Snap, Grin

With Christmas just around the corner AAAAHHRRRRGGGHHH!!

Pardon me. Small panic attack there.

Well it’s time once again to stop reviewing the stock portfolio, take the hose out of the exhaust pipe, and increase the line of credit so we can buy fuel so we can stock up on the roomful of batteries we’ll need for the upcoming joyous non-denominational, non-sexist, no trans-fat statutory holiday.

Your shopping experience will be that much more satisfying if you go armed with good information. Cameras are always a thoughtful gift, so today we’ll discuss photography.

First of all, look for one of the major camera brands like Olympia, Pentaxi, Honda, Evinrude, Cannonball or Hasselbladder. These companies never have blurry pictures in their brochures so you know they can be counted on to have good products.

Before we get to what kind of camera to get, let’s talk about what sort of pictures you like to take.

If you want to take pictures of dots in the sky like most of my air show pictures, or vacation pictures of the family in front of yet another cathedral, get what’s called a Point and Shoot, Give and Go, Thick and Thin, or Do the Hustle-type camera.

This type is also favoured by kids for taking extreme close-ups of tonsils, ears, nostrils etc. They are fairly small and inexpensive (the cameras), although I’ve found the TV’s on the back are pretty much useless since they don’t get cable.

For actual good grown-up pictures, you’ll need something called a Single Laser Reflux camera. These have more buttons and settings, and allow you to take pictures of everything from waterfalls and sunsets to, if you’re paparazzi, Britney Spears’ hoo haw.

Society is truly benefitted by this technology isn’t it?

These cameras can photograph, or ‘shoot’ as we photocopiers call it, almost anything, so you’ll also need a bunch of different lenses to lug around all the time and use once per year.

If you’re male then you’ll want a really big unit.

Excuse me – that didn’t sound quite right.

Manly men usually prefer having a long, uh, lens like the guys on the sidelines at sporting events carry. These are way cool but can be problematic when a linebacker lands on top of one on and winds up with a 500mm suppository. Awkward.

Probably the most important thing to look for in any new digital camera is lots of something called megapickles. Megatickles. Something like that. Mega Ryan maybe.

Anyway the more megalicks you have the better your pictures will turn out, and the easier it will be to Photoshop yourself twenty pounds lighter and get rid of those unsightly blemishes and wrinkles.

Further amusement can be had by adding these same blemishes and wrinkles to pictures of the rest of your family or better looking comrades. Use your imagination. Get lots of megathingies.

Apparently there is also a way to take pictures of people so they don’t have alien red eyeballs. That would be nice to know but, being male, I don’t read instruction booklets, especially ones the size of War and Peace. In our house the camera is safely set on AUTO only.

Actually, the kids and I were taking our camera apart the other day when we discovered there are spring loaded parts that can shoot out like grenade shrapnel.

Not all the parts went back into the camera when we finished picking them up. Which is why we are currently looking for a new camera too.

Our old one is fun to play with in the tub though. Almost waterproof too.

Happy shopping.