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