Well That's An Oopsie In Order Processing!

I recently ordered a Sealife Underwater Case for my iPhone. 

Given the camera on the iPhone is rather good, between it and a Go Pro I should be rather set when diving.  Bringing along a DSLR for underwater work is both bulky for travel, and the underwater case for the DSLR is extremely spendy (which makes reasonable sense as it is to protect a spendy DSLR).

The Sealife underwater case is rated to a depth of 130 feet and has two different leakage alarms which is rather reassuring.

So I received the case from Scuba.com (which is also known as Leisure Pro and they are both owned by Adorama).  It came in a box sealed with Adorama markings.

Unfortunately, opening the outer box revealed a bit of a problem.

The box for the Sealife case had clearly already been opened.

Indeed, I had been shipped a used case. 

So I called up Scuba.com to report the issue, and noted I had paid for a new case and definitely didn't want a case that had been returned, as I didn't know if it had been returned as defective or not, and I had after all, ordered and paid for a new case.

They asked me how exactly did I know it was used.

Well, I noted that the fact that the product box and the case inside the  porudct box inside the shipping box was open was a clue.  

A blonde human hair visible on the outside of the inner case inside the product box was a further clue.

Further clues included all the contents inside the case being rather jumbled up, and the fact that the case itself had scratches on the windows, which is not great for photography.

But, the most telling clue that it had been used was the fact that it had a really cool sticker placed upon the case - with the prior owner's name on it:

The customer service rep then agreed with me that yes,  that would certainly  make it a used item.

They immediately shipped me a new one, expedited (as I have a need for it sooner rather than later), at no cost to me for shipping, and sent me a return label for the used case.  

The only downside is I had to pay for the new case in addition to the original order and I will get a refund issued when they get back the used case. 

The customer service rep apologized for the mix up and believed what happened was the picker had inadvertently picked it off the used pile when shipping. Mistakes do happen, but they took immediate steps to fix it, and all should end well and that was good customer service.

I should get the new case soon.

It is however definitely a cautionary tale to immediately check goods bought online to make sure you're actually getting a new item when you buy new.

The Camera

Juvat in a comment asked me to talk about the camera I got, and I'm happy to oblige.

It's a Canon EOS 20D DSLR Camera. My first DSLR, and my first SLR of my own for that matter.

Bought used in a deal I absolutely couldn't resist, it was ten years old before I got it last month. While Only 8.2 Megapixel, it works great and is the fastest camera I've ever owned. Of course there's a lot newer and better DSLR cameras out there, but this will certainly do for a start, and the lenses can be kept and still used if I ever upgrade to a more powerful camera body.

The Camera came in its original box, along with the kit lens, The EF-S 17-85mm IS USM Lens, which took pretty much all the ground display shots.

The real reason for the great aerial pics is this lens:

It's the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens, and it's absolutely outstanding. You can pickup one used from KEH camera and its pretty darn affordable over buying new.

Even as a total rank amateur photographer, just after reading a lot of how-to guides online about taking airshow pictures and using the camera and of course after RTFM, I was able to turn out some pretty decent pics if I say so myself.

The camera took pictures fast and the auto-focus worked great. I still need to learn a lot about the camera and its settings, but it's a fantastic starter camera. If you're on a budget and want to go DSLR, the D20 combined with a nice lens works quite nicely.

There are a few drawbacks going with a 10-year-old used camera: The LCD screen at the rear is quite small compared to today's DSLRs, so it's hard to see if the picture you took came out crisply; it can't do video; and it is a bit low on the mega-pixel count. Those are about the only serious drawbacks that I would be concerned about with this camera. To remedy those issues, you just throw more money at a more recent camera body - couldn't do that right now, so I'm happy with what I've got.

There was however a hardware bug. Murphy's Law can verify that it looked like Murphy's law was about to strike my debut with the camera.

This particular hardware bug was a real bug in the camera. It was a tiny round one with small legs. He might have been a camera mite. He showed up in great detail on the viewfinder and was moving around in a slow yet most frisky manner, typically trying to hang around the very center of the rangefinder. He wasn't on the outside of the lens, nor at the base of the lens, no, he was inside the camera body. Luckily he was in the upper mirror, otherwise every single one of my pictures would have had this bug photo-bombing the planes. How he got into the camera body I have no idea. He's apparently gone now but I think an internal cleaning of the camera body is in order. Thankfully he didn't mess up the pictures.

