DSC H1 works again !

At the Sony showroom, originally uploaded by stacktop.

So we made it to the Sony Service Centre in Indiranagar (Ph 25296138). And almost took a receipt for the camera. When. The engineer tried their battery on the camera and it worked! I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief. I thought I'd tried all batteries in the house after fully charging them. What a relief! Wont have to decide between the H50 or 1000D anytime soon :-)

Well well. We then traipsed down to the Sony showroom on the ground floor. Got a pair of regular batteries and a MiniDV head cleaning cassette (this one cost a bomb - Rs 875!). And kept on taking pictures with the newly recovered camera. What a joy! Achintya was thrilled with all the gadgets in the store and wanted to spend the evening dancing to VH1 songs playing on the LCD television's there. I had to haul him into the car actually kicking and screaming.

Am planning to get better with the camera. Found a nice whitepaper.

Sony DSC H1

In 2000 I'd bought an Olympus Digital Camera. The impressively named Camedia D 360L, with all of 1.3 Megapixels and an 8 MB SSFDC card, cost me a good 350 bucks.



Image transfer was via RS 232 serial cable, and I remember starting the transfer before sitting down to lunch and still having to wait for it to complete. Come to think of it, it was not that bad. I had extensively used it and some of the pictures are a pleasureable reminder of the bachelor days... Ahem, around 2004 the camera decided to go to Davy Jones Locker.

I started badly missing it around end of 2005 and started looking at what I should buy.
Based on a friends input (thanks Raju!), who'd also bought the same, I bought the then freshly launched Sony DSC H1 for around 400 bucks. This was such a pleasure. It was highly capable and was also very easy to use. We could just hand it to anyone and they'd click away in Auto Focus mode. We used it well for the first 2 years. And then in 2007, when our son was born, we just went overboard clicking away. I noticed that we'd clicked over 5000 pictures in the last 2 years. Well, all good things come to an end (I guess). The other day it stopped working. Boots to review mode, but when I put it into any of the shoot modes, it shuts down with a small noise near the lens.



I am plannning to take it to the Sony Service Center. Let me see how it goes. Meanwhile, I've already started looking for probable replacements if this doesn't get fixed. So far the Sony DSC H50 and the Canon EOS 1000D have looked good.

2009

Everyone expects 2009 to be of unprecedented difficulty. And yet, I have received unprecedented amount of New Year Wishes (Some from friends whom I hadn't heard from in years - so quite nice actually, thanks!). Maybe this is not a contradiction really. Perhaps unprecedented challenges bring out that ultimate human ability - to hope.

Here's wishing that all my friends get the strength to get through the difficult times ahead and emerge the better for it.

Dead Bees

Beehive must've been set alight.

Snakes anyone ?

Mahalaxmi Sangam Vaishno Dhaba on Chandigarh Delhi highway offers forbidden fruits...

Walkabout

KA 04C 2657

The flight landed at 2325 and I plonked into an Easycab. Few miles from BIAL the road's blocked by a jam. My capped and jacketed driver Diwakar's offered an alternative route via Devanahalli. Lets see how it turns out