I just returned from driving a big circle around the city to buy a used Canon A520 from Craigslist to replace the Canon A80 as my main everyday digicam. It’s smaller, lighter, with a bigger zoom. The only thing I’ll miss is the A80′s swivel screen, something I used all the time but I’ll have to learn to live without.
The A80′s left side on the selection wheel stopped working in Cuba, and last Thursday a bottle of water leaked and flooded my bag. The camera won’t turn on anymore and I can only use it on ‘auto’, which is incredibly annoying because I don’t use cameras that way! It’s also coming apart at the seams (I can lift the whole top of the camera where it meets the flash), and it’s beat up from getting scratched and dropped.
Today I was on a training course all day at work which finished early, so I took the opportunity to take the Pentax K-1000 to a repair shop to get it cleaned and find out what the technician says about water damage. An overhaul will cost in the neighbourhood of $150, but it doesn’t guarantee that will prevent corrosion stemming from the soaking it got on Thursday. 
Walking home, I felt a bit lost without a camera in my bag. I still use David’s camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1), but the battery life is atrocious and its performance takes a dive in low light conditions. I larked about in Craigslist, checking out prices for various cameras and I spotted a couple of A520s for sale. I’d already checked out the specs so I knew what I was buying. I replied to the two ads and the first response I got was after 8 o’clock, but by the time we emailed back and forth to make arrangements it was 9:30. I went north all the way to York University to pick it up, but it was the best time since he was moving this weekend and I’m going to flight school tomorrow night for a meteorology class. I was planning to attend tonight’s navigation class, but after today’s all-day course I want to space out the learning a bit!
