My stolen camera

A painting by Emvin Cremona taken with the Nikon camera

Back on May 10, 2006, I bought my first digital camera, a Canon Powershot S31S which changed my outlook towards photography, because I have not printed one single photo ever since. On the other hand, I have now thousands of digital photos that I have added to my already-bursting collection. Most of my early digital photos were taken in Oregon, especially nature and wild-life photos which I treasure. Once every 2 years I would visit Malta and would take anywhere between 2000 and 2500 more photos from my home country, visiting churches, places of interest, and just scenic photos of my homeland. I was fairly happy with my Canon until something happened that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. In my parish in Bend, I used to park my car in the garage and lock it overnight. One day in 2014, I mistakenly left the garage door open, and since I had left my camera in the car, in the morning, I found my camera missing. Yes, it’s been stolen, unfortunately – the only stolen item I ever had taken away from me. I understood it was my fault, a mistake which I obviously regretted. 

The same painting taken with the Canon in 2008

So I had to buy another camera – a dear friend suggested a Nikon Coolpix P520 with an exceptional zoom lens. As soon as I familiarized myself with it and started downloading photos, I noticed the sharper images and clearer photos, at least compared to the photos I had taken with my Canon. I realized that this was a much better camera with incredible results. This was confirmed on my first visit to Malta when I visited some churches to take photos of paintings. Now I could compare the same photos taken with the 2 different cameras, and the result was astounding – and I was singing the praises of my misfortune of the stolen Canon. Otherwise, I would probably never had the opportunity to use and enjoy the quality of photos with the Nikon. These two photos tell the story and the difference between the two cameras. So my lesson is never to panic, but to take any mishap as a blessing in disguise!