Canon 20D; The obituary.

After dunking my faithful 20D in the ocean a few weeks back, I decided to send it to Canon and see if it was fixable. At first they quoted me $300 for the repair, based on (I guess) my description of the problem.

So I sent the camera in, hopeful. After receiving it and actually looking at the guts, they determined there was "Severe liquid damage to the internal parts. Cost
of repair is equal to replacement value. Unit is beyond economical
repair. We are, therefore, returning your equipment to you un-repaired". I received the dead unit back today.

Bummer. Good thing there I had "Idiot Insurance".

So, on to "Plan B", I suppose. Dissection of the 20D as described here (note: it's a PDF):

www.customslr.com/technical/EOS_20D_Parts%20Catalog.pdf

It probably won't accomplish much besides satisfying my curiosity of what lies inside the little magic black box. But there's not much else to do with it at this point. An who knows, maybe with some rinsing in tap water, something will revive. I know, doubtful. It's far more likely I'll end up with a dozen little zip-lock bags of parts. (I plan on putting one PDF-page-worth of dissected parts per zip-lock bag, so reassembly is at least theoretically possible. Theoretically.

Ready?...GO!

This post is like one of those episodes of "Lost" where they summarize the whole season in a single hour...

Aiight, many weeks (months?) since my last post. Busy beyond reason. Here's my "season summary":

--Finished the planning of, and participated in, the perfect wedding to the perfect girl (awww). Complete with slideshow.

--Went on a 10 day honeymoon to Maui. Vacation...fantastic. 12 hours in the airplane each way...not so much. But it was a good enough reason for me to buy a fancy new iPod. Welcome to 2001. I love the bleeding edge.

--Biked down a volcano on a too-small 60lb beachcomber while wearing a bigass motorcycle helmet.

--Snorkled with sea turtles



--Watched the sunset (and sunrise...different days) from the top of a 10,000' volcano.



--Saw a sugarcane harvest, where they flash-burn acres of sugarcane fields creating mushroom clouds (and tons of smoke and soot all over the island).



--Saw the grave of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh on the absolute ass-end of Maui (but oh, what a scenic ass-end it is!).



--Snorkeled at Molokini...extra cool, half-eroded volcanic crater just off of Maui.

--3 or 4 days into the trip, I dunked my 20D in the Pacific right about here, killing it. Worst part about it is that I had to spend the remaining week of our trip with an extra-crappy semi-underwater point-and-shoot. The resulting shots were not pretty. Anyway, here's the final shot (at least it was a nice one). My girl, in the rain, in front of a rainbow while stopped along the Hana Highway in NE Maui. Shot number 16,932. Only two years old. Last frame of the 20D. Farewell, friend.



--Filed an insurance claim for my soggy camera.

--Bought a new 30D. Hello, new friend!

--Did tons of other fantastic, touristy things on Maui, but I can't remember any more. Besides, my eyes are going crossed from looking at this computer screen all day.

--Came back to an office moving in two weeks (that was two weeks ago).

--Moved the office this past weekend. Including new phone system, new phone service, new network hardware, and countless glitches. Today was the first day back for the users. Oh man. I need a vacation.