Camera Karma

Maybe we should have burned the yak butter at the Buddhist Temple or made one more round with the prayer wheels because we have had some kind of bad luck when it comes to cameras on this trip. After our misfortunes in Australia, we purchased another point and shoot digital camera to get us through until Hong Kong. It wasn’t quite as nice as the one I had, but a camera no less.

Once in Hong Kong, we hit the streets in search of a good deal on a new digital SLR. After visiting many, many camera shops, we finally found a Nikon D50, the same model that was stolen. We paid up and as we waited for them to allegedly box up our purchase, we somehow got lured into a conversation with another guy in the shop who after much discussion somehow had us buying a newer model Canon with a big old lens instead of two separate lenses. He bigged us up just like at McDonald’s. I’m pretty sure they’ve done this before. We learned a lot, we bargained hard and we may have gotten an ok deal. In the end, we had two working cameras again as we made our way into mainland China.

But since that time, my little digital camera has decided not to work, then to work and then not to work again. Really it still takes photos and video, but the zoom and no other functions work. And well, sadly, the new SLR had a bit of a spill back at Tiger Leaping Gorge and hasn’t been the same since. Fortunately, it’s just the lens and not the camera, but still. Big bummer.

It’s possible that our camera karma may be improving. Yesterday we found a shop in Beijing that appeared to understand what the problems are and agreed to fix both on short order. Hopefully, we’ll pick them up later today and head to Mongolia tomorrow with two working cameras again.

Fingers crossed, yak butter burning, prayer wheels spinning!