√Edinburgh break - Roslin Area

We enjoyed a short city-type break near Edinburgh earlier in the week.

A few pages give some details and photos.
They can be found, lower down, to the right of this blog.

Camera:

I bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ72 Bridge Camera, 3 years ago, when I first started this blog.

A few weeks ago it developed a fault.
The zoom would stick, mid-zoom and a message 'Turn the camera off and on again' would appear.
This solved the problem for a short time before the zoom stuck again and the 'on-off' rigmarole was repeated.

I took the camera to Bradford Camera Exchange and they sent it off to a camera specialist in the midlands, somewhere.
The camera needed a new middle frame assembly and a cam frame assembly (whatever these are) at an estimated cost of £120.00
I complained to Panasonic, the manufacturers and I received a 'very sorry but........' letter in reply.
Needless to say I'm not forking out £120 on a repair when a new version of the same camera can be had from Curry's for £200 now.

In it's defence, the camera has been used 5 out of 7 days most weeks for it's 3 years life on the planet, so It has had a bit of stick- but I am still disappointed in the camera's reliability.

The camera was chosen in the first place because of it's very light weight and with my bins and 4/5 hours walking stints, I cannot carry a big heavy job.

I am sure there must be better cameras out there but the ones I've looked at are:

a) To big and heavy
b) Too expensive.

In just wondered if 3 years life is to be expected in these days of throw away electronic goods?