Fuzzy Wuzzy Photo Woes

It's a weird thing that a tool that you LOVE
can quickly become a tool you HATE
when it quits working like it should.

Especially when said tool is a somewhat pricey camera.



Wouldn't this have been a cute photo, if…

Ugh.



Or this one…it would have made you say, "awwww…" except for the fact that you are too busy straining to see their little faces.

It has driven me NUTS trying to get good photos of the kids.  I thought it was me, the light, the lenses, and finally the camera.  It was clearly the camera.  I could NOT get a good shot.

Except, of course, when things would go crazy and I didn't really need things to be in focus, because it really wasn't anything like the shot I was going for...


…some unexpected clarity would JUST SEEM TO SHOW UP.  It would show up in the photo I couldn't really show around, or hang on the wall, or use for Christmas cards.

Meh.

After reading the manual and searching forums on the internet and taking the camera to several different experts to help me determine what the focus problems were and how I could fix them, I finally decided that I was going to have to send the darn thing off to Canon and have it repaired.  Stories out there told how it could take weeks or even months for a camera to be returned, so I did one final search for a solution before sending it off.

And, then…

And, then I found ONE COMMENT buried deep in a thread of answers on a forum.  I don't know who the commenter was, what the forum was, or how long ago it was, but if I could ever find the person again I would hug his/her neck.

The answer, the commenter said, was to remember that your camera is a computer.  You need to hard boot it by taking out the battery.
Not THAT battery, silly.
There is a system battery.  Look in the manual and find out how to remove the system battery, leave it out for at least three minutes, and replace it.  It will hard boot the camera and restore the settings.

I'm not sure if at this moment I said, "Aha!" or "Duh!"
Either way, I couldn't believe I had never thought of this or HEARD it from anyone.

I did it -- left the battery out for a full thirty minutes -- replaced the battery, turned it on, held my breath, and took a photo.
Voila!  Presto!  Shazam!  It worked!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, whoever you are!

Now if I could only convince these people to hold still FOR JUST A SECOND, already.
Sheesh.



And now you know the rest of the story. ;-)