Just over 3 years ago, we purchased our first digital camera. It was a Canon Ixus 400, at a cost of £450. It wasn’t cheap. 2 Weeks ago, it stopped working altogether. When powering up, there was a crunching sound, followed by a series of beeps and the LCD displaying the dreaded “E18” error.

A short Google later and I now know that I am yet another victim of a well known problem with Canon Ixus cameras. In short, the lens mechanism no longer works, possible due to dust or grease. It wasn’t used excessively. Just your average typical family usage.

3 years?!?! That’s all It lasted. £450 and 3 years. There is a repair guide for it here. Way beyond me.

I have my digital SLR (Nikon D70s), but it isn’t what you would call convenient when taking snap happy family photos. To grab my camera bag, connect the lens, power it on, configure the various settings, realise you messed it up so lump for the comfort of auto, switch to auto, take the pic, realise everyone got bored and left the room.

Then there is my video camera, bought at the same time as part of a deal. A Canon MV630i, that also encountered a common problem . I was able to get it repaired for free since Canon admitted the fault, a faulty CCD. It has never been the same, its responsiveness to light and shade is slower than what it was.

Oh, the video camera cost £700. It is still in use today, purely because I am waiting for hard disk cameras to come down in price. If at all they ever will.

Then there is my printer (you thought I would have learnt by now), a Canon Pixma ip4000. It no longer takes paper from the bottom tray and the top tray cannot insert paper perfectly resulting in printouts at a funny angle. Not to mention the neighbourhood printer party that I am convinced happens every night where all local printers get together and consume all my ink.

Is it just me? Am I having a run of bad luck? Or are Canon no longer the “reliable” company they once were?

No longer a Canon fan, I have decided to look elsewhere and recently purchased a Fuji f31fd. (So recent in fact that it hasn’t been delivered yet). My reasons for this one? The camera has become known for being able to take pictures at low light due to its support for high ISO speeds. It has an ISO rating of 100 – 3200. A big problem was when taking indoor pictures without the flash. Most would end up a touch blurry which, hopefully and to some extent, the Fuji will overcome. You can read a full review here.