Rant: High-end point and shoots are unshootable.

I've been shooting high-end point-and-shoots for over a decade now. I've owned multiple copies of the Yashica T4/T5, Ricoh GR1, Contax T2, as well as B-listers like the Ricoh R1, Olympus mju I, Nikon AF600, Pentax Espio Mini, and Leica Mini II. I have loved them all. And I keep having to learn this sad lesson over and over again:

High-end point and shoots are unshootable.

There is not one of these machines that isn't counting down to becoming a brick (ask me how I know). You can be paranoid, take perfect care of them and They. Will. Still. Fail. This already sucked ten years ago. Now? These machines cost twice as much, have twice the shutter count, and are basically on their last legs—the math is no longer mathing. I've spent the last few months cycling through a bunch of "mint" "excellent+++" secondhand point-and-shoots that all turned out to have serious issues: a Contax T2 that misfocused every other shot. A Ricoh GR1 whose film advance motor sounded like it was about to disintegrate. An Olympus mju with a loose slide-open mechanism. These machines belong out in the pasture.

Yes, there are some heroic mechanics out there who will service some of these machines, if you manage to get on their monthslong waitlists. But the cost of the repair + shipping is easily the cost of a whole camera. And even then all you've done is dial back the brick-clock by an unknown amount... Weeks? Months? How much are you willing to spend, and for how long, to keep these things limping down the road? Until one day, you set it down on the table too hard and... whoops. I'm just not rich enough to cosplay as Terry Richardson or Daido Moriyama anymore.

My conclusion with a heavy heart—and I say this as someone who has shredded a truly irrational amount of cash pursuing these point-and-shoots—is that you have basically three options. 1) Shoot these cameras to your heart's content, while setting aside a pile of money for repairing / replacing them. 2) Wear them as jewelry (but don't actually shoot them.) 3) Don't own these cameras at all.

Until some manufacturer gives us an actually good, new, small film point-and-shoot, I'm switching to hype-free cameras. For me, that means Canon EOS bodies (which are plentiful, reliable, and CHEAP). I brought my $20 Rebel Ti to Japan last year and while hiking it slipped out of my hand and literally rolled down the side of a mountain. The only thing that happened was the eyepiece comically flew off. Everything else kept working. My trip was saved. The photos were great. That's how it should be.