I left for Utah on Tuesday (10/3/06) and reached the Oregon-California border on US 199 at noon on Thursday. At the border I wanted to duplicate a photo of the "Welcome to California" sign (previous photo) I took in 1966. During the photo stop my camera died. What had been an intermittent problem for a few months became an unending nightmare: the camera would not respond to any exposure settings I used. Most images were way too light or too dark. Manual mode, my favorite shooting preference, was of no help. Bummer!
I spent an hour trying to get a decent photo of the sign, which is across the road from this driveway pavement (one of a zillion test shots). Finally I accepted the fact that this was actually happening, that my trip was in jeopardy, and that I was wasting my time fooling with the camera. I returned home and compiled technical details about the D70s, D80, and D200. On Saturday I bought a D80 and I loved it from the start!---it was much better than the D100. With the D80 I resumed the trip to Utah.
In spite of this disaster, the three days had some nice moments: a pleasant afternoon sail on the Columbia River with PBasers Dan Dunn and Warthog2100; a nice lunch chat with PBaser fotabug; discovering a neat use for an LED headlamp; and watching two raccoons foraging for food at night in a canal in Eugene, Oregon.
Joe Tripod is partially visible in the photo: in addition to the shadows of his legs, one leg is visible at right (the strap of the case goes around his foot).
|