Water brings death, Ebay could bring life

I'm wondering now, what I should do.

Here's the story.

I'm off in Australia, having a great time and taking a million pictures as per usual. I'm getting some great shots and having lots of fun as the end of my time in Australia is fast approaching. A few days before I'm slated to fly home, I'm gearing up to go surfing with a bunch of people from the Contiki bus tour that I'm currently on. I really want to get some great surfing shots if I can, so I take my camera down to the beach and leave it way up on shore while we go out for our surf lesson. At this time I'm thinking that I'll surf for a while and as the end of our time on the water comes up, I'll head in a bit early, grab my camera, and take a bunch of pictures before we all call it a day (morning actually...we got up at 7am or so in order to get some surfing in before the bus was scheduled to leave). And that's exactly what happened. We all went surfing. Had a great time. And at the end I went and grabbed my camera from the shore, ran out to the edge of the water, and started snapping away.

It's always a bit risky with salt water because it is ridiculously corrosive...so if it gets on any electronics, you're pretty much hooped. So, I was trying to be extra careful. But there was someone who decided they were done for the day who was coming in from the water, and they stumbled not far from where I was and ended up splashing me with a considerable amount of salt water from their stumble-kick of the water. A bit of water got on my camera, and I quickly wiped it off with my shirt and dry hands. What I hadn't noticed was that a few drops got in and around one of the buttons, so as I was pressing those buttons taking more pictures and adjusting settings, I was probably pushing that little bit of water inside the camera body.

I continued snapping away and everything seemed fine. I got some really fun shots thanks to my 200mm zoom lens and polarizing filter on the end. And I would even go so far as to say that my pictures are better than the "professional photographer's" pictures in terms of colour quality, framing, and capturing of great moments. Ya, I'm a pretty big deal.

But later that day I pulled my camera out and found that pretty much nothing worked. It was dead. Later that evening I investigated my camera body and pulled off the cover with some borrowed mini-screwdrivers that someone had in their glasses repair kit. Apparently, that little bit of salt water dripped in onto the exact spot where the main processor is...corroding a bunch of the connection points and pretty much frying the whole motherboard. Yes, these cameras are really just mini computers inside (other than the moving parts and mirrors and stuff).

So at some point, my travel insurance might be able to replace the camera for me. But I couldn't wait for that, so I went out searching for another camera body and found that London Drugs had an open box deal on a camera body that was the same model as my (now dead) camera. So I snapped that up for $300 which is pretty much half the price of what it was brand new when I got it.

But now, I'm looking on Ebay and seeing some Rebel XT's being sold for parts for about $50. Is it worth it for me to try and buy some camera parts and fix my old camera? The parts might not even be able to fix it...I'm not sure. I have until November 4th to decide because that is when the auction ends....but it would be great to be able to fix my old camera....we shall see.

Anyways, that's the epic story with a cliff-hanger for the end. To be continued next time....

PS: Here is a link to the last pictures that were ever taken with my Rebel XT...

MojoSurfCamp

High Altitudes

For the few days that Peter was back in BC over the summer we decided to go for a drive up to Smithers. On the way, we made a detour to Camp Morice to visit with Richard and Jackie and take a walk around the camp. I think it's been a few years since Peter has been there. But after Camp Morice we took off to Smithers to meet up with Adam and Myrica and have a quick visit. I had also heard of the waterfalls that were at the base of Smither Mountain, so we made it a priority to get there and check them out even though the weather was not stellar.

The hike up there was very interesting and had some really cool scenery because of the weather, clouds, fog, mist, etc. It made for some really cool shots as the sun started to break through the cloud and light up only parts of the trail and surrounding mountains and cliffs.

The falls were pretty great and they had quite the drop from the cliff to the landing zone, but a side effect of that is that it produces a lot of mist. So, I was a bit hesitant to pull out my camera and have it get all wet...hence no picture of the falls. I had a little bit of trouble with water and my camera over the summer, but that's another story.

Anyways, we also hiked up above the falls to try and get to the glacier above (where all the water was coming from). And there were some pretty cool mini-falls along the way. The picture to the left is a good shot of the water, mist/cloud, and rusty rocks as we were nearing the top.


Lastly, here is a picture near the top with a peek to a peak that is in the distance. It was quite the surprise to see this extra peak as we got near the glacier.

A couple other things that I remember about the hike:

1. My camera gear and tripod are heavy
2. I am out of shape
3. High altitude really does affect oxygen intake.

Cheers,
Andrew

Hixon Falls

A few weeks ago, Tyler and I went out to Hixon falls to take some pictures for the morning. We got some pretty good shots over the 3 or 4 hours that we were at the falls and the chutes. There were some pretty good photo ops on the other side of the falls, so I checked it out while Tyler documented my potential demise (the pic above is one of Tyler's....thanks man). Over all, I am pretty happy with the shots that we got. Tyler got some pretty fun shots of me while I was goofing around being a bit dangerous around the rocks and cliffs, and I got some pretty cool shots of him looking intense. The new header picture of my blog is also from the falls. I might post a few of those pictures over the coming days depending on my free time.

True Canadian

I feel pretty good about being Canadian. Dad, Tony, and I went out back several years ago and decided to plant a Maple tree in our back yard. A truly Canadian thing to do. And now after a few years, the tree is doing very well and looking mighty fine in the fall as the leaves change colour. The other day, the sun was shining in just right and the tree looked pretty cool, so I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. Here is my favourite:


I have been starting to collect all my old photos from hikes in Canada that I've been on, and I was thinking that I'd eventually put together a slideshow of all the awesome scenery that I've seen. We will see if that comes together or not, but it would be pretty fun to do.

Let the fun begin

Hey,
So I'm going to add some cool things that I've been doing to my blog now and then.

Here is a picture that I was playing around with for my uncle. He's doing a fund raiser called "Catch Me If You Can" which is to raise money for the Salvation Army to buy food for hungry people in Prince George. The event is basically a night of video game racing on the XBox, PS2, PS3, and Wii. There will be a bunch of prizes and fun stuff going on all night.

Here are the details before I get to the picture:
When: October 24th 2008, 7pm
Where: The Hub Ministry Centre - 1557 3rd Ave
Cost: Driver $14, Spectator $6

• Race with Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2 and PS3
• 5 Major Sponsored Races
• Prizes - 1st 2nd & 3rd for each race
• Overall Championship Prizes
• Pizza and pop included
• Additional Concessions Items Available

Info about the picture: In my brother's Corvette, fisheye lens on my Canon Rebel XT, Flash connected via off-camera flash cord sitting on the dash to camera right.