No matter what they say, hindsight isn’t 20/20.

I don’t have as many pictures from when Scout was a kitten as you might think. The biggest problem was that she wanted to be close to me and play on me, so if I’d set her down a little ways away so I could get a picture, she’d run back towards me before I could even trip the shutter. It was then that I started thinking about a camera like Canon’s G series, which had a flip-out LCD and a remote control, perfect for taking pictures of yourself when you were playing with your kitten.

Looking back, I really wish I had gotten one of the G series. They had some drawbacks that I didn’t like, and in the end I couldn’t justify spending that much money for a limited number of pictures. But they were pictures I’d highly treasure, opportunities that are now gone forever. Canon never really evolved the G series where I wanted so I never bought one, and now they appear to have abandoned it and focused on simpler digicams.

So if I could go back in time, would I buy the G series right before we got Scout?

It’s not that simple.

My wife had gotten me the D30 the previous Christmas, a far more expensive camera than the G series, and I used that for years as my main camera. I took a ton of pictures with it (and more than a few were of the cats). At the time we got Scout, I was still saving up for Canon’s wonderful 100-400mm lens. If I had bought the G series, I would have had to delay getting that lens for quite a while, and the combination of the D30 and the 100-400 changed my photography more than anything else ever has. I love this lens and it’s still the lens I use for the majority of my photography.

So in that respect, I don’t regret not getting the digicam.

In the end, I think I made the right decision. But if I had gotten the digicam, I could have taken it to China instead of the little pocket cam. And so on and so on …

The thing is, even with perfect hindsight, I don’t know if the decision was the right one.

I used to enjoy plotting out these decisions, researching each option and mapping out which path would likely bring me the most benefits. But sometime over the past few years that’s changed and I now despise that process. I don’t enjoy wrestling with decisions about cameras and camcorders and computers, knowing that none of the products completely satisfy me, but if I’m going to get some kind of video capability, I need to make a decision and relatively soon.

I just keep hoping some future self will risk screwing up the timeline and come back in time to hand me a high-def camcorder that won’t come out for a few years.

I won’t tell anyone about it.

Honestly.

I promise.

Problem is, what if my future self doesn’t read my blog?