Bring Out Your Dead

Western Gull. Weird to think of this bird as sort of a California specialty, but I guess a lot of the country would see it that way. They're not bad-looking birds at least. King Salmon, CA.

My camera, at least for now, seems to have risen from the dead. It rests in a watery grave no longer. I now am blessed with a Zombie Nikon...I've never used an undead Nikon before. I'll take it out to Lake Merritt later to take it for a spin to see if it works as well as I think it does. As for my point and shoot, I'm leaving it to dry still, the DSLR is whats important to me.

How did I do it? How did I raise the dead? How did I grab hold of something that had ostensibly crossed over to The Other Side? Here is how I pulled my camera from Davey Jones' Locker...

Step 1) Remove battery and memory card immediately and let water drain. Leave both wells open. Even after wells appear dry, do not attempt turning the camera on.

Step 2) Obtain large plastic container or ziplock bag.

Step 3) Fill container with rice and obtain a large packet of silica from a random food package for soaking up moisture.

Step 4) Insert camera into the crud, battery well down. Put on camera body cap to keep rice dust from getting into your camera's mirrors and other guts, then seal the top.

Step 5) Wait. Resist the urge to turn the camera on and see how its doing.

Step 6) If the camera eventually works, feel free to use it but continue storing it next to a drying agent (i.e. silica packet). You want to prevent any mold from grabbing a hold of your cameras innards.

Well, that's the way I should have done it anyway. Like an idiot I kept turning the camera on and off after the initial soaking...now I know better. After sealing up the camera in its drying container (thank you Mountain High Yogurt), I waited 4 days, and that appears to have done the trick.

If you are really thorough, you will send it in to a shop anyways just to be on the safe side. However, I am lazy, impatient, lacking a backup camera and not willing to drop a large amount of money on preventative care, so we'll see how it goes.

Right. That's all for now. Expect some big news soon...it's getting time for the BB&B camp to migrate.

UPDATE: Everything's fine! Western Grebes from yesterday afternoon at Lake Merritt.