Road Story - 1

The first of the summer roses are out and looking lovely, though very wet as we have had rain for the past 3 or 4 days. I should be working on a paying project right now, so I am going to post the first of the road trip stories. These were mentionned in the road trip post, but not in any detail.



Dropping The Camera



Just after Christmas 2005, maybe in January 2006, I bought a Nikon 5900 point & shoot camera. This was our first digital camera so there was a fair amount of research and trepidation involved in the decision to buy. The decision took a bit of time, a few weeks, enough that when I went to purchase the camera I found it had been discontinued three days prior. But we found one in stock and away we went. This was the camera I used throughout the Italy trip of 2006.



But even as I bought the camera, I had other diabolical plans. Dana had bought a Nikon D200 that quickly became her favourite. Her other camera, a D70s, was obviously on a limited-time stay. And Penny was still using her Nikon film camera, the one she had been using for years, the one that fell on the sidewalk somewhere (my recollection is New Orleans, Penny's differs), had the lens fall out, and has worked pretty well thereafter once Penny just pushed the whole lens module back into the camera. The outcome was obvious: I use the 5900, Penny gets to see how well it works and how easy it is to operate, Dana buys a new favourite camera, Dad buys the old D70 and Bob's your uncle.



And that is just about what happened. I started using the D70 sometime in 2008, and Penny started playing with the 5900 about the same time. So the 5900 was Penny's camera.



But I didn't want to take the D70 and lenses and stuff on the road. Travel light, keep the worries low. So the 5900 went on the road and got used a few times in Wisconsin and Illinois. There were many times on the road when I should have stopped and documented the wonderous sights, but I didn't do any of that.



So now we are in Florida, sitting with Seppo on the balcony overlooking Crystal River as it drains the aquifers, through the marshes, past the dolphins and manitee into the Gulf of Mexico (west coast of Flroida). A lovely afternoon of heat and humidity, sunshine punctuated by afternoon thunderheads. Some breezes; a few boats moving up and down the river, but only a few as this is Thursday afternoon; a beer or rum or wine, or maybe some of each; starting to unwind and find the old arguements, inevitable when redneck Republican chats with pinko liberal. Life is good. I take a picture of Sep in his best Lord Of The Manor pose. Sep says he will take a picture of me with the river and the $4 million cottages in the background. I pass Sep the camera, he reaches out for it and I snag my finger in the wrist strap and yank the camera back. It crashes to the cement floor, landing on one corner.



The camera looks fine, it turns on, we can see the pictures. Yea, everything is OK. So, take a picture. Oops, the shutter doesn't shutter. Nada. So no more pictures as I return to TO.



Back home, I take the camera to Nikon in Mississauga. Several days laterI go back and retrieve it, unfixed. Cost to fix is too much, so we go into research mode again. Penny needs a digital camera. From an extensive list of possibilities, we get a Canon PowerShot A1000, now discontinued . Penny is using it in Montreal today after reading some of the manual on the train yesterday.



And that is the story on the dead Nikon 5900. Now, to work.