My father has been in the habit of buying himself a new camera for his birthday every year, and he passes his old one to my mother who then passes her old one to me. It works pretty well, and I’ve just recently become the proud owner of a snazzy silver number, with a great zoom in facility.

I hate getting my films developed at a counter. I do not like the whole charade of taking a slip and waiting an hour or until the next day and going back in there and knowing that they’ve looked at all my photos. I know they see hundreds of photos a day and mine are hardly going to interest them, but that feeling is always there. I don’t like them having seen what belongs to me before I’ve had a chance to look. I don’t like the knowing air they have about them. I would much rather send my prints off to a company such as Truprint, and have the pleasure of only an envelope looking at me in that knowing way, rather than a person.

Mr C is adamant that counters are cheaper, quicker and more convenient, so this weekend I charged him with getting my photos developed. He came back more than a little peeved. Out of three rolls of film, there were only five good pictures, if that. In his peeved state, he demanded that I buy a digital camera so that I can preview my pictures before keeping them.

It’s been on my mind for a while, but I’ve been keeping it at bay with the line “I’d like a digital camera, I think I’d take more pictures with one, but I also know that I can’t justify having a new camera without taking more pictures first.” However, being told that I must buy one was about all the persuasion I needed.

We hotfooted it to Jessops, Dixons, Currys and eventually PC World and bought my very first digital camera, a Canon Powershot A400.

And then we played with it. All the way home, all throughout the house and all the way through dinner at TGI Fridays. We were taking some really arty pictures of the lights and the salt pots and things, until our waiter got a little suspicious, accused us of stealing their secrets and promptly took the menu away, ruining what would have been a great shot. I put the camera away after that and enjoyed a delicious meal.

I also took it to a party with a bouncy castle, but I think that’s a whole other post. I am pretty impressed with what the camera can do, though. Here’s one of the first photos I took with it.