A ridiculously long time ago
(think 2006ish) I purchased a blue Sony Cyber Shot camera. I was on a tight
budget and wanted a camera to take pictures of my new born son.
Sony made a Cyber Shot camera that was small, had great specs and didn’t break the bank.
Since then I have used that camera for many adventures.
It has come hiking,
rock climbing, camping, and on all sorts of adventures. It has been brought out
into all kinds of environments and temperatures. It has always taken some of
the sharpest well defined pictures no matter what misadventure it was brought
out on.
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| It captured many an amazing moment |
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| More that once I had to scrub paint off the camera.. worth every second. |
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| Lake antics didn't phase it |
I live in Minnesota and last winter in late November while playing in
the snow with my son and our dogs the camera slipped from my jacket pocket
somewhere into the nearly two feet of snow piled up into the yard. Once we
realized the camera was gone we combed the yard in search of it to no success.
My
awesome camera with nearly 1600 pictures still on the memory card was lost
somewhere in the snow. With Christmas coming and an adorable seven year old son
I wanted to make sure I could take pictures for Christmas so I splurged on my
single mom budget and purchased a replacement camera.
Predictably I returned to
Sony for another cyber Shot camera, this time a more purple blue. The new camera was not
nearly as sturdy as the 2006 model but still user friendly and affordable. Being idiots who name everything we named our new camera notorious P.I.X and
continued on our adventures.
Winter finally released its grip
on Minnesota in early April. The snows melted back to a mere 4 inches of
crunchy ice crystals and with the melt our camera was revealed. I did an embarrassing
happy dance in our front yard and quickly brought the camera in doors.
I slid
it into a giant zip lock bag of rice, placed it where it would get some weak
sunlight through the kitchen window and studiously but hopefully ignored it for
ten days. My Hail Mary hope was that I would maybe be able to salvage the
memory card and get the lost pictures off. Ten days passed and I slid the camera
from its bag, took a deep breath and pressed the power button.
A glorious chiming sounded as the
camera switched on and extended its lens with hardly a strain No Bleeping way.
I
held the camera up and snapped a random picture of my kitchen one of my dogs
caught mid ear scratch and startled by my victory cry as the picture flashed on
the display. Holy hell, this camera survived six months frozen in my front yard
in one of the snowiest winters I can recall since my childhood.
Unbelievable.
I quickly pulled all the pictures off the memory card just in case this miracle
didn’t last and promoted our frozen camera to the title of Boss.
A week or so later my son and I headed
out on a hike with the dogs. We planned a four mile hike with our pups and a
picnic at the half way point.
I brought both Boss and Notorious P.I.X with so
both me and my son could take pictures. At our picnic stop my son quickly
finished his food and popped up to snap some pictures. He asked to use both
cameras and ranged around the area experimenting with lighting and angle.
Too
soon the sun had slipped lower in the sky and it was time for us to pack it up
and head back. We were half a mile from the trail head in the fuzzy light just
before the sun starts setting when we realized that Boss had fell out of one of
the backpack pockets somewhere between our picnic and our location.
It was
growing too dark to return and come back safely and our elderly pups were
tired. I promised my worried son that I would rehike the trip tomorrow morning
after he gets off to school and look for Boss.
The next morning I was on the trail just
after the sun was up. There had been a misting rain overnight and the grass was
sparking with dew. Steps hushed by the damp ground I hiked back the trail sweeping
my eyes back and forth in hopes of finding the lost camera Boss.
I neared the picnic site with no
success and was near giving up hope. Passing a lone hiker picking up debris on
the trail I asked if he had seen a blue slightly beat up Sony cyber Shot camera.
He shook his head and continued back out.
I pushed farther on the trail just in
case I was misremembering our distance and soon heard the man calling for me.
Turning I saw he was victoriously waving a small blue beat up camera with a
giant grin. Thinking it was a piece of trash in the grass off the trail he
found my camera.
In the middle of nowhere I bear hugged a somewhat embarrassed stranger
and thanked him profusely. We hiked a short distance together and I told him
how relieved my son would be as he was very worried about our camera. I told
him about it having been frozen in our yard and survived. He smirked and slid a
Black Sony Cyber Shot out of his fleece jacket pocket and said he had grown
attached to his camera too. Our trails branched apart and I waved good bye with
another round of thank yous.
A mile or so farther down the road I
couldn’t wait. I made a decision that if Boss still worked after being frozen,
thawed, rained on and left in the wild I would promote it yet again to Zombie
Boss and make sure that little machine was pampered from now on. Holding my
breath I pressed the power button. A glorious chiming sounded out and the lens
rotated out ready for our next adventure. Yet another stupid happy dance followed
by some victorious yelling may have happened and I hurried home impressed by my
amazing and affordable work horse Zombie boss.
Since then Zombie Boss has been out
hiking, played in our yard, survived my sons first slumber party of rowdy
pirates and took about a thousand pictures of adventures. My son has inherited notorious
P.I.X as his camera and has taken an avid shine to photography. For me, Zombie
Boss is my regular partner in crime and workhorse for adventures.
Thanks Sony
