The day the camera died

It would be disingenuous to say I know nothing about taking photies, at times both me and others have said “Oh, that’s nice” at something I’ve taken and I have sold stuff many times over the years.
But it is absolutely true to say I know nothing about photography, like at all. I have no idea what the manual settings do, I have no idea what the terms describing the settings or their effects on what I see mean. I still use the idiots presets for everything, AI, landscape, night stuff, sunset etc.
When I went to my LX7 it didn’t have any preset long exposure settings for stars and camping lights and I didn’t take any night shots for years because I couldn’t get it to work on manual.
It’s not that I’m stupid, I’ve been running an engineering business for 30 years, I can do technical stuff while I’m sleeping in the truck, but when it comes to camera manuals and settings, I tune out instantly.

So point and click it is and I absolutely love it, this place has illustrated more than 15 years of my life with the power of point and click at low res intensity.
But this little trip to a favourite spot on Loch Lomondside finally killed the LX7, so I may have reached a turning point.
The Beinn an Dothaidh trip below this post was all taken on my LX5 (not my original, Linda got me this one a couple of years back so I could take night photies again…) so it looks great on small screens, but the camera itself is well worn and is probably functioning by luck and the power of positive thinking more than anything else.

We sat by the lapping water after trudging around the swampy woodland for an hour trying to find a spot with the water level still staying so high this winter. We had a lovely three course picnic dinner as we watched the sky go pink and we were menaced by swans who really liked the look of the tarts we had for dessert.
I tried to take photies but the same problem that’s been intermittent for months became the default setting, the lens would jam half way in or out and the camera would have a meltdown.
I’ve researched and acted on advice and the tapping it upside down when the lens motor engages thing worked for long enough, but now there’a a grinding noise as well. Yay.

I eventually got the lens out and to keep it that way I hung it around my neck and kept the camera on, pressing the shutter button now and again to keep it from attempting to retract.
But there’s more happening inside it than is obvious, almost everything was out of focus and had odd colours, I think the gubbins are misaligned now with all the shaking, slapping, knocking and er, throwing and dropping.

With dinner done and the light gone we headed into the woods under torchlight to work our way back to the road. I put the camera in my pocket, now ironically jammed completely in the on/lens out position.

Poor Linda, I shrieked so loudly and unexpectedly she stopped and dropped into a crash landing position with her hands up to her ears.
I thought it was a boat or something but the deep orange light I’d spied was the moon that had just slipped over the horizon as we’d reached a clearing by the bank of the loch.
It was absolutely a stop in your tracks moment.

I pulled the camera back out and the rear screen was lighting up at least, so I pointed and clicked and hoped for the best.
It was gorgeous and glorious and if we’d been further into the trees we wouldn’t have seen any of it.

With a fully functional camera it would look less like Minecraft up close, but ah what the hell.
The camera died after this water level shot below, the battery was drained after being constantly on for so long and as it tried to turn off the lens jammed half way shut with a squeak. And so it remains a week later.

I swapped the memory card into the LX5 to get the photies out and now that old timer is my only functional camera. I’d be quite happy at that actually, it’s like a camera for kids it’s so simple, but we’ll see.

Anyway, it’s all about making bookmarks for the memories later, you know when we’re old… er.