Some of you may know that Rachel's digital camera died last year which forced us to buy a new one. She was pretty upset because she's owned that camera for a long time and it's taken some great pictures for her. The display was totally messed up and the lens wouldn't retract. Since there was nothing to lose I decided I was going to take it apart and see if I could get the lens working again. I got the lens working and put it back together, but now the lcd screen was screwed up! I was about to give up on the whole mess when I discovered by chance that this was a common problem with this model of camera and was actually on recall from Sony. And they would pay to ship it in for repair!
So I filled out the form on the Sony website and sent the camera in. I kept checking the website to check the status, and in 2 days I got notice that they were shipping it back. I figured that they probably hadn't fixed anytihing in that short of time, so when the package showed up I wasn't really expecting much, but the repair invoice showed they had actually replaced the image sensor, the lens, and the lcd - about 200$ worth of parts. That got me pretty pumped, so I powered it up and took a few shots. Great success!!
I was feeling pretty good now - it was like we got a whole new camera for free. I headed down to the basement to take a couple shots of a remodeling project I was working on, took one photo, and PROMPTLY DROPPED THE F&#!@*G CAMERA RIGHT ON THE CONCRETE FLOOR!!!
.......
I picked it up, turned it on, took a shot, and found out the drop had busted the flash. I was so pissed off at myself. I slunk back upstairs and told Rachel what had happened. I vowed right then that the camera will be fixed, no matter what it took.
I started looking for parts on the interweb and found several cameras listed as repair parts for really cheap on ebay. I bought a couple but they just say on my desk for a few weeks as we were busy with the basement remodel (and the baby, of course). When I got some free time during the week after Greta was born, I decided that it was time to get that camera working again. I pulled the cameras apart, swapped out the flash units, and powered it on. I made sure to find a low light shot and held my breath while I pressed the button. It worked! I strutted over to Rach and showed her my handiwork. She thought it was awesome to have her camera back, but she made sure to get a dig in and told me not to drop it again. : )
So here's the first pics from the franken-camera. Most of the recent pics of Greta have been from this camera so it seems to be holding up well.
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