The Dark Force of Photography

Lately my cousin had fell passionately in love with his new camera. Things started like this. A couple weeks ago he went to Bryce Canyon with a friend and witnessed the most breathtaking sunrise he had ever seen. However, he found his small compact digital camera was not able to catch a slice hint of it, so he consulted me. I told him he needed more proper tool for that and suggested two entry-level DSLRs. Little did I know what a dangerous journey my cousin was about to embark on.

My cousin first spent several weeks researching which camera to buy. He read many reviews, surfed various forums, found all the potential issues with each model, and sent me tons of questions. Still he couldn't decide. One night he had gone so weak he almost bought both.

Finally he made his decision and chose the Nikon D90. I thought it would be the end of story. Wrong. Now it's the price war. After ruling out numerous hoax web sites selling cameras in unbelievably cheap prices, he finally bought his cameras from Amazon. Yes, cameras. Well, it turned out after he ordered his first one, Amazon lowered the price even further ($25), so he ordered again but was not able to cancel the first order in time. Fortunately he was able to sell it to a friend and recover his cost, so at least that part had a happy ending.

Then my cousin realized, camera was not the only thing he would need for photography, there were so many things he would potentially need and could still buy. How about them? In an email he wrote me he mentioned shopping camera equipments was like resisting the power of the ring. Calmly, I told him: resist the dark force, Frodo.

Last weekend he finally received his camera. He was in ecstasy. He canceled all his dates so he could devoted the whole weekend to the D90. ("Oh, she's beautiful", my cousin said.) Yesterday he called me at 5:45pm and said he had a few questions about the camera.
"Aren't you supposed to be at work now?" I was surprised getting his phone call so early and a bit worried if his job got impacted by the economic downturn.
"Oh, that, I am newlywed now, I have to be home early to be with my camera."

Sigh, now I can only hope I won't be blamed by my relatives if my cousin doesn't get married any time soon. Who would know D90 could be such a femme fatale!