Canon EOS 50D

Yes - finally - after all the time spent drooling, wondering, dreaming, hearing the shutter in my night dreams, imagining awesome pictures in my day dreams, I am a new owner of a Canon EOS 50D (mark 1- the original old school one - lol )

It came a little as a "bump in the road". I planned on buying second hand from kijiji.com but since the two offers which interested me never answered back to my emails - after a decent 2 weeks delay - and since the course of life has it's own path, the big event happened today.

My dad had the day off, since he's having a week of exams this week, and since he has the only monthly paid bus Opus card, and since mom wanted to take advantage of that, she went early one to do the groceries at her usual spots.

I took the advantage of that to sneak out and go see L.L.Lozeau camera shop (and the actual body of the Canon EOS 50D is about 50$ less than than in most electronics shops such as Future Shop or Best Buy

L.L.Lozeau - Canon EOS 50D Body only - 1 149.99$
Future Shop - Canon EOS 50D Body only - 1 199.99$
Best Buy - Canon EOS 50D Body only - 1 199.99$

So, since the shop opens at 8 - I left home around 7:40am to get there in time to buy it and quickly come back home since, with mom, it's pretty impossible to do a clear official declared shopping without risking world war 3 and a apocalypse.

The store is located near the metro station Beaubien, in the Plaza St-Hubert, on Bellechasse street and St-Hubert. I have to admit, it felt strange to be back there. My ex, Carl, actually lived on Bellechasse, very near the shop and I haven't been there since 2005. I don't know why exactly, but in my memory, the store's location was ... higher up, toward Jean-Talon metro station and so, stressed, rushed and not looking the street names, I walked up way too much ! nearly up the first section of the Plaza. I had finally the good idea to ask a young woman about the facts and I had to walk 2 whole sections back ! Then, as usually do, I asked God or someone up there to give me the right hunch as to where to turn : left or right. It was left. From the corner, I haven't even seen the store ! I had to walk along it's side, to actually notice the logo up on the building, near the roof, so I walked back and entered.

Surely the store is bigger than it looks ! And don't let their cute little practical website fool you ! They do have TONS of things and it's camera galore heaven ! not to mention lenses and tripods and all sorts of equipment.

I headed towards the back where a client was talking with an employee and got the attention of another one. As my usual talent leads me to do things - I stated the facts.

Bonjour, je veux acheter une camera. (Good morning, I want to buy a camera) - yeah I am that easy! I do my research in advance so I can be on the field like a pro.

He asked which cam - I answered.

In the end, I ended up with the body of the camera and a Sigma lens ( Sigma APO DG 70-300 1:4 - 5.6 ) which works wonders ! I love spying into the distance and macro photography and this works wonders !

And then, when I think all is over and I cash out - I get a nifty little surprise. The Desjardins card has a limit of 1 000 and since my stuff was above the limit, no access. Crap ! I felt like a fool.

Rushed back home, praying mom would not be home yet - or else I was busted. Matter of fact, she was ! So I said I just walked to the parc (Jarry) and took some shots. It worked. I used the bus card to head back -though, also mentioning that I needed to go the library to give back some books. So I stopped at the bank to take some cash out, half rushed back to the store and my stuff was there on the counter. The cashier boy (rather cute and classy) and the Assistant Chief Cashier girl (almost equally as cute) were talking about my case. What if I didn't come back ? They would just ship back my stuff to the warehouse above on the upper floor. BUT since there I was in front of them ^-^ we could carry on with the business.

Just as I was making eye contact with the cashier boy, I noticed on my right side Jean-René Dufort, also know locally as Infoman (!!) standing there also picking up somthing ! Wiicked !! After he was done, I asked the girl if they had regularly celebrities coming to their store and she smiled and nodded and the other cashier girl shared her experience with another tv show hostess.

I greeted good day to everyone and headed out.

On way to the library! ... to in fact give back some books and take some out. There wasn't much of a variety of books about the topic which I hadn't already read or taken out but I was pleased and surprised to find Eyewitness Companion - Photography by Tom Ang ! I would have never believed that this collection of books - usually tourist guides about countries around the world - would have the topic of cameras and photography in general ! I'm a sold fan of their style, work and way of putting a book together so I snatched this one.

Coming home - after I dropped by the Super C to buy concentrated orange juice since Mom asked me to - the trick was to actually make it look like I hadn't bought anything ! Not quite an easy task with two ... considerable sized boxes, but I had planned my thing ! I had put my other camera's pouch bag (Canon Power shot SXi 10 IS) in my purse - pretending that I am bringing it with myself - and voila ;) The two boxes were than shrank down to minimal size, put in the bigger bag I had brought for the books, the new camera in the pouch, the lens in it's own pouch in the purse too and with the help of free Metro newspapers, I could hide the top part of the camera's box which would have otherwise betray me.

Acting cool was also a big part of the game. Never let her even thing I did anything else than borrow books and buy juice.

So for the moment, I have the cam resting in the pouch, the lens in it's own pouch, the battery charged, and one extra in the pouch pocket, with the recharger.

What I need to do is :
1 - Read and learn the manual
2 - Get a bigger Compact Flash card. The one I currently have, a 32 MB one that came with the first Canon Power Shot A80 that I bought way back then in ... 2003 or around that time ... is completely out dated for this type of high capacity camera !
3 - Practice a bit more with it - learn to handle it - to be comfortable around it.
4 - See what other lenses - basic or specific - that I would like, need and can afford - with time ;)

But' quite freakin' happy I finally have the cam !

And I'm calling it Philippe. <3