Sad,Then Glad, Then Resigned, Now Hopeful

A couple weeks ago after photographing the tiny waterfall in Lake California, I dropped my Canon t3i in the miniscule creek that flows from it. Ugh! Aaak! Doom!
Well, I dried it out for a week and it won't autofocus but other than that it will take photos. Unfortunately, my vision isn't that great to determine when the picture is in focus; I heavily rely on the autofocus ability of my camera! Meanwhile I decided to upgrade to a weather sealed model and found a used one @ bandh for a good price.
I chose 3 day shipping, and while I waited I downloaded the manual and a kindle book by Doug Klosterman to get some idea how to use the new guy. Arrival day I actually was home at noon when it came, so charged the battery while I went out for the afternoon job. In the evening, then, I started shooting with the 7d. More buttons, more menu choices, same megapixel count, but focus was really fast and precise at times as I figured out how to use the 19 point system. Then it suddenly stopped working. I checked everything, changed the battery, switched cf cards, reset to factory settings, changed the lens-everything I could think of. Soon it started working again. hmmm. Figured it was user error somehow, what with the more complicated nature of the 7d versus the t3i. So over the next few days I happily shoot some hundreds more photos, trying all my lenses and got some really pretty shots of weeds in an empty lot and sunrise in the backyard.  Wednesday morning my schedule was open, so drove a little ways to get some peeling manzanita bark photos, and the ding dang camera freezes up again. Grrrr! this time it ain't me for sure. Fiddled around as b4. Nothing helped. Then suddenly fine again. Drove home, got tech support, they tried to help, but concluded as I had, that the camera is defective. Ok, bye. Sadly, it was only a brief affair.
 What next? While researching at the 7d I studied the 70d, too. It is a new release and has a completely new processor, wi-fi, touchscreen and cost an additional $200. It also has the articulated lcd which was missing (and missed!) on the 7d. So decided to spend the extra $ and ordered one. It will be here mon. I will have to make do with my broken t3i until then.

Osprey Parent Looking at Me!

Went out this evening for a while in Lake California and got a few decent photos of one of the osprey parents guarding the nest. This nest is on a new pole put up by PG&E this year to move the annual osprey nesting activity off the actual power pole.

Yeehaw! Mother's Day 2014

I went to the Cottonwood Rodeo on Mother's day, with a group of shutterbuggers.
Shasta Canon Photo Club is a friendly fun group that I am glad to have joined!  I used my longest lens, the Tamron 70-300 f8 @ 1/250 to1/400th of a second  but it wasn't really fast enough to capture the action. Should've asked, duh! Learned something and had fun, awesome day! And there were handsome cowboys and lovely cowgirls and beautiful horses as well. This was the first Mom's day I didn't spend with my son, who is  about to graduate from UCDavis.