Shooting Blind

Somehow I managed to break the LCD panel on my camera. It's one of those point and shoot ones that doesn't have an old school viewfinder like you would find on an SLR or film camera. So breaking the screen somewhat limits the capabilities of this model.

For example, if I wanted to change the shooting mode, I now would be guessing since all the feedback was displayed through a menu.... on screen. Oh, and I broke it but good - I'll take a picture of it later and upload it, but the screen doesn't display anything meaningful at all anymore. So without the screen, I am left with a camera that still takes a decent picture, assuming I can line it up correctly, and assuming that the camera's auto settings happen to work for the shot. It's a lot of guesswork, but at the same time, the kind of shots I tend to take aren't really that difficult.

So at this point I'm mulling it over. I can limp by with the camera as-is for a little while, I think. A replacement panel can be had on ebay for about $60 plus another $10 shipping after exchange, and that still leaves the job of ripping it open and swapping old for new. That would come in at roughly half the cost of getting a replacement camera, since I would try to keep the price around $150 or so. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to some that I'm probably going to take a while making up my mind on this one.