racchi.com.au

A few weeks ago I was talking to one of my closest friends when I declared that if ever she chose to christen/baptise her child, that I wanted to be the godfather!  Little was I to know how soon it was to happen.  Somehow though, the Marlin Brando version of The Godfather was not what I had in mind.

What am I talking about I hear you ask? Well recently I was unfortunate enough to send my beloved canon 30d to swim with the fishes. Now granted, it was an accident, and granted I didn’t want to see the end of that camera, but I still feel bad about it none the less.

A recent event with Ken Duncan, world renowned photographer, didn’t go so swimmingly for me (boom tish). After leaving the main group of photographers listening to Ken talk (we couldn’t hear him, hence why we went out on our own), we found ourselves on rocks at the sea side, preparing to attempt to take some passable photos. (Slightly hard when there were probably over two hundred other photographers there as well). At one point, while gingerly making my way over the rocks and searching out the slippery spots, I managed to miss one. Well, more accurately, I found it. The hard way. Legs and arms went flying, and the beloved camera was suddenly flying through the air.

Have you ever noticed that camera equipment bounces quite well? No? I don’t recommend you trying, just take my word for it.

My camera, having seen much better days.

Unfortunately, my camera bounced three times and ended up in a shallow pool of sea water. I was quick to get up, recover most of my gear, and quickly remove the batteries from the battery grip. One of them anyway. The other had gone AWOL, along with the battery cover that I had conveniently stored in that little spot in the grip.

This would be me draining the water out of my gear. Thanks to David Reed for supplying the image.

Now the short of the story is that when i got home, I quickly plonked all of the wet gear in a box of rice and left it a few days, but my camera unfortunately didn’t survive. The shiny new lens that I had on it did however! At least that is some small mercy.

Some things that I learnt, that if you find yourself in the same situation may help:

1. Cameras should be on the fancy camera strap you have. Unfortunately I had my tripod hanging from the strap as I was sick of carrying it around.
   I’m not entirely convinced it would have helped in my particular instance, as the way I fell I probably would have landed on it anyway.
2. Get the batteries out of the camera as quickly as possible.
   I did this, however have since found another battery in the camera. It is the little button cell that lets your camera remember the date and all its settings when there is no main battery in.
3. As soon as possible, put it in a box of rice and/or those little silica gel baggies that you should store with your gear to remove moisture from the air.
4. When buying bags of rice from the service station on your way home, check for weevils before you buy it. It’s a pain to have to go through and remove and kill them all
5. Be careful of the “rice dust”. You don’t want it inside your camera if it survives. I sifted or strained my rice first, which had a duel purpose. (See #4)
6. BE PATIENT. Let the gear dry for at least a few days. I waited about 5 days.

Some other things/ideas that may assist you:

1. L series lenses are hard to justify for most, myself included. This was my first, but boy did it pay for itself. They are TUFF buggers. My lens didn’t have a scratch on it. They are also apparently water tight. I have no doubt that if I had one of my Sigma lenses on, they would not have survived quite as well.
2. Don’t expect sympathy from your friends. DO expect them to laugh and deride you, and expect them to ask you to do it again, so that this time they can photograph it!
3. When photographing near the seaside, take a change of clothing with you and leave it in the car. I was wet for about four hours, in jeans. Yuck.
4. Keep an eye out for brown moss on rocks, that’s the ones that will cause you to slip and fall because you are less likely to see it.
5. So far, I dont believe Changing shoes would have helped. I had really grippy shoes on that night, with tread that went in all angles.
6. I’ve taken photos of all of the serial numbers of every piece of camera gear that I use and take out in the field with me. This is more in case of theft. I store these images in a program called Evernote. This allows me to have them available no matter where I am, and no matter what device I am on. As long as I have an internet connection, I have access to the images. Always helpful for police reports. Evernote is also a really great place to store recipes, do research with etc. I thoroughly recommend it even if you don’t use this tip.
7. Scan all of your receipts/Invoices and store them with the photos of serial numbers etc. Again, I use Evernote to do this. This will make it much easier to find your receipts are needed, i.e. in the case of an insurance claim. I had not done this and I am now in the process of searching my filing cabinets for receipts.
8. Ensure that all of your equipment is listed on your contents insurance policy. I am lucky that my L series lens is still ok, as I had not gotten around to listing this on the insurance. Most insurance companies will automatically cover you for some items when taking them from the home, however they will only cover you to a certain amount. If you have the items specifically listed, your will be covered for more of the costs.
9. Keep a copy of your insurance papers in Evernote with the camera images and receipts. If you are concerned with privacy of this sort of document “in the cloud” as you rightly should be, there are a number of encryption programs out there that will allow you to encrypt the file before putting it in Evernote. Just don’t forget your encryption key.

You may have noticed I’m fond of evernote.  My wife certainly did when going through and correcting my typing.  So in answer to her question, NO this page has NOT been sponsored by them.

Now, has anyone heard when the new Canon 5D Mark III is due for release?  I seem to be in the market for a new camera.

———–

As an update on this, my insurer made me get a professional opinion on the camera before they would proceed. I sent it to canon who wrote it off saying it was beyond economical repair. Once I had the email from Canon saying that, NRMA swiftly approved a replacement body and battery grip. I currently have a 60D winging it’s way to me. One thing to keep in mind however is that NRMA use JB Hifi as it’s replacement service. While this would be ok normally, I get the feeling that the camera being sent out is a grey import and NOT an Australian stocked item. This may mean that if you are with NRMA and get a replacement, you may have issues with Canon service down the track.