New arrival - who's the daddy now?

DP's digital compact camera family tree

My new Canon G9 arrived the day before yesterday, and after returning from Manchester I finally got a chance to open the parcel. Ooooh it's nice. It's very nice. Built like a tank and oooozes quality.

Strangely my digital cameras have got bigger over the years, as manufacturers strive to get them smaller! A Sony Cybershot U20 was the first in - a gorgeous little camera that Mrs DP now owns.

The was replaced by the Fuji Finepix Z2 - similarly great to look at (a pattern emerging), and did brilliantly until the flash failed last year. Took it to a camera shop in India thinking that if the board needed replacing (as I suspected) then it would be cheaper to do there. Mistake. Alas they couldn't repair it, but I know it had been taken apart in a dusty filthy shack as there were the pictures on it to prove it! Unfortunately they didn't put it back together brilliantly, but it still somehow works.

That was replaced by a Fuji Finepix Z5 in fab mocha brown - again style obviously played a part. It never quite lived up to the dying Z2 though - maybe it just wasn't a great improvement on it. That's now gone to a good home, to help (!) justify (!) the purchase of the G9, much to the disappointment of Mrs DP though!

So the newbie is the largest digital compact I've owned yet, and will hopefully suit my purposes for a while. It's certainly going to be more practical when I don't want to lug my SLR around. And style wasn't the deciding factor - sense at last. The quality of pics already is impressive, although higher than ISO400 is a bit rubbish. He's the daddy now though.