Most of the pix I've posted over the years have been with my (up to now) trusty Kodak EasyShare Z1285. I genuinely like the camera and it fits my needs because it's small.
But lately it has been generating an error when turning it on. During the boot sequence it extends the lens to some point between infinite and max closeup. The error I get indicates there is a problem with the lens mechanism and it turns out it's a somewhat common error. Need some special equipment to align and I was reticent to open it up and see if I could find a way to do it on my own until I had a camera. In fact the camera is now stuck in this position.
I looked for a replacement and came up with a Kodak Pixpro AZ401. More camera than I really wanted and much bigger but there is just no direct replacement and this one was cheaper than the EasyShare was. So we'll see. I tried to take some pix with the old one but it crapped out for good it seems unless I can effect a repair so I took a pic of the new one with my phone. At a minimum there should be no more purple chrome.
Why not just use the phone? For one I really dislike the aspect ratio on a phone camera and while I can edit it I take enough pix it would be more time than I want to spend. For another it's easier to get the pix out of the camera than the phone and I can mount the camera to a tripod. I could mount the phone I suppose but then I'd have to glue a stupid button to it and I do (sometimes) carry the phone with me and it would be in my way - I don't normally carry the camera.
