I'm 20 minutes away from leaving Hornby so I thought to put up one more picture before disconnecting from the Internet. I don't really hate HDR as my parody poster indicates, because I do think it is very useful for preserving information in otherwise too extremely exposed pictures. With the Garry Oak tree above I bracketed seven times and then used Photoshop's merge to HDR function. I didn't use all seven exposures. The merge tool allows you to take away exposures that don't seem to make a difference; that is what I did.

This is the reason why I was so cheesed when my 30D crapped out. Hornby just has great sunsets and you have time and space to pull them off. I took this the night before the 30D's shutter died. Oh well.

Below is the longest panorama I ever felt needed to be stitched. I took 19 frames with my Canon EF 100-400L of which I used parts of 7 in a long laborious Photoshop blend.

Since my camera committed suicide I've had the nagging feeling that I had nowhere near approached the 100,000 rated actuations that the shutter should have held up to. I realize this is the bell curve but I still was curious to see where on the curve my poor 30D ended up on.

The 30D unfortunately gives you no native way to figure out the actuations. Some cameras will show you the number on the EXIF which, if you don't have a viewer that will show it for you, might come out in the Flickr "more properties" page for that image once it is uploaded.

All last night since I had discovered the cabin had DSL-high speed internet (DUH -- that's another dumb assed story) I was researching and thinking about what camera I needed to continue shooting with while my 30D works up the queue to the Canon repair tech's workbench. I've heard it might take up to six weeks. When my first DSLR -- the 10D -- needed to be serviced for its on-off button it took at least a month and a half. Too long to not be shooting. So I definitely need a replacement camera, if only for that period of time.

My requirements
-- Must have a flash hot-shoe or P/C port in order to communicate with my Pocket Wizard triggers

See this pic? Aside from a few landscapes I took a day into my Hornby trip this is the kind of picture you can expect from the grand expedition. Why is that? Well, it's what happens when you

Don't take backup

They -- the pros -- are always telling you, aren't they? Take a backup. Anything. A G9. Uncle Bob's film SLR. That used 10D that someone on Craigslist posted for $250 last week. All of that I could have got last week -- even rented -- if I had known

I've finished packing so now I'm settling down to get some rest before the six or so hours I have to travel tomorrow. I've adjusted by prepared list marginally -- dropping the battery charger since I'll have enough AAAs and can buy some if needed -- and added a monopod. So with all that gear just what am I hoping to accomplish in a week?