Sayonara to My Ambassador from Japan

Folks fall in love with their cars, boats, dogs and clothes, so is it wrong to be sad when a camera “dies?”
To those of us who admire photographic equipment and the images they produce, a camera is far more than a mechanical thing, crafted of metal and glass and plastic. It becomes an extension of our mind; how we see things, who we admire, what is important to us.
A camera is a machine that graphically records what we like to see, and perhaps some we would rather not.
Not to delay this eulogy, on a recent Saturday, while snapping photos of my granddaughter Katie playing soccer at Davies Sports Complex, my beloved (and I really mean that) Fuji S5000 digital camera bid “Sayonara!” and departed to camera heaven. Its last series of images were commendable, as every image had been since it was first taken from the box, a birthday present from the family. Like a puppy in the window of a pet shop, I’d first seen the little Fuji on QVC, and “hinted” it would be a nice camera to have.
I can’t lie and say how many years ago that was. I lost count, if that means anything. In the course of the world, we were together less than a shutter snap.
It faithfully recorded two vacations to Disney World, more than a few trips to Chincoteague, Va. Where it digitally engraved forever grandchildren aging year by year snapped those elusive ponies and the storied Assateague Lighthouse from many angles.
The humble little black Fuji was there on goodness knows how many Christmases, and the pre-holiday cookie baking that is legendary in our home.
It was with me at Thanksgivings (and the pre-night pie baking that my wife so enjoys.) It recorded rows of apple pies, pumpkin pies, and lemon meringue pies. Looking at them makes me hungry again.
It went on bike rides and to a family wedding, to christenings and on Easters when it duly recorded grandchildren hunting for colorful eggs, hugging plush bunnies and enjoying chocolate rabbits.
It was there when Jason was hours old, and snapped the first image when his sister, Katie, first saw him in his father’s arms when they arrived home from that blessed event.
It recorded several new cars and smiling family members, as well as close ups of wondrous orange day lilies and other flowers that I enjoy throughout the year via photos on my computer.
Cradled in my hands at Middle Township’s Performing Arts Center, the Fuji was with me when Katie danced in recital after recital after recital. Throughout them all, it captured crystalline moments that were sharp and clear, and oh, so fleeting.
In the last two years, it recorded images of Jason, which he will probably want to shred later in life. They show him as a bumblebee amid a field of smiling little girls. This year, he was snapped attired as a heart-breaking Elvis-type, breaking young hearts.
I must confess my beloved devoured AA batteries. I always wondered why, with all the craftiness that went into that little camera, why they didn’t spend $100 more to give it a battery indicator that would give you more than a few moments notice before batteries went dead.
Oh, yes, it also recorded some memorable video moments that no other still camera could do. Among them was Jason riding on his first bicycle, and other such family milestones as that.
To be sure, Ansel Adams and Margaret Bourke White would have sneered at my little Fuji. Many true photographers, purists, to this day, refuse to touch a digital camera, sticking to the true film tradition. Digital cameras, to them, are like painting Mona Lisa by numbers.
For those who care about numbers, the Fuji was a humble 3-mega pixel camera with a built-in flash.
Its creators built in some technology that made that three-mega pixels act like six, so its pictures were always crisp and colorful.
Such a wee number is almost laughable in today’s photographic world. Even tiny “starter” cameras have maybe eight mega pixels, and cell phones have maybe three.
If you have $300 or so to spend, you can buy a 12 mega pixel model, so you can see the tiny Fuji was something like a 17-year-old Labrador retriever, faithful but getting awfully tired.
I thought of getting it repaired, but sad to admit, for the price of repair, I could have a brand new model that will do everything but make coffee in the morning.
Yes, I’ve owned more than my fair share of cameras, and each one has served admirably, even into their post-productive years.
But that little Fuji found a place in my heart. Maybe the affection was made greater because it was a birthday present, one that “fit” immediately without sewing or alteration.
To the day its inanimate spirit finally went home to the land of the Rising Sun, I kept the owner’s manual in my camera bag, “just in case.” Because, like a lady, there were always parts of the S5000 I truly never really understood from the day we met until the day we departed.
Am I a sentimental fool? Without a doubt. Does that foible make me ashamed? Absolutely not. Am I sad because I’ve lost an “old friend?” Sure am.
Tinged with melancholy, I look forward to the future with a pocket-sized Nikon Coolpix L18.
I’ve already put it through a “shake-down cruise” around the house, out and about. It takes great photos, even has higher resolution than the Fuji, takes only two AA batteries and is about the size of a cell phone.
Still, it’s not my trusty black friend with white lettering and a little clip- on lens cap.
The new camera has a viewing screen about four times as large as the Fuji, yet it will never show the images recorded by the Fuji.
Experts tell us that part of aging is learning to deal with loss, all types of loss, so perhaps the Fuji S5000 returning to sacred Mount Fuji is emblematic of things that are inevitable in this lifetime.
May the Rising Sun gently warm your lens and the digital spirit brighten your XD memory chip until the day the last battery is discharged, and your true 3 megapixel image is revealed.