Tuesday, January 31, 2012

An accident

It was a cold morning and despite my gloves, hat and scarf I was cold on my walk to the BOE (Board of Education, like a school district). I had to pick up the car so I could use it to get to some of my schools that are outside the area where I actually live.

My mittens are a little bit big for my hands and despite being size small, I often feel like I’m trying to do things while wearing oven mitts – big and awkward.

As I began to open the garage door, my purse began to slip down my arm. With an oven mitt-ed hand, I tried to save it. Despite my attempt, my mittens did not want to go with it.

My purse hit the ground.

I didn’t think anything of it, because I didn’t hear any crashes or cracks. Then I stopped outside to take a photo of this mail box, I mean how often, in Portland, do we need to dig our mailboxes out of a pile of snow that is twice as tall?

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As I spun the zoom to get just the right angle, I noticed a shadow that seemed to move with my lens. Why, I wondered, was there a shadow on the lens? (see photo above)

And then I realized that in dropping my purse this morning, I also dropped my camera! < insert thoughts of: "I haven't even had this camera for a year!", "Do I replace the lens or get a 50mm prime to make up for the small amount of lost range?", etc. >

I headed inside to inspect the damage. It seemed, from me looking at the camera, that the only thing I did was destroy the filter.

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As I left, I went to take some more pictures. It was a gorgeous day and I was in one of the prettiest areas of town. I went to zoom in and my once 18-55 mm lens had decided it wanted to be a 18-47mm lens – it wouldn't zoom all the way in.

After another small panic, I zoomed all the way out and then back in. Thankfully, when I zoomed back in, it fixe the problem and I haven’t had a problem since.

So glad I followed my friend, N’s advice and kept a filter on my camera!

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Inspecting the damage:

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In the end, it seems the only thing I really damaged was a filter. Thankfully, I had a mix up in lens sizes when I bought my camera and accidentally bought two in the size my camera calls for. I was back in business after a quick stop at home!