Oh, and there's an underwater case available for it......but that will be a post for another time.

Sony's C:32:11 Error Strikes Yet Another Poor Innocent VidCam

This has got to be the most recent perfect example of planned obsolescence.

I purchased this Sony HC-48 Camera 3 years ago to replace the Canon that was stolen.

It has performed pretty decently and I've transferred a few of the miniDV tapes to DVD but have a pile of them as the current laptop lacks a firewire port and its a pretty time-consuming activity.  So I have a pile of family video tapes that continues to slowly grow as I just don't use the camera very often, generally I'm taking video snippets with my Canon SD-1000 as its video transfer process is simplicity itself, but I do on occasion use the Sony HC-48.

Until today.

The tape had run just about out last week and I decided to change it in prep for some more video at an upcoming family event.

I removed the tape and all was well, unwrapped the new tape and put it in the machine...and it would not close.  Instead I got the dreaded C:32:11 error.  Apparently my camera has broken from a lack of use, or just from the first tape removal in  months.

The C:32:11 error seems ubiquitous with Sony Mini-DV cameras - Like here, here, and heck, Google shows over 1.6 million hits for the query.  Not a strong recommendation for the build quality if the darn thing can break just sitting in a case being left unmolested.  So I really can't recommend a Sony MiniDV to anyone given this experience.

So I'm now in the market for a new video camera. I'm looking for either an internal hard drive or expandable flash memory type, probably NOT a Sony, and definitely not a miniDV. So if you have a recommendation, and if it happens to fit in an Ikelite underwater Case, I'd love to know about it.

Camera takes an Epic Underwater Trip

From being lost off Aruba it turns up in the Florida Keys, over 1000 miles away: The Detroit news: The odyssey: Camera survives ocean trip to Fla.

Paul Shultz was walking along the pier of a Key West marina when he saw what looked like a rotting tomato pounding against the rocks.

The Coast Guard investigator waded ankle-deep into the water to fish out the ocean rubbish: a bright red Nikon camera, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Its waterproof plastic case was covered with six months' worth of crusty sea growth, but the camera itself was almost pristine when he found it May 16.

However, clues to tracking down its owner were few. So Shultz decided to test his investigative skills.

And he definetly has such skills in abundance - he tracked the camera to its owner and is shipping it back to Aruba.

"I have a smile on my face ... I can't stop laughing about it," Dick de Bruin said in a phone interview from Aruba. "It's really big news (on the island) and in Europe."

De Bruin, a sergeant in the Royal Dutch Navy, has been stationed with his family in Aruba for three years. The camera floated away from de Bruin while he and a dive team were salvaging an anchor from the USS Powell for a World War II memorial. The American ship protected Aruba, a major oil producer, from German forces during the war.

"There's a big connection between America and Aruba ... first with the anchor, and now the camera brings us together again," de Bruin said.

Very cool and kudos to Paul Schultz for tacking the camera back to its original owner and sending it to him, not to mention giving us one heck of a cool story and a new appreciation of ocean currents.

New Cameras

So to replace the cameras that were stolen we went shopping.

We ended up after much consideration and comparison with a Canon SD1000 Digital ELPH camera:


The SD1000, for just about the same price we paid for the A540 a few short months ago back at the end of 2006, is smaller, with better resolution and picture quality.

And a Sony HC48 Digital Camcorder:


The HC48, replacing the Canon ZR60 that was stolen is leaps and bounds ahead of the 5 year old Canon ZR60 - better picture quality, no sound interfere from the tape reels and it even has a cool infrared capability so you can take movies in complete darkness.

If you're looking for nice quality digital camera that is ultra portable and easy to use I'd recommend the SD1000, and the movie quality of the HC48 is unbeatable for the price.

The theft hurts the most due to the pictures and movies of the kids we lost. The fact that we had to shell out a decent amount of money to unexpectedly replace the cameras likewise was an unplanned for expense that messed up the budget nicely.

The sole upside to all this was the replacements are much better than what was taken so the pictures will be better and hence the memories will last longer, and because both cameras are smaller, we'll be more likely to have them with us when a picturable moment presents itself. There's noway we would have gone out and replaced them unless the cameras broke or were as in this case, stolen so the forced upgrade is a small consolation.

Of course the unseen effect is what we could have done with the $500 had we not needed to spend it to replace the cameras. Ah well, no use worrying about that now.