anyhow, I didn't really need to get the new one when I did.
Oh well!! Too fucking late now!!!