A New Camera.

Well, it has been a while since I last posted. I realize that I can only do so many things before something has to give, and unfortunately the Blog was dropped to the 'way-back burner'. I have been keeping people posted on my website about my camera, but I haven't said anything about it here. A while ago I got the wild hair to buy a Nikon P6000 after pouring through several PDFS of the owners manual for each camera I had my eye on. Forget all the reviews, all the specs you can find on websites about each camera you're looking at, the guy behind the counter doesn't know what he's talking about, he's just trying to sell you a camera. Look at the Owners Manuals! You'll thank me later. My big thing about this camera is that it worked well with the equipment I already had.

I have a PClix that only works with Nikon IR sensors, at least as far as I know. The PClix, which I have covered before is an intervalometer that allows me to take photos at set intervals. Well, the P6000 has an IR sensor that would allow me to use the PClix with it. The camera was more compact and had fewer moving parts to worry about than my aging Nikon D50. So I bought it at $360.

Man it was a thing of beauty, expensive, but cheaper than getting a D200, which was the other option. This camera had metal frame and shot great timelapse footage, barring a few issues that I'll label camera quirks. The P6000 also shoots video, has its own timelapse feature (the PClix allows many more options) and shoots Raw and Jpeg.

The problem is, two and a half to three months later, it fell 6 feet to it's demise.

I was setting up to do a timelapse of my fiance and I working a puzzle together. My method was to attach the camera to tripod, the tripod to the wall. I did so with a screw-in hook that I tethered with a piece of string wrapped around the hook and the leg of the tripod several times. That method worked well with my much heavier Nikon D50 before. The issue was that the lens on the Nikon D50 was slowly jarring itself into nothing but a blur with each photo it took.



So once I had set up my p6000 to do a new shoot, I had to step away for a moment to do a couple things elsewhere in the house and when I went back to the room, there my camera lay, a circle where the lens had hit embedded in the wood floor, the lens, completely jammed up, and me. Angry as hell me. I blamed it all on myself. I thought the string had slipped loose, since I didn't tie it in a knot for security's sake and it killed me. I'm hard on myself. It's my way to self improve, although probably not the most healthy way. After several days and a bricked camera later, I investigated further. I found out that the hook actually pulled from the wall. It wasn't my fault after all! I felt somewhat better.

So here's what the old camera looks like now:



I spent $8 on a .pdf download of a p6000 repair manual, so that's why it's splayed out in this box. I still have the intention of fixing it, if I can be allowed to order the lens assembly from Nikon at $80, but I managed to win a bid on a used one on ebay for a $200. I could hardly pass it up. The photo was taken with the new p6000.

July 9th, 2006.

Everything was muddy. Any grass was worn away by thousands of feet. People were unhappy and miserable. I was on a bit of a slope with a friend and he had an Astro Van. There were also several vehicles lined up on the side of the muddy slope. My friend was determined to get the van through and took off up the hill while I stood next to a green pickup truck. When I looked up the hill again he was no longer riding in his van, because he managed to procure an ATV.

He tried to climb further up the hill with the ATV but couldn't so he backed down the hill rather quickly. Because of his careless nature in backing down the hill he slammed into the truck that I was standing next to. I was rather angry with him for hitting it because it seemed rather obvious that he did it on purpose, but I left him alone because he also seemed angry.

Later on, I was on a rooftop and the people of the town I was in were still miserable. It seemed like everything was caked in mud and the air was thick with a sense of disaster. Many other people were on the rooftop with me and were abundant on top of several other buildings as well. Suddenly, balloons started appearing next to the people as if from a single speck of dust the was floating in the air and grew quite large. The balloons brightened the town with their color against the drabness of the mud that covered everything.

I couldn't believe my eyes! A woman who weighed over 300lbs who stood next to me took hold of one of the balloons. I held my tongue of objection to her stepping to the edge of the rooftop with balloon in hand and I feared for her life as she stepped of the ledge. She floated! She floated and descended to the muddy ground below.

Once she touched ground I raised my eyes to see that several other people joined her in floating to the ground and the sky filled with people who held tight to the string attached to their balloon and each of them slowly descended to earth. Perhaps there was a chance that we would overcome the drabness of this muddy world after all.