My camera started malfunctioning a few months ago. Even when the battery was fully charged, the camera sometimes wouldn’t turn on. Even worse, it would occasionally turn off while I was using it.
At first I thought the battery was at fault, so I bought a new one, but the problems continued. Then my husband looked on-line to see if other people had posted about similar problems. They had. It was a known defect for my camera model. The inside of the camera doesn’t make good contact with the battery, so the camera assumes the lack of power is caused by a low battery.
One thing I like about Canon is that they’ll fix known defects for free, even if the warranty period is long over. They’ll even pay for the shipping. They did this for me once before. I was very pleased with the customer service and with the repair work. They probably made me a Canon customer for life. It’s why my current camera is also a Canon. And sure enough, when I called them earlier this week, they offered to fix this problem for free, too.
We shipped the camera to them Thursday. It had been gone only a few hours before I missed it. I saw the cutest bird on my doorstep. There are always adorable birds nearby, but they’re hard to spot unless they move. They’re small and well-camouflaged. But this one was adorably plump and he was standing against a snowy background, easy to see. I reached for my camera and was crushed when I remembered that it was gone.
It would not be the last time I’d miss my camera that day. Later I went outside with Marshall to play in the snow. He was digging a zigzagging path across the front yard that he called his “maze.” I asked if he wanted any help. He ordered me to keep the animals off the path, which was not exactly a demanding task, since there weren’t any animals around. So I was free to do other things, but there was nothing to do!
My feet freeze faster when I’m bored. I needed to move around, so I decided to play a game of What If I Had a Camera? I thought the nearly monochromatic landscape might make it tough to find subjects, but it didn’t. Had I been able to, I would have snapped pictures of the half moon in a frosty winter sky, a thorny plant with blue (!) fruit, animal tracks in the snow, and later, Livia gleefully digging a tunnel into the snowbank.
I’m astounded at how dependent I’ve become on my camera. I don’t always take good pictures, but I still feel the need to keep trying. I feel like I’m missing a limb now, or a good friend. Thank goodness I only have to wait 5-7 business days to get it back!