Jolt Country

I bought a Canon Digital Rebel XT a few years ago off eBay. It was used. It came with a bunch of good accessories. Well, a carrying case.

Recently it had been giving me an "Err 99" message. This is their catch all message. You don't actually get told what it is. It also does not take pictures when you get this flashing on the screen. I recharged both batteries and still got it. I took the small, circle-sized Lithium battery out and tested it, 3.0 volts just like what it was supposed to be. I changed out the batteries a couple more times ("Surely, it will work THIS time!") and now it doesn't power up at all.

I put it on eBay for $20.

I bought a new one, a Canon EOS Rebel T5. It seems nice! I didn't want to get another Canon one, but then I thought that the Digital Rebel I had was probably 10 years old. It does suck that a camera lasts 10 years and then just permanently dies like that -- and I could try to get it fixed, I guess -- but it was impossible to get a DSLR camera locally for the price I was OK with except for Canon. Oh well.

My Pentax Kx (the red one) is still going strong. It does this weird thing where whenever you replace the batteries, the camera won't turn on for a minute or two. Once I finally figured out what the deal was, it's not a big thing to deal with.

I only have two lenses for mine, the generic one it came with and the zoom lens I bought. I've had the zoom lens on for years. It's pretty much all I use. I'd like to get a macro lens and a fish eye lens, but when I look up prices ($500ish) I talk myself right back out of it.

I bought a red camera so I would never lose it. And that worked, I have never misplaced the thing. Unfortunately, every single person who sees me taking pictures in public comes over to ask me about it, and they always seem disappointed with the Pentax brand.

I bet there are camera snobs like there are snobs with everything else, but your photos always look nice when you put them on the Internet. And it doesn't fail to work, so advantage Pentax!

I do think I'll try to buy a tripod. A tripod seems like one of those things where if you tried to sell it, you'd be lucky to get $5, but if you try to buy one OHHHHHH these are premium items, $80 at minimum, please. I shall take a look on eBay.

(eBay update: I've had 8 people look at my broken camera. eBay is littered with broken cameras.)

I wish you lived closer. I bought two tripods from Walmart a few years ago for $20 each. I only needed one, but it seemed like the kind of thing that might break or that I might lose pieces to, so I bought two. And if I remember correctly, they had some cheap flimsy-ass tripods for $10 and then some sturdy, decent ones for $20, so I splurged. It's not like the cheap ones were $10 and the expensive ones were $1,000, you know? I know they sell great ones at camera stores for $50-$100, and those are probably magnificent and were made by companies you've heard of. I was looking for something hold my camera up on those few occasions where I lamented not being born with three arms. For me, the $20 ones performed fine.