I'd dropped my old-by-now Canon S410 camera some time back. I sent it off to be repaired for $100 to Canon. The allegedly repaired camera lasted about a month before it crapped out again. I was unimpressed.
This past week it occured to me to look on eBay for the same camera, and I found one that sounds like it's in decent shape which I bid for and won. I'm excited about its arrival. I haven't had a functioning camera aside from the ultra-crappy camera built into my phone for a long time, now.
I didn't want to spent $150 or so on the Canon "loyalty" program in which they offer you a refurbished camera to replace your broken Canon camera. I can't possibly afford a "real" dSLR, which I think I'd love, but it's just out of the question. I have other things I'd rather spend $2500 on -- which I think is what the damage would be between a decent body, a decent lens and the requisite UV filter. Plus a real camera wouldn't exactly fit in my pocket.
Hopefully when the camera arrives it will function. Stay tuned...
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The cheap used camera DID NOT WORK. The eBay seller said she'd received it from her mother and didn't think to test it before listing it. I wrote it off to experience and coughed up the $200 for a new small camera from Radio Shack in time for my kid's fifth-grade orchestra concert. The new camera cost about half what the old one did, is about half the weight and the LCD screen is about twice the size... so I'm pretty satisfied with it. I'm not happy about the dumb shit listing a broken camera, however. I sold my old nonfunctional camera and this new, used, nonfunctional camera to someone -- and I listed them as BEING nonfunctional. Didn't make any money but I got those cameras out of my house...
