I did act on the advice given by readers regarding a new digital camera, despite my lifelong brand agnosticism, which might be characteristic of people who have worked at a company that made and sold a "brand."  The truth be told, if I was shopping for a woman's 50th anniversary present, I would probably look for store-brand perfume at Walmart.

It's very hard to keep technology secret. Patents are pretty easy to get around, with trifling changes in the design. When was the last time that a patent founded an empire: Haloid-Xerox's xerography or Polaroid's instant photography? Also, the mobility of the workforce keeps trade secrets ephemeral.

People who haven't worked at a company that actually makes a physical product might not realize how much of the work is outsourced to suppliers, who have contracts with all of the competing brands.

Forgetting about cameras for a moment, does a lifelong pattern of brand agnosticism show an unfriendliness to society, as any kind of iconoclastic behavior would? Or does it just mean that a guy is being a smart consumer and thinking for himself?

Anyway, I am more of a big-box loyalist. One electronic gadget might be about as good as the next, but the stores' return policies vary widely. Considering Walmart's return policy, and the free shipping and returning between their website and their store, I buy from them whenever I can. (Besides, RVers love their Uncle Wally.)

Camera review websites that talked too much about the color of the camera were quite frustrating. My goodness, are there really consumers that silly? Imaging-resource dotcom was a notch above the rest, and they influenced my decision.

Competing with the photography of Artful RV Adventure and Wandrin would be pointless; besides, my photographic proclivities regarding subject matter run in the direction of Walking Prescott.  So I got the zoomiest camera that I could stand to bring along, that is sold at Walmart and meets my price point: the Canon Powershot SX110 IS, with the canonical goodies of mucho megapixels, image stabilization, and AA batteries. You could think of it as a poor man's SLR, with a 10X zoom. It is too big for a pocket; you need a belt pouch. Now I'll be able to kick some serious Scamp butt with 10X wildlife and birdie photos.

Thus ends another little soap opera in the life of a blogger, and thus begins a new day in digital photography. You can guess the subject matter of the first photograph.



For all my posturing as an Edward Abbey-style camera-hater, it's time to admit that they are modern marvels that are fun to use, and I've enjoyed having one much more than expected. In fact it felt so good to finally have the polemics over, that I got giddy and ran through our grassy field, looking for material. The third time that I pulled the new camera out of its soft bag, there were scratches on the cheapo plastic LCD screen.