This and that

The camera has been intermittent with the "Err 99" error since I cleaned the lens contacts and contacts on the body of the camera. I gave them a good cleaning and it's only happened once since. We checked our camera receipt and the camera was purchased on February 20th, 2010. So, it was just 3 days short of being outside the warranty when we contacted Canon. The camera has to be shipped to Mississauga on Tuesday so I'll be without for a couple of weeks at least (depending what Canon tech department finds).

I've been taking a lot of pictures around the house to try to get the error to return, here are a couple of samples (none with my youngest daughter in this batch...couldn't catch her while she was awake!).

Scott, the return of "Err 99" and Windy Photo Session, Part 2

I've been meaning to link to my buddy Scott's blog. Check it out here, he has some amazing shots! Scott is the one that I went on the photo shoot with last weekend.

"Err 99" has returned on our camera. I'm putting in a call to Canon tech support tomorrow. I know that everyone is glued to their seats waiting to find out what happens, so I'll let you know once I talk to them! All kidding aside, I'm really hoping that it won't cost us too much (the camera is 3 days short of a year old, so hopefully it's still under warranty and won't cost us anything).

Below are a couple more shots from the weekend.

Err 99 and part 1 of the photo shoot

I ran into a bit of trouble yesterday during the shoot. Not only was Lethbridge experiencing hurricane force winds (seriously, the winds gusted up to 130 km/hr....see one of the pics below for proof) but I had an error pop up on my camera that I've never seen before.

Now, the great thing about modern electronics is that they are so affordable that pretty much anyone can save up for something like a DSLR camera in a relatively short time frame. The trouble with modern electronics is that they are built cheap...so that everyone can afford them! On the other hand, since so many people have various electronics, when you do run into a problem, chances are that many others have had the same problem. Which brings us back to the aforementioned error, or "Err 99" as it is known in the Canon world.

The error popped up on the camera once or twice yesterday and took a battery removal to reset it every time. Just slightly disheartening. It seemed fine for most of the day afterward. Then, today, my wife went to use the camera and the same error popped up and would clear on restart, only to pop up again when we tried to shoot another picture. It happened over and over until the camera wouldn't even shoot a picture. So, we did what anyone would do in that situation, we googled the problem. We found this site, which turned out to be extremely valuable. I'll save you all the details but we tried the first few steps in his troubleshooting process and eventually got the camera up and running (for now, anyway) after cleaning the lens contacts with a pencil eraser. For all you Canon users (current or future), take note of that site as it appears to be an extremely common problem with new Canon cameras.

All that aside, below are a few of the photos from the shoot. I'm still learning lots but I ended up with quite a few that I'm happy with. I traded lenses with my photog buddy that I went with so I'll post the rest of the photos taken with his lens later this week. Any comments or critiques are welcome.









(See, I wasn't kidding about the wind!)

Gear

Up until about a year ago, I had only used Canon Powershots and a Samsung L74 ( fully automatic "point and shoot"). The Samsung was used to take the pictures of the camera that my wife and I upgraded to (pictured below). It's a Canon EOS Rebel XS. We also bought a 50 mm, 1.8 minimum aperture lens to go with it. It's a great, inexpensive lens that works wonders for getting up close portrait shots of our family.



This weekend, I rented a wide angle lens from Lethbridge Lens Rentals . The lens is a EF-S 10-22 mm, 3.5 - 4.5 (the pictures of this lens were taken with the 50mm on the Rebel, check out the difference!). I'm taking the rented wide angle lens out for a shoot with a photography buddy from work tomorrow. Stay tuned for some pics from that later in the week!

Transmitter Site Shots

I'm trying to collect some photos for the wall in my office. I've decided on the guitar shot from the first post and now need at least one more. I've been to the radio transmitter site that I maintain a couple of times in the last week and got some good shots while I was there. Even though there are only 4 of you who read this blog (okay, 3 if I don't count my self!), your thoughts on your favorite (if you have one) would be appreciated. Keep in mind, I took over an office at work that used to be a studio and it's very, very blue.

Petit Chats

One of my family's cats, Charlie

Kitty #2, Robbie.

Second blog, take one

A Picture of the guts (circuit board) to an old Viking radio found on our family farm many years ago. The radio has been dated to circa 1934.



My guitar, that I never get to play anymore!

Stay tuned for more!