I think my camera search is done. I had plans to get to Best Buy in Montreal, and FutureShop in Ottawa, and maybe back to Lachute to Walmart. I had multiple tabs featuring a dozen different cameras open on my computer, comparative files saved to my hard drive… I examined every camera within my $300-400 price range available in my region of Canada.

But then, on a whim, I tried the Staples in Hawkesbury — the next town over. And there, among the pieces of absolute crap they normally have on display, was a flat-black, pocket-sized marvel of technical engineering.

It’s a Canon SX240 HS. And, first, it has an f3.5 25mm wide angle, which is okay, but it also has a 20x optical zoom that, with the digital zoom, can stretch to 60x.

It’s roughly the same dimensions as my Samsung WB600 (RIP), and has most of the same features, but oh lordy lordy, so much more.

All of the in-camera features are easy to find, nothing is more than one menu away from use. The features include a fisheye; the ability to focus on one colour and turn everything else monochrome; there’s a ‘toy car’ focus option, and about twenty other cool things, including a “slow synchro” flash that operates like an intelligent ‘fill flash’ option. It makes night shooting worth doing.

But the coolest has to be the option where, every time you take a shot over a period of time, it records a few seconds of video / audio. Then, when you’re done shooting for the day, it collects all of the A/V into one file. So you’ve got a variable length film of everything you did that day.

How fucking cool is that?

And… Staples has a thirty (30!? wtf?) day full-return policy. I’ve got an entire month to figure out if I like this thing.

But, unless there’s a swastika watermark on each print, I believe I’ve finally found the replacement.