A couple of years ago I bought a Nikon D1. For those of you who do not know about this camera, it's a professional grade digital 35mm. The professional part has its good points and its bad points. It's good because it's built like a tank and will take a lot of abuse, and its quality is fantastic, even in low light. It's bad because, well, it's built like a tank, which makes it anything but unobtrusive.
Lately I've been thinking that carrying around a huge and heavy camera might have its drawbacks. After all, if I'm not on vacation I don't carry it at all. While a point and shoot is no match for my D1 when doing artistic photography, a point and shoot will work wonders for quick shots with friends. A quick conversation with MichaelW sealed the deal for me: he uses an ultra-compact digital to take pictures of whiteboards in meetings so he doesn't have to take notes. Excellent idea.
That's why I've asked Danna for my new birthday present: the Casio EX-S3. This is one of the smallest digital cameras on the market. It's very simple: no zoom, fixed focus, 3Mpixels, Secure Digital storage. But it's infinitely pocketable so it can go everywhere, which is exactly what I want. Danna isn't terribly pleased that I've ripped into my present several days before my actual birthday, but she'll get over it. We'll just have to wait and see if low-tech pocketability beats image quality. My guess is that it will.
