One of the last pictures my F717 took before being dropped off for repair work tonight.

I hadn't meant to leave it tonight. When I bought the camera I had purchased the extended warranty with it, which included replacement of the battery if it died. The original battery was in the camera for over two years and I've taken thousands and thousands of pictures with it; it was no longer fully charging.

Anyway, I was just going to get the battery replaced. The camera itself still is in excellent condition, all things considered, but there were a couple of peripheral things that I had been meaning to get taken care of: the jog dial is getting a little jumpy, and the holo focus (that allows focusing in pitch-black conditions) wasn't working at all. The jog dial was more troublesome but only mildly so, as I rarely need to focus in low-light.

When I got there I decided that I didn't really want to put off getting those two issues taken care of any longer and handed my baby over for repair. Part of the reason I'd been holding off was that I didn't have another camera for backup -- now I do. There was no more reason to wait.

Still, my poor baby looked so lonely sitting there on the repair counter as I walked away...