Two Christmases ago, I received a very nice digital camera as a gift. I specifically requested the model, a Fuji Finepix S7000, for its features that approached that of an SLR (manual focus, shutter speed, and apeture settings, etc.) but wasn't too expensive. It was also a brand that I trusted -- my first digital camera that I bought back in 2000 was manufactured by Fuji, it takes pretty good snapshots, and has an excellent interface.

Anyway, back to the new camera. I have not used it that much. Part of the reason has to do with its bulkiness, but there were two other issues that held me back: its extreme sensitivity to motion when shooting indoors and low-light conditions (I don't like to use flash) and its limited memory (the camera came with just a 16MB xD card).

Both of these issues have easy remedies -- tripods and bigger memory cards -- but I refused to get them. I felt that such a nice camera ought to be fine out of the box without additional expenditures.

I put up with settling for mostly outdoors shots for over a year, but I finally gave in three days ago and decided to drop some more money on the camera. There was a straw-breaking-the-camel's-back moment that precipitated my change of heart: I attempted to take a picture of my sleeping son at naptime, but the pictures ended up blurry, even with multiple shots, holding my elbow against my chest to steady my hand, adjusting shutter speed and ISO settings, etc. That night I was passing my a photo store, and stopped in to price tripods. I was surprised at how inexpensive the small collapsable ones were. I ended up getting a cheap Giotto, and the very next day started using it. The results: Totally excellent. I've shot outside with the tripod fully extended and in restaurants with the tripod in its smallest form sitting on the table, and the results are superb. I've finally unlocked the value of my $400 camera, and all it took was an additional investment of about $20.

Next, I'll upgrade the memory, which will let me use an even higher quality setting, save the images as RAW instead of JPEG, and get more pictures in the camera before the "Card Full" message appears. Unfortunately, it won't be a $20 investment (xD memory cards with 256MB of memory start at $25) but I really think it will help me unlock even more value from the camera. I'll keep you posted ...

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