We've been using an old Kodak EasyShare 3.1 megapixel camera to take all of our product photos. It does a decent job, but we know that the quality is nothing compared to what is available now. So we decided that it was finally time to upgrade.
I did a fair bit of research trying to find a camera that was as easy to use as our current one, but had all the new fangled fun to go along with it. After reading a ton of reviews, we settled on a newer EasyShare model. We are now the proud new owners of a Kodak EasyShare M580. We love it! We've been so impressed with the EasyShare line that we figured there was no good reason to stray at this point. We ordered it as a kit from Ace Photo Digital via Amazon. While I typically don't expect to have much contact with an online seller when I'm buying something from eBay or Amazon, I do expect that they will be responsive when necessary. Ace Photo Digital was awesome! I kept checking our UPS tracking number to see when our camera should be arriving. Every time I checked it showed that UPS had received shipping information for our camera, but not the package itself yet. When I contacted Ace Photo Digital about this, they immediately emailed me an affidavit to fill out stating that I hadn't received the package. It was supposed to be 3-5 day shipping and had been 10 days at this point. I printed the form, filled it out, scanned it, and emailed it back. It was that simple. They would ship the new one as soon as they processed the form. However, later that afternoon, UPS arrived with my camera. So I emailed back to Ace, and let them know I had received it. They thanked me for letting them know, and we were all set.
Fast forward to Christmas day when we opened the camera... Here is a great shot of our little dog Jazzy enjoying one of his new toys. Look at the fangs! :-)
This is a great little camera with a ton of features that I didn't expect from such an affordable point-and-shoot. It even shoots 720p HD video and has HDMI out! I think it's safe to say that we won't be missing the old camera. Anyone need a 3.1 megapixel relic to play with?
Now that we've played around with all of our new toys a little bit, it's time to get back to work. So today we've already printed one order for 100 Save The Dates, and another for 40 Invitation sets. It amazes me that we can do this so quickly now. I'm still not used to having our own laser printer here to do our production runs on. I started printing these orders this morning, and before I knew it they we done and ready for cutting. I didn't even have time to finish my coffee while I waited. :-(
We used to print on a couple of different inkjet printers, but they were sooo slooow.... So we had tried outsourcing our printing for a while. It was great quality. The staff was wonderful. But we live about 30 minutes from the print shop, and with a baby, and having to run in multiple times a week for printing it just wasn't feasible. So we spent a couple of weeks researching to find the best affordable home laser printer we could get our hands on.
Thanks to the wonderful group at the Let's Talk Stationery forum, we finally settled on the HP CP3525n. For the type of printing we do, this thing is practically a miracle. It has it's little quirks occasionally, but that's just par for the course when dealing with computers and printing in general. We print on some pretty heavy cardstock which is usually linen textured. Many printers simply can't handle this. Even if they can draw it through their paper path, you tend to end up with severely curled pages, or the printer simply can't produce enough heat to properly fuse the toner to the textured sheet. This HP doesn't have those problems. On really heavy stock it can curl slightly, but not nearly as bad as many others. It'll also handle the envelope sizes that we typically use from A7 for invitations, all the way down to 4Bar for RSVP cards. It truly is an amazing piece of machinery.
Well, I guess that's about it for now. Today will likely be spent doing some more marketing research and continuing to do what I can to drive more traffic to our shop. So if you're interested, or even just a little curious, stop by and take a look at our custom wedding stationery at DearEmma.Etsy.com.
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