Through Bruce's Lens: July 2008

Have you ever seen the inside of your hot-shoe flash unit? Trust me. You don't want to. I attended the Rexall Edmonton Indy this past weekend and while I was there a certain nameless individual (that's right - I'm talking to you person sitting in Grandstand C - Section D - Row 14 - Seat 8) sat on my camera and managed to snap my Canon 580 EXII Speedlite right off the hotshoe mount.

Now I realize that there are inherent risks taking expensive camera gear into a crowded event so I wasn't expecting said person to compensate me for the damages (although it would have been nice). At the very least however I was expecting him to apologize. Instead he just looked back at me, shrugged his shoulders, put his ear plugs back in and continued to enjoy the race while I sat and fumed. Needless to say I did not enjoy the rest of the race and was tempted on a few occasions to introduce the back of his head to the business end of my 70-200mm lens.

Now with a couple of days to reflect I am going to be the bigger person and look on this event as a learning opportunity. How so you may ask? Well, for one it gives me a chance to try out the Canon repair center in Calgary. For those who ever need to send anything in for repair, here is the contact information you'll need:

Canon Canada

2828-16th Street NE

Calgary, Alberta T2E 7K7

Tel: (403)219-5939

I'd rather have to test them out with a relatively inexpensive item such as a $500 flash than to have to use their services to fix an expensive piece of glass or camera body. I will do a follow-up blog post in a few weeks once the repair has been completed commenting on my experience with the Canon repair center in Calgary.

The second thing I learned from this experience is that Canon was actually very smart in the way they designed their Speedlite. As you can see from the photos above, it looks like it was designed so that the hot-shoe mounting plate on the flash would actually break away from the body of the flash so as not to put pressure on the hot-shoe mount on the camera resulting in it being bent or broken. While I am not happy to have to send anything in for repair, better it be the flash than my brand new 40D. Hopefully it doesn't wind up being too costly of a repair and my favourite flash unit will be back in action sooner than later.

Calm down PETA. Relax Greenpeace. No animals were harmed in the creation of this blog post. On Tuesday night, my wife and I had the opportunity to photograph some of the animals at the Edmonton Valley Zoo. Throughout the summer, the zoo offers after-hours photography sessions which provides you with special access to the zoo and it's inhabitants. We were able to see several amazing creatures including Emus, Snow Leopards, Porcupines, Muir Cats, Wolves, and Lemurs. The most exciting part of the night was when we were allowed into the cage with the Red Pandas. Our group was the first group outside of the zookeepers who had been allowed into the enclosure. Below are a few shots from the evening.