The shoes, the sock and the bottle opener (and the camera)

I emailed Orkney Ferries to see if anybody had found my camera. They replied that they had not. I emailed the friends who had given me a lift to and from the ferry and asked them if I had dropped it in the car. They promised to look. I decided that I would have to contact the police station at lunchtime, and get a Crime Number (why is is a Crime Number when it’s only lost property?) in order to make an insurance claim if necessary.

In the meantime, I elected to tidy up my desk area in the office and to move some things that really belong in my workroom to their proper place.

I delved into the Tesco bag that is presently housing my ferry blanket project and fished out the Norie project bag and an extra ball of the Art for my Clapotis – these had been chucked in on Wednesday to take to Spinning (did I really think I’d finish a whole ball of Art and need a second one, in just two hours? Look at me, SuperKnitterWoman).  Underneath the ball of Art was… my missing camera.

Now, I have no idea whether I had never taken the camera to town in the first place (though I am pretty sure that I did) or if I had absent-mindedly taken it from my shopping bag when I got home and popped it into the knitting bag, knowing that I wanted to take a snap for the blog. I do know that my ferry sock project box was dropped in there when I came home and I planned to  include the sock in the photo…

Can I confess that I am half disappointed to have found the camera? The notion of an insurance replacement had become attractive because not only have I not “got on” with this camera at all but it has begun to fail now that it is just out of warranty. It has been a big disappointment.

It is not as though we did not put in the groundwork. Mr L spent hours on Google and reading rave reviews on this model, which was fresh on the market then (he ordered it last New Year). Of course, checking today, there are now loads of bad reviews reporting similar problems with the camera to the ones that I am having, and saying that Fuji are not good at honouring the warranty – claiming mild body scratches to invalidate it when the real problem is with the zoom and lens cover mechanisms.

Well, you live and you learn.  When we can afford to replace it, I shall return to Olympus. A succession of pocket cameras from Olympus have served me well without problem and been thoroughly robust. Actually, I’d also consider a Canon…

One thing I am certain of is that any new pocket camera will either have  a viewfinder or the facility to add one via a hot shoe fitting. How on earth do people manage using these stupid LCD screens that are impossible to read in even mild sunlight and make it difficult to brace the camera when shooting? Why on earth would anybody want to take a photograph at arms length for heaven’s sake – what are these designers thinking of?

Yes. I hate my Fuji. It is completely impractical and now also faulty. I do wish that I had lost it. 🙂