Today's walk report: 061113

I am a camera...

New camera came today. I lost sleep over this decision but because of my issues with my 2-year old Canon T3i, realizing it wasn't something which was going to get fixed and feeling pretty miserable about not having a decent camera anymore, I plugged the plug and ordered a new one. For the first time in my life I also bought the 3-year "drops and spills" 3rd party warranty. It's a big expense for me, really... I'm trying to be ultra-conservative about money right now. But I'm happy to be taking pictures again without compromising for the flaws produced by a permanently spotted sensor. Some of the story is here.

So, yeah... I took photos. Pretty much just getting the feel for the camera. Originally I was going to get the same model I had which is a Canon T3i but the more I thought about it the less sense it made. The T3i now being two generations removed from the current Canon top of the consumer lineup, the T5i. Since the T5i was $50 less than it's predecessor the T4i I went with the T5i. I might point out some differences in future posts but right now I'm going to get some pics up and then relax. It's been a long day.

I started about 30 feet out the front door. I couldn't wait to take a picture...

Coreopsis

One thing, I wasn't going to point out if I'm focusing stacking or not... However, I'll mention, the T3i shoots a burst of 3.7 fps. The T5i shoots bursts at 5 fps. That difference immediately felt huge.

The last image and this one too, I don't have an ID on. Both are in what has been designated as the Australian native section of the garden.

Return of the Kangaroo paws. I was intentionally shooting stuff I've shot before.

I have frequently looked for a chair so I could prop myself close to something to shoot or a particualar spot to wait (usually for hummingbirds.) This is going a lot farther than I ever hoped for.

 

 Stink bug walking cautiously.

 

 One at a time?

Cactus Uranus.

Into The Lens by Yes.

Today's walk report: 052713

Technical difficulties...

I had taken 543 pictures out and about the house today and didn't really think much about the last few being really bad. I guess what had crossed my mind was, "it's a fluke." Through the lens, everything appeared fine. But the 358 photos during my walk proved it was no fluke since they were all wasted. I didn't see I was getting an error because I look though the viewfinder, not at the LCD. When I got home, after my heart sunk looking at my pictures, I saw I was getting a "shutter" error 30 and the instructions from Canon are turn the camera on and off or take the battery out and if that doesn't fix it then you need to send it in to Canon. Starting that process I find... $204 (plus shipping I'll assume) and maybe it'll cost more?!? Plus I have to worry about recycled products, etc...

The camera is about 4 months shy of its 2nd birthday so... distressing. I decided to take the battery out, fully charged it and ran another test... the problem persisted. Of all things I took the lens off and gave it an internal blast of compressed air from about 9" away. I'm not even sure why I chose to do this but I did. There's a huge improvement and I no longer get the error but  I still see some distortion.  RATS! (not my 1st choice of words.)

This is an adjusted image, since the shutter was staying open too long among whatever other crap was/is going on everything is overexposed. The marks which look like water drops are the same type of distortion which is still happening just to a much lesser degree. I might have to live with this for awhile and... fix it in post.

One noteworthy event on the walk and then I'm going to sulk over my camera...

This is a grasshopper struggling, drowning even, in the small dedication pond in the garden...

This is the same grasshopper shaking himself off after I scooped him out with one of the plant markers nearby...

If there are any good karma points for doing that please apply them directly to my Canon T3i camera. Thank you.