Canon S45

Today I got my mom a Canon S45 digital camera. This after a lot of deliberation on exactly what camera I wanted to get her.

It all started when my mom said a couple of weeks ago that she was planning to go to China this Saturday. Initially it was Hong Kong, but she really wants to see the Great Wall and it's more difficult to schedule a trip to China, so there you go. She is also taking my older brother on this trip because my bro has never been out of the country. The trip is quite expensive esp since it's for 2 people so my mom was thinking of borrowing money. I figured I would just give her the money to pay for my bro so that she wouldn't have to borrow the money, then I found out that she had already paid for everything.

Last Saturday when we were in Shangri-La, my mom was contemplating getting a digicam. She was having problems with her regular camera that day which added to her desire to get a digicam, and when we were having film developed, she spotted some digicams and was just about ready to buy one of them that was within her budget. I asked her if she wanted to get a camera then or if she could wait for me to look around. She said I could look around first.

So last Sunday I went looking for digicams. I wanted to get a Canon, so I ended up with 3 choices - Ixus 30 as suggested by Joh, Powershot S45 (an old model), and Powershot A85 (Paulo said that, because it was newer than the S45, it was a better buy). Now the Ixus 30 was out of stock everywhere, so I was just about ready to get the A85 until I learned that it used four AA batteries and that I could run out 4 energizers in about half an hour. Also, the S45 had a wider angle. So I got the S45. Decided to throw in a 512Mb CF card and a spare battery with it, and the store gave me a free camera case. I realize I didn't get my mom a Christmas gift so I guess this will do as a very belated present.