It’s BROKEN!!!!

My camera broke. Today. I can’t even believe it. Well, I sorta can. Apparently, the digital Rebel is supposed to last for 10-20,000 shots (the shutter only lasts that long) and I have significantly more than that. I’m probably in the 30,000 range. I have had the camera for almost 5 years! So it has well surpassed my expectations. I was wrapping up the shoot with Billy, and I got the dreaded Error 99 message. I tried all the tricks that are listed in various places online for fixing it, but I just know it’s the shutter- I can hear it. It just won’t take any pictures. None. At. All.

I dropped it off to my camera store in town. Mark told me it will be 4-6 weeks until I even know what is wrong with it and how much it will cost to fix. Yes, 4-6 WEEKS. I am having serious separation anxiety. I have never been apart from my camera for that long since I got it. Oy.

For those of you who have upcoming shoots with me, don’t worry. I have a backup plan. Well, two plans actually. One, I borrowed my good friend Beth’s digital rebel body tonight so I will have that for tommorrow’s shoot. Thank you so much Beth- I owe you as usual. I still have all my lenses and flash cards, and speedlight, so I’m good to go (and I even got my lenses cleaned today-so they are all sparkly and clear!). Two, my very wonderful parents bought me a new camera YESTERDAY. Talk about good timing! I will be getting the Canon 30D by the end of this week. Woohoo!!!! So either my current camera died from overuse or because it was so sad it is becoming the backup camera. So, once it is fixed, I will have a really good backup camera to take with me on all my shoots. I usually end up borrowing Beth’s for those "non-do-over" shoots (ie. parties, the wedding, anything that there is no rescheduling for) as my backup, but sometimes she needs her camera too!

So that’s my sad story for today. At least it didn’t die during or before a shoot when it would have been REALLY bad.

Off to a newborn shoot tommorrow morning- I’m really excited for that one. It’s Mrs. P- the same one I did the maternity shoot for, now the baby (girl) is here. Look for pictures soon.