Bride disappointed with $60 camera

<p><em>Bride who bought £40 camera for honeymoon horrified that ALL 300 pictures are dark, fuzzy or over-exposed</em><br>

<br /> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bride-who-bought-40-camera-6105425<br>

<br /> Sadly, this isn't from <a href="http://www.theonion.com/">the Onion</a></p>

<p>I'm not sure what this proves, apart from the general principle of not using unfamiliar equipment for the first time for something important! In addition to a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EOS M, I have numerous digital point-and-shoot cameras (Kodak EasyShare) which cost no more than what this woman paid - sometimes if I want a quick picture for eBay or web display, I use a six megapixel Pentax that cost £4.99 from a goodwill store. What is surprising is the poor response from Argos customer service – no matter what the rights and wrongs of the case, if a matter like this comes to public attention, the supplier has a straight choice between being generous and scoring a PR victory or standing firm and looking like Mr. Scrooge's nastier and meaner brother!</p>

<p>There doesn't seem to be the remotest thought in this woman's mind that the poor photos are her fault not the camera, that a bit if photography before she uses it for vital stuff might provide some clues on how best to use it, or that a camera at such a price is liable to have inherently limited capability. How on earth has she managed to find a newspaper to publish the story of her failures and attempts to blame someone else.</p>

<p>They don't call it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season">silly season</a> for nothing.</p>

<p>An odd story on several levels : Is this news? Why didn't she try the wretched camera before jetting off to the sun? But mostly I wonder how someone can spend a few thousand on a holiday to Rio then attempt to immortalise it with a dodgy little bargain basement camera. She would have done better with her phone camera. I'm surprised that Argos didn't give her the 40 quid back though.</p>

<p>Yes, some of this is operator error, yes, they should have tried out the camera first, and no, this doesn't belong in a national newspaper. However, it does seems like an unusually poor camera, even for the price:<br>

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Compact-Digital-MegaPixel-Polaroid-IE826/dp/B00PWBHD6Q<br>

Random comparison with a cheap but well-reviewed camera:<br>

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-DSCW800-Compact-Digital-Camera/dp/B00J9A9TKY</p>

<p>I wonder if she read the manual?</p>

Dark, fuzzy or over-exposed? It's called Art.

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<p><em>dark, fuzzy or over-exposed</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>She captured the essence of human life - nothing wrong with the camera.</p>

You simply cannot buy a camera, at any price, and expect it to just magically take perfect photos. You have to learn how to manipulate the settings to produce the best possible picture for the prevailing conditions. It's as simple as that. If she really got 300 unusable photos, that's unfortunate. It's possible that the camera malfunctioned, but the reality is that what's most likely predominantly to blame for the bad exposures, missed focus, camera shake, etc is her and not the camera. There's not really much use in us discussing it either, because she won't read this and we basically all knew that already anyway.

<p>If one were interested in digging a bit into where the problem lay, it would be of use to examine the images' EXIF data. Some online image sites like flickr allow the viewer to do this.<br>

The young woman also states in that article that a professional photographer took pictures at her wedding, and that those pictures came out great. She also states that her wedding took place at a burlesque club. Now THOSE are images that I'd really like to see! ;-)</p>

<p>Well, neither the bride nor the groom appear to be Rhodes Scholars. In their case, "blurry" might be considered "best."</p>

<p>So somebody buys a cheap camera, doesn't learn how to operate the AF or the auto exposure modes, doesn't look at the photos on the screen and is disappointed with the results. The store has un-customer-friendly return policies and doesn't take it back. And that's a news item. </p>

<p>I feel like this sort of thing must happen all the time.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The store has un-customer-friendly return policies</p>

</blockquote>

<p>in fact the UK Argos chain is known for its <em>no quibble</em> returns policy. I have returned stuff to them because I didn't like the colour etc. Money back - no question - provided the article is undamaged. So I wonder whether the 'small scratch' was possibly something more like a shark bite....<br>

But it isn't news.</p>

<p>I can believe the Daily Mirror website would run a story like this, just for fun, on a quiet news day, but that doesn't mean the content is totally grounded in reality. I guess though that the Argos store chain would object if it was pure fiction. Anyway, a waste of time all round.</p>

<p>Once I read the title, it pinged me back to late 70's. One of the guys in my apt complex took off on a lifetime motorcycle trip to the NW....with a brand new Canon AE-1. He never used it before departure.....a massive flag in my brain. It could have been any camera. Sooo, and sadly, he returns with lots of memories and photos that only show snow caps....and everything else was dark. Ouch.</p>

<p>Les</p>

<p>It beats the Mirror's other top news story about a man who bought a packet of bacon and found there were only 6 rashers in it, not 7 as advertised.</p>

<p>http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shopper-complains-missing-bacon-rasher-6109407#rlabs=1</p>

<p> </p>

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Who cares about crappy honeymoon photos. But bacon? That is sacred. That story should be in the <I>Times</I>.

<p>Where are the fuzzy nude pictures?</p>

I do not know about this camera but I can not imagine it not giving you an instant preview of ehat you shot. And who would take 300

pictures without reviewing any of them at some point in between? Every photographer

good or bad at least looks at their photos at some point. Sounds like she is used to blaming everyone else for her stupidity.

<blockquote>

<p><em>"And who would take 300 pictures without reviewing any of them at some point in between?"</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Seriously flawed pictures will often appear perfectly acceptable on a compact camera's review screen. </p>

<p>i recently gave some recommendations to a friend who wanted a better camera than their phone. Budget was 100-150. I gave some recommendations in the 250-300 range, and explained that the cheap ones would be pretty poor compared to a good cameraphone. </p>

<p>I hope their marriage works out better.</p>

<p>According to the article, the user did occasionally look at the camera's screen and thought the pictures OK. Not, it would seem, a very discerning viewer, but not utterly thoughtless.</p>

<p>How did she go wrong?<br>

Let me count the ways..</p>