I sent out my camera Express Post on Jan 30th after work. So I assumed that the package would get processed and then sent out by the latest Monday Feb 4 and then the repair shop should get my camera by Friday, I even gave then a extra day or two since Express Post is 2–3 days.

After tracking my package I see that it is out for delivery in Mississauga on Feb 4^th. Sweet they are early even better. Over the next 3 days the status is still the same. So I email the repair contact I have to see if they have recieved my camera yet. After a few back and forths they tell me they still haven’t received it. There goes all my excitement about the efficiency of Canada Post.

After the next weekend I get an email from the repair company saying that they contacted Canada Post and the package is on its way and it should be there in a day or two. Again, monday … not delivered, tuesday … not delivered. Finally on wednesday I get an email saying they have received the package.

An Express Post 2–3 day package ended up taking almost 2 weeks. What an effeicent and well oiled machine Canada Post is. Now if this was any other company I would gbe able to phone up and complain and get my money back or some sore of sorry but with Canada Post it seems I have to start a Delayed Package inquiry. So off I go and do this, I actually did this on friday 6 days before the package was delivered.

I get a response back from my online submission of this inquiry and it says that someone will contact me within 5 business days about this. Oh great more waiting, just what I like. Are they hoping that I go away and forget about how inept they are. I am sure this works for most people. They get frustrated and just forget about this annoying problem.

As of today I still haven’t had a response back from Canada Post so I guess I wait. If I don’t hear something by monday I am going to get a bit more aggressive about this.

Now the wait to see how long it is going to take for my camera to be repaired and returned.

At the moment I am in the middle of reading Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography (Updated Edition). The book has been helping me discover some of the composition concepts of photography that I may not have known about or that I needed a more detail on. So I am going to be focusing on each of the techniques for a short period of time to help improve.

Now that all being said, I have some bad news. My camera (Canon Rebel XTi) has been placed on the IR (injured reserve) list. The other day I was about to go out to my friends birthday dinner at a local sea food restaurant called Catch. I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t want to carry around my 24-70mm lens since it is pretty heavy. So I switched and attached my 50mm f1.8 lens. Lighter, smaller and still very quick for the low light situations I would be in. After I had attached the lens I decided to take it off and make sure the optics were clean before I headed out. Much to my surprise the 50mm lens was stuck. I couldn’t turn it more than 1/4 of the way. I tried with a bit of pressure and still nothing. So I kept applying a bit more force. Eventually the lens POPPED off with a crack, and at that moment I knew something had happened.

I looked at my 50mm lens and the mounting system had broken. Now the lens isn’t completely destroyed it was just a chunk of plastic missing from the mounting system and it was twisted out of place a bit. I was a bit miffed and worried I would have to replace the lens. Calmly I rotated the mounting system back to the right alignment and carefully tried it back on my camera. everything seemed great. The lens mounted and unmounted fine. The optics seemed to be aligned and clear still but then I tried to take a shot. Oh the horror!!

The auto focus wasn’t working. I checked to make sure the lens was selected to auto focus. It was. I took the lens off and reattached it and still no auto focus. I then tried my 24-70 lens to see if that one worked, it didn’t. That is when I took the lens off and looked at the camera body. Much to my chagrin, I noticed that one of the dip pins used to connect the auto focus feature to the lens was not popping back out. It was stuck down ant therefore would not make contact with the lens and therefore the auto focus wasn’t working. After a few choice words mumbled under my breath I calmed down and knew it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I had bought extended coverage on my camera when I bought it. Phew!

Over the next couple of days I started the claim process and everything is going to be fine but I am shipping my camera to Ontario to get repaired. Yesterday I posted the package with my camera in it and now I am without it for about a week.

What do I do, how do I cope? I guess I am just going to have to find other things to do with my time. Maybe work on this blog and site, maybe read a bit more about photography, maybe catch up on some of the post processing and thin out my older photos (I have a lot that need to be deleted). Or as the girlfriend would like, pay more attention to her

Here’s to hoping my camera is back soon all injuries healed and ready for a few good workouts.