So, like, I'm selling a Beanie Baby

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3963917283

It's that Princess Bear. Oh, and a newspaper from a couple of days before Diana was scraped shuffled off her mortal ignition coil.

Perfect wedding present for Charles and Championess Camilla.

Shinies

I did, finally, get my new shinies.

Contax i4R and U4R. The former, a little jewel of a camera, 1/2 the size of a Dimage Xt, anodised red with a dusky gold lens cover/flash, with ridges like the top of a PS2 along the sides. On a long strap, designed to hang around your neck (and small/shiny enough to make it look alright that way). 4Mp sensor, USB/charging dock, SD card storage.

It lacks an optical zoom, but does have a T* lens as you'd expect from Contax. Almost instant start up and good focus.

The U4R is the revised version of the SL300R T* I had at Whitby, a beautiful magnesium chassis camera, square edged, 3.0Mp. The replacement does offer 4.0Mp, a larger screen and a choice of leather panel colours (mine is camel as beggars can't be choosers - very much like an early folding Polariod Land Camera). The pouch is a less convenient design and whilst actually being the same physical size, the rounded 'fatter' look makes the camera look bulkier. As the S4R, the 4Mp Kyocera sister to the SL300 and U4R, is cased in the square-edged SL style, I can only assume that this was an attempt to differentiate the models.

Contax is on borrowed time; I see the web is now full of reports of something I'd known for a while, that Kyocera had ended production of their cameras (digital and film) for no reason other than "market forces" (they need the capacity and having killed off the Yashica brand, the Kyocera branded cameras had not made significant inroads); this means that what is out there, stock wise, is what is left, and any future Contax products (if Contax UK are to continue at all) will be manufactured by other partners - Sony are on possibility due to the Contax name being a Zeiss brand; the Chinese holding company which currently owns Imacon, Hasselblad and may be sniffing around Leica (who are partnered with Panasonic/Matsushita for manufacturing).

( i4R )