"A good camera need not be the best one on the market, but the one you know best."

E 775 and E2100 were, and still are, the-bottom-of-the-line snapshot cameras of only 2 megapixles. The two models are practically the same with E2100 slightly enhanced. It was February 2001 when I first got one and over the years I actually owned not 1 but 3 of these cameras. 

I work primarily with film and when I did an 8-month trip to Southern Africa in 2000, I had 3 cameras but none of which was digital. As I was snapping away beautiful sceneries and eccentric characters along the Garden Route and the Transkei, I felt reluctant to waste my slide films on snapshots of silly discoveries or goofy moments that were, of course, equally memorable.

When the time came to buy a digital camera, I had in mind one that was *small*, *handy*, and *cheap*, for all my funds, as usual, went into video equipment, photos developing and the darkroom.

E775 (I) accompanied me to southwest China but was unfortunately enough to have rolled into Lijiang (Li River) in Yangshuo during a boat ride. I made it down to the cold water barefoot but was much discouraged by the winter stillness that hung silently in the valley. I guess I wasn't that passionate about the rescue plan after all.

E775 (II) was sent through the mail (getting travel insurance was a good thing to do, and a brother who's willing to pay in advance was also very nice). It was very useful in keeping memories of spontaneous (as well as lonely) moments during another 8-month trip through Guizhou and Xinjiang provinces, and eventually into the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia and then the final destination of that trip - Turkey.

Like most photographers, I don't usually take pictures of myself, and definitely not with my slide films. Some of the most valuable pictures from my long trips are, in fact, portraits of myself: with a backpack on my back, selling photographs on the sidewalk, or lying down in a sleeper bus watching the sunset. I got to see what I was like when I was on the road.

When I re-emerged to the developed world in 2002, E775 was long gone from the shelves of camera stores in California. What replaced it to be the bottom-of-line Nikon Coolpix were E2100 and E2500. E2100 was practically the same but E2500 was "more advanced", with added functions and other *crap*. 

Why would I continue my research about these silly cameras that cost only USD120 (now cost USD249!)? Well, because I lost E775 (II) at a party soon after (dah!). By then, I had just finished developing 30 rolls of black & white, and 40 rolls of slides and color negatives. It was not on my mind to spend money on the newest Canon Powershot.

After carefully examining between E2100 and E2500, my experience (or my intuition - I'd rather spend my time going out to shoot than reading camera magazines) with the ever-changing world of camera models and optics technology told me that E2500, which cost USD50 more, was actually a regression. So, to the salesperson's surprise, I insisted on getting the E2100 instead and found myself getting better and better pictures from it(because I almost never used flash, ha).

It's probably not all that surprising to you to see this: when snapshot digital cameras first became popular, the first models most likely had better optics, light meter and color reading than their later, upgraded ones, which were probably cheaper to make so that more resources could go into developing higher-end models.

I took E2100 to document some of my hitchhiking experience through the cotton fields of Georgia, Blue Ridge Mountain and the Appalachian Trail. And in the following year along the country roads of the New England States of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and eventually into museums and galleries of NYC. It saw the night light of Tokyo and the starry sky of the Yellow Plateau. Knowing well its strength and limitation, it almost always did what I wanted it to.

A good tool is one that you develop with over time. A good camera need not be the best one on the market but the one you know best. 

Up until February 2008, I was still taking pictures with it until one day, I saw sticky liquid coming out of the body and it wouldn't turn on again. It's now sitting on my shelf in the living room in my Beijing apartment, reminding me of all the fun times we've had.