It’s been pretty quiet over here for a little while – much longer than I’d have liked, certainly. I had hoped to get back to work but there’s been some complications, so I wanted to explain what’s up.
This is not the update post I’ve been hoping to make after things being quiet for so long. I’m so sorry about how long it’s been since actual new content. I’m so incredibly grateful for the patience of my patrons, you have no idea and I have no words. You folk are troopers. The inactivity during September is sadly unrelated to what I’m reporting today, though I imagine many of you here reading this already know what’s up via my social media and such. I’m in a forced hiatus at the moment because of a camera problem. The frustrating thing is that the camera still works like it ever did, but a mechanism in the memory card slot has broken, which is causing it to quickly damage SD cards. Normally when one talks about an SD card being damaged or wrecked or what-have-you, they mean that the data is being corrupted, which can usually be fixed by formatting it. Of course that would lose the photos which would be awful, but you generally get a usable card back at the end. My situation isn’t so routine.
Every camera I’ve had that I can think of that uses SD cards has that mechanism where the card clicks in place inside the card slot. Then you push it in a little to pop it back out. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. It seems like something in that part of the mechanism has gone bad, and instead of simply holding the card in place, it’s actually pressing so hard that it’s cracking through the plastic casing. The damage is always in the same place, and when the damage has occurred, the card can’t click in the slot anymore, which helpfully rules out my card reader, for instance, being the cause. or not so helpfully, maybe, since a card reader is like $10.
Sometimes just the corner breaks off, and I can at least retrieve the files on the card. In other cases the contacts have seemed to get damaged and the card won’t be readable in a computer at all. Even in the best case though, once damaged, the camera can’t use the memory card because it can’t stay in the slot. And this has got to where it’s happening with just one or two insertions, effectively making the camera unusable. I shoot with an A3000, and for whatever reason, Sony neglected to design that camera with any options for tethered shooting that might allow me to work around this issue. When this was a problem that happened only once in the course of many weeks or even months, feeding the camera a new SD card as a “solution” wasn’t so bad. But that’s wholly impractical at the current state of things.
Where we are right now is that I need to replace my camera. I’m currently working on raising funds as best I can to reach that goal, but it’s been quite slow going so far. The sad truth is, I just don’t have that much money on hand and available to spend like that. If you aren’t already aware of it, I’ve got a sales list on my personal Twitter (https://twitter.com/chrisrtxv/status/1184127454220345344) with profits going to support the purchase of a new camera body. The website’s Amazon wishlist (https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/8XU6R8TXWJ95) also has gift cards available which can be used in the same way. Support via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/playwithphotos), even if it’s just one month’s worth would be hugely appreciated as well. My highest tier currently is $5, but I’m pretty sure you can actually pledge any amount you want to outside of the tier structure.
I want to get back to work as soon as possible; I have a lot of nice stuff that I want to photograph and share with everybody. Unfortunately how long this downtime lasts will depend entirely on factors outside my control. If I can’t raise extra funds in the way I’m trying to, it’s going to take a while for me to scrape camera-money together otherwise. Hopefully it won’t come to a long, forced period of inactivity like that.
Let me say again: Thank you all so much for having stuck with me so far, it means so much more to me than I can express. I’m going to get back to regular operation as quickly as I possibly can, and I hope I’ll see every one of you waiting here when I do.
Thanks, everybody.