Thursday, February 21, 2008

My camera... she is broken

How's this for a case of "life sucks": that new Canon Rebel XTi digital camera I got the other week? It's broken. Oh, it still takes pictures just fine. Nothing serious or catastrophic. But the eject button for the CompactFlash memory card is defunct. It just sits flush in its casing (it ought to protrude slightly) and does nothing when I press it in hopes of ejecting the CF card. This ticks me off to no end. Now I have to bundle the camera up and ship it off to either Amazon for replacement or Canon for repair. It won't cost me anything, since it's under warranty either way. But I'll be without for two weeks, minimum. Curses!

But I've been playing with it nonetheless. I'll be a terror once I figure out what I'm doing--my photographic technical expertise is just this side of nil. I'm reading, practicing and bit by bit teaching myself how to take photos in something other than the automatic default settings. I'm also training my eye to spot potentially nifty shots. I'm not terribly good at it yet, I admit, but the other day I wandered around campus and took a heck of a lot of pictures. Nothing even approaching good, but there were a couple of interesting photos in the final analysis. Below is a cypress knee in one of the ornamental fish ponds outside of my building. The form was quite arresting. Nothing dramatic, but it's got an unusual shape and lots of texture.

Cypress_small


This next photo is of cypress roots. Several of the ponds on campus (which used to be part of a federal fish hatchery) have been drawn down for the winter to kill off an over-abundance of algae. This has exposed a fascinating tangle of cypress roots along the shoreline that's not usually visible. I suspect early morning would give me better colors and contrast with this perspective. I didn't quite get the depth of field I wanted, either. And on top of everything, there that nasty little lens flare in the pic as well. Still, not bad for a novice who is sadly lacking his lusted-for wide-angle zoom (Canon 10-22, I'm lookin' at you).

Cypress_sm2


This weekend I plan on taking bunches of crappy pics in the hopes one or two might be worth something. Then Monday I'll ship my baby off to be fixed or replaced. Did I mention how crappy it is to have a new camera with a broken piece?

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