Back in 2003, I had the privilege of attending a leadership seminar organized by Haggai Institute in Singapore and while there, I was able to buy a simple Mercury digital camera with 3.1 megapixels. The price was within my reach so I bought it. It was not just a camera, it was also a webcam—very handy. This was during the time when laptops did not yet have built-in webcams. It was also able to record sound—audio only—if you want to, aside from being able to take videos as well. It was a great camera until it finally gave up on me after several years and its features began to become obsolete with the coming of newer digital cameras.

Above is a sample of a close-up shot of my wife’s waling-waling. She had several varieties of this kind of orchid when we were still living in Davao City. I was amazed myself that it was able to take a very sharp, close-up photo of this flower. It has a close-up feature by the way. I took this shot when this camera was still very new. I did not use any tripod—just hand-held and I kept myself steady. And yet the photo came out to be very sharp.

Here’s another shot of a dendrobium just after the rain—another variety of my wife’s orchid collection in Davao. Not as sharp but still quite lovely just the same.

Mercury is a camera brand name which I think is unheard of unlike Canon, Sony or Nikon for example. But I’m glad I was able to enjoy my Mercury digital camera for a good number of years from the year 2003 to about 2010—some seven years! It’s now part of my old camera collection.