Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Oops, new toy. (Updated)

Due to the weakness of the dollar, a lot of things are very good value in the USA compared to the UK. I was thinking about buying a digital camera when I got here, but on finding that the only decent price in San Francisco for the one I wanted (the Nikon Coolpix 5700) involved a $150 mail-in rebate which is impossible to redeem if you don't live in the US, I didn't. I have a few photos from my road trip, but as they were taken with my mobile phone they won't be very good quality.

When I was in CompUSA earlier, I noticed that the Coolpix 8700, which hadn't been released before I left on my trip, was now both in stock and available at a price that compares favourably with Amazon UK even with California sales tax and UK VAT+duty. After a bit of soul-searching, I bent the plastic and bought one. When I got back to my room to unpack it I promptly dropped it on the floor. Fortunately, no damage was done, and it's a really nice piece of kit from first impressions. The closest competitor was the Sony DSC-F828, but the sheer bulkiness of that model (and Sony's weird swivel-lens-barrel arrangement) put me off. The 8700 handles like a conventional SLR, which I like, and has all the manual tweaks and twiddles which I get worried without. I think we're going to be very happy together.

Quote of the day comes from the "For Your Safety" section of the 8700's operating manual:
"When operating the diopter adjustment control with your eye to the viewfinder, care should be taken to not put your finger in your eye accidentally."
I'll try and bear that in mind.

Added at 0022, when I really should be in bed: Some of my attempts at photographing downtown San Francisco by night are available to peruse. These are all shot using available light so they're a little grainy and fuzzy in places, but I'm still pretty pleased with some of the results. The images posted here are straight rescales to 25% of original - one or two have been cropped a bit but no other processing's been applied.