An exciting new purchase!

This past Sunday, Keith and I ventured to Best Buy to purchase a new camera. The one that we currently have has been dying a slow death and when we went to use it on Saturday, it was putting funky lines on all of the pictures. I definitely wanted to get a good, reliable camera before the baby is born.

We didn't really have an idea of what we wanted other than I was told by a friend of mine here at work (who is the Director of Video Operations and knows a lot about cameras) that it was worth the money to invest in a good SLR camera versus buying a regular point-and-shoot. He said that we would end up paying more, but in the long run, it would be worth it, especially with the baby coming.

We looked at a Canon model and a Nikon model at Best Buy, both of which seemed to be very similar. The guy that worked there told us that Canon & Nikon are virtually the same, it's just a matter of preference of which one you want to buy. Keith and I, being novices when it comes to cameras like these, chose the Canon because that is what kind of point-and-shoot camera I had previously AND it seemed to have less buttons on it - less that we have to figure out! :-)

We were really excited when the guy in the store told us that we could get a discount on the camera also. They were running a promotion and customers who signed up for a Best Buy credit card could choose a flag that had randomly labeled 5%, 10%, or 15% coupons on them. Since we were planning on paying for the purchase with money from our savings account, we decided to go ahead and open the account (and we can pay it off immediately) to get the discount. Luckily, Keith pulled a flag that had a 15% off coupon!!! And, in addition to that, since we bought 3 accessories (a camera bag, a memory card and an extra battery), we got 15% off of the accessories also! Score!! We ended up getting some awesome things and not spending as much at the same time!!

Here is a picture of our new camera:

Click here - Canon EOS Rebel XS - for more information on it.

We haven't had a lot of time to really use it in the past few days, but I did charge the batteries and load the memory card on Sunday night. I also read the user manual and took a few random shots of Keith and other stuff around our house, just to play with all of the different settings. It seems really cool and I am excited to use it this weekend when we venture to Richmond for a baby shower and visit with mine and Keith's extended families who are coming into town for the shower.

Stay tuned for some awesome photos from our weekend!