The camera is dead (long live the camera?)

My poor old well-used and repaired digital camera finally shit the bed. It won’t recognize any cards, fucks up the data if I repeatedly try to make it read them, and it’s old enough that it’s no longer worth fixing. So 2 questions:

  1. What should I get now? I want a fancy (but not too fancy) digital SLR in the $500 neighborhood (including lens). It’s going to be my birthday present, so I have about a month to figure it out. I might try renting a camera locally, but Topeka’s really my only option, because I don’t want to drive 4 hrs round trip.
  2. Is there somewhere I can donate this where they fix cameras & reuse them? A search for “donating broken cameras” got me this, but I can’t tell whether they can fix broken cameras & they don’t have contact info. If it can be fixed up, it’s still a decent camera, and can still take pretty damn lovely pictures in natural light (it’s less brilliant in low light). I think I have all the original cords & several memory cards.

5 Replies to “The camera is dead (long live the camera?)”

  1. eBay is a good stop for new cameras. I have been drooling over one for a while, as my poor digital has taken a beating to all high hell and back again over the last 5 years (this is what happens when you spawn). I don’t know if they have these down there, but there is also Best Buy. They seem pretty rocking for prices and selection (and I like that the people that work there are not on commission, so they will actually tell you what is more what you are looking for than trying to sell you something horribly expensive that has a cup holder just to get their commissions up).

  2. FYI, as someone who owns the same camera you do, I had no luck finding somewhere that could repair it… also, I HIGHLY recommend the prosumer level Canons. Our Canon Powershot G2 (an older model) handles low light situations, and lighting in general, even better than my schmancy fancy Nikon D70. See:

    http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=113

    The G9 is probably the closest to ours in terms of the current lineup, but I think any of the ones on the top row there would be really, really brilliant.

    I can bring both the G2 and the D70 to Felt School if you want to play with mine!

  3. I actually was able to get it repaired before, and that bought me another year. But it’s too expensive to be worth it on a camera this old.

    BTW, it’s working again, for now.

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