Friday, May 30, 2008

A Real Durable Digital Camera



During a long time friend's visit here (last May 2) from Singapore we had a get together at Astoria in Pasig City. We brought along our Canon A620 of course to take souvenir photos of ourselves and our friends of course. It was an overnight event and after eating our buffet breakfast headed to the swimming pool, with me bringing my son along. I went to the plan without any plans of swimming. I went there to just take pictures of my son and our friends that were with us then. I wore our digital camera on my shoulders and as I was left my son in the kiddie pool he suddenly slipped and got his head under water. Knowing he doesn't know how to hold his breath yet I quickly ran to him and jumped into the pool afraid that he might take water in and start to panic and not be able to stand up while submerged in water. As I reached for him in the pool I didn't realize that our Canon A620, that was hanging on my under my right arm, dipped in the water. I found out about it after my friend Ana, who is now based in Singapore, told me that she saw my camera dip in the pool as I helped my son up.

In shock I immediately turned it on to check if it would still work. I hurriedly removed it from its soaked case, which only has a flap locked with velcro, to do this and when I turned it on, I saw the last picture that I took and suddenly everything went black and the other buttons of the camera stopped working. I just couldn't describe what I felt then - but I had mixed emotions. I was angry at myself for being so stupid because I didn't secure the camera before I jumped into the pool but at the same time I felt that it was an accident because I had to hurry because I helped my son who could have drowned in the pool. But whatever I felt I was disappointed that the camera got wet.

When we went back to our room I immediately told my wife about what happened to our Canon A620 which we got for about P24,000. My friend Ana has told her even before I went up so my wife didn't get angry at me but wanted to make sure if the camera was still working or not. I turned it on again but some of the basic functions were still not working but it did turn on.

What I did next was I got her hair dryer and started to blow dry the camera. I removed the batteries and spent the next few minutes. About 5 minutes into blow drying the camera I already wanted to give up and accept that it needs to be serviced (which may cost as much as how much we got it for). But after 5 more minutes I started to see some of the functions returning. The camera started to turn on properly and so I continued blow drying it. TO make this long story short, the camera got back most of it functions except for the display. But a few days after all other functions including the display was back to normal. It was as if nothing happened to it. It could either be a coincidence (maybe it didn't get that wet) or the blow drying helped (by the way, the blow dryer gave out after most of the camera's functions returned - good thing it was still under warranty - he he). Whatever it is it was a real blessing for us. Kudos to Canon for making Canon A620 such a durable digital camera!

Jeff

0 comments: