I think I've always had some interest in photography and in the more recent years purchased increasingly better (and more expensive) hardware to accommodate.
Quite a few people I know have their own Digital SLR's and I've always been a little jealous of the amazing photo's that they can produce and so I decided that I would make the move from simple point-and-click photography into the scary realm of SLR.
After a fair amount of research I narrowed down my choices to two Canon bodies, the EOS 550D and EOS 60D and after considering the pros and cons of each I felt the 60D probably offered the best long term choice.
From here I started looking around at various places that sold cameras, both online stores (within Australia and international) and also retail stores. Unsurprisingly the online stores completely smash the retail stores for price competitiveness, with the difference being nearly $800 for exactly the same product...
Then it was simply getting approval from my better half (yay) and then placing the order, which I finalized on the 6th of December. The online retailer (based in New York City) estimated that delivery of the package would take about 4-5 working days.
Now that the order had been placed, I was anxiously watching the tracking page for any updates, no matter how seemingly insignificant and then on the morning of Friday the 10th the package arrived in Perth, I was pleasantly surprised that it got here so quickly and I'd be able to play with my new camera over the weekend...
Little did I know that I would encounter problem number 1, that being the complete inability for the shipping company to pass on information between its various internal departments. I called the customer support team early that morning to let them know to call me on my mobile number once it got released from customs.
After 6 hours had elapsed and the end of the business day was fast approaching I was getting noticeably frustrated at the lack of updates, so I again called the customer service line who repeated they'd call me once it had processed through customs, at this point I felt I should just call customs myself and find out wtf was going on...
Another 5 minutes wasted on-hold and the companies customs department informs me that the package was cleared at 9:30 AM this morning and they've been trying to call me all day to pay the duty/GST...
So after 3 calls and about 45 minutes of life wasted on hold, I finally had my item released and ready for pick-up (YAY!)
Little did I expect Problem Number the Second, as my work had their Christmas function on, I couldn't exactly unbox my (very expensive) new camera and play around with it so I waited until the following day (today) and methodically unboxed everything, made sure it was all there and put my camera together for its first use...
The result is below...
Now at first I thought it might just be my lack of experience with a DSLR and the myriad of settings now at my finger-tips, but no after some more experimentation (and confirmation from some nice guys online) they confirmed my camera body is borked and definitely should NOT be producing those results....
So here I am now, with an amazing camera, lenses and tripod all ready to "enjoy" my new toy but completely unable to do so....
I've since lodged a RMA request with the online vendor and I believe that will work out okay as they have a really good reputation but at this stage it feels like I've bought a brand new Lamborghini and gotten a flat tire halfway home....
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