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This last weekend, I broke my camera. I was surprisingly chill about it, although I definitely was not pleased about it since I leave for vacation in less than a week. And I’ll be honest, I don’t exactly have the money for a new camera right now. But, that’s life.
Saturday, I decided I wanted to do something fun since Memorial Day Weekend I didn’t get to do anything I wanted to do. I had back to back family parties that weekend. So this weekend, I decided to take a day trip to the Hudson Valley to tour a mansion and then on the way back I planned to stop in New Fairfield, Connecticut to get some long exposures of waterfalls.
I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the Locust Grove Estate in Poughkeepsie, New York. I played around with my camera trying to take macro photos of bugs on flowers in the garden while we waited to tour the mansion. The tour of the mansion was great because it was actually a guided tour and not one where I had to read things or listen to audio (I’m looking at you, NEWPORT MANSIONS). I never have the patience to do self-guided because I just want to look at stuff and I also don’t want to have headphones in to listen to audio while I’m touring a mansion with someone. After the lovely tour of the mansion, we then walked down to the overlook of the Hudson River.
After that, we headed to Great Hollow Nature Preserve in New Fairfield, Connecticut. Someone I follow on Instagram suggested it to me because of the waterfalls. It’d been a pretty long time since I’ve done some long exposures so that’s why I opted for a little waterfall adventure on the way back. However, this is where my camera would meet its demise.
We hiked out to the waterfall and had the area quite literally to ourselves. I set up my camera and started going to town taking my long exposures. There were a couple of different cascades to take pictures of. The first cascade I photographed went smoothly with no casualties.
I wasn’t as lucky at the next cascade. At the next cascade, I set up the tripod and camera on an angled rock right along the brook. That was my first mistake. The second mistake was bumping the tripod and sending my camera into the water. I pulled it out by the tripod legs and it was SOAKED. I immediately yanked out the SD card and hoped it survived along with all of my pictures from the day. I’m happy to say that the SD card survived. The camera, however, did not.
Believe it or not, this is not the first time my camera has ended up in a body of water. Earlier in the year I slipped into a river in New Hampshire while holding my camera and it ended up going into the water. It survived that time, so I guess I can’t be too upset that it didn’t survive its second swim. It also survived A LOT of falls because I dropped it all the time. My clumsiness is part of the reason I didn’t upgrade my camera sooner.
While I was definitely bummed about becoming camera-less, I didn’t let it ruin the rest of my day. After the death of my camera, we headed to Newtown to the Fairfield Hills Campus, which was once a state psychiatric hospital. The reason I went was because my brother told me I would think the brewery there was cool. It’s in one of the old buildings from the Fairfield Hospital Campus. However, I wasn’t expecting it to be an entire campus of old buildings.
I was SO EXCITED and I then understood why my brother sent me there, since I’m not a beer person. While we did go to the brewery and get a pizza, my favorite part was walking around the old hospital campus and just exploring the buildings. I was EXTREMELY upset my camera was broken, but I made the most of it and played iPhone photographer for the night. Every time we got up to a new building I would just get so excited because I love spooky, historic buildings.
As I said earlier, I definitely don’t have the money to get a camera. And due to my debt issues, I can’t buy a used camera with a payment plan. I can’t get approved for a loan or payment. Thankfully, Amazon offers a payment plan that requires no approval and has 0% interest. I’ll have to buy a new camera, but honestly it’s the best option because after interest with the other payment plan, I’d end up paying more than if I just bought it new.
I really wanted to upgrade to a mirrorless when my camera’s time was up, but it’s just not feasible right now. So, I’m getting the upgraded version of the camera I broke. I had a Canon EOS 80D and I will be upgrading to a Canon EOS 90D. It’s not the upgrade I wanted, but honestly having a slight upgrade is better than having no camera. I can’t wait around to be able to afford the Canon EOS R6 Mark II that I wanted, especially because I would also need to upgrade lenses, making it even more expensive.
It’s been a couple days without having a camera and I have to admit that I feel so lost without it. I haven’t left my house without my camera in months. I’d been taking photos every single day, whether it was local or traveling a bit. I really didn’t expect to feel so lost without it though.
While it sucks not being able to go out and take pictures with a camera right now, it’s giving me time to edit all of the photos I’ve been taking. I’ll order the camera tomorrow so it’ll be here in time for my vacation I leave for on Friday. Not an ideal time to buy a camera, but I definitely don’t want to go on my trip without one. If I feel lost without it at home, I’m sure it would be worse on a vacation LOL.
Hopefully my next camera lasts as long as my last one did!!
– Kailey
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