I thought for sure last week was the last week I would be shooting with my little camera. I had tracked my camera and knew that it would be arriving later that day (last Tuesday) and I could hardly contain my excitement.

I waited patiently until late afternoon when a small brown box arrived at my door. I quickly pulled it out and started getting my settings back to normal. After dinner we went out to swim and I brought my camera. It felt so good in my hands. I took just a few pictures and I realized my camera wasn’t back to normal. There was a particle I could see through my viewfinder and no matter what I cleaned it wasn’t going away. I removed the lens and noticed a large fiber between the layers of glass. I was not a happy camper. I just spent a lot of money and a whole lot of time without my camera and it’s not 100%.

Not only did the lens have issues, but the more I worked with my camera to figure out where the fiber was I noticed a loud rattling sound that didn’t exist before. As if something was loose inside. Of course I call Nikon back and without any apologies they inform me the camera has to be sent back to them. There was no way they would let me take it to an authorized place locally, unless I wanted to pay for it. I kindly reminded them I already paid for it – but they didn’t budge.

So…using the same packing materials it came in, less than three hours later, the camera was back in it’s box ready to be shipped once again. I’m hoping we get it back in time for our next vacation, but I’m not counting on it. I was bummed. Really bummed. In fact, I wanted to cry. Of course, people feel my pain of the incident but kindly remind me “it’s just a camera”. I’m not sure what hurts more – hearing that “it’s just a camera” or being without it.

That was a really long explanation to say…the following picture was taken with my small camera!!

Smiles are abounding with this kid (at least from 6:30am – 7:00am, it quickly goes downhill from there as he gets tired!)