I bought a little Flip Mino video camera in 2009, and used it to make the painting videos I put up on my YouTube channel. I carried it everywhere, to take reference footage for paintings while I was out and about.
The camera was light and small enough to slip into a coat pocket. The video quality was surprisingly good given its size, and the stills I took from it had a pleasantly painterly character, with extraneous detail smoothed out into blobs of tone and colour, like this:
Alas, it is no more.
Did it wear out? No, it was still going strong, and I used it daily.
Did I drop it? Several times, but that never seemed to trouble it at all. Six years of banging about in my coat pocket with a clasp knife and a pencil had barely scratched the finish.
Did I leave it in a coat pocket, then forget to check the pockets before I put the coat through the washing machine?
Yes. Yes I did. While most delicate electronics stand at least a chance of full recovery after a brief dunking, an hour and a quarter in a 40 degree suds bath followed by a 1200 rpm spin dry proved to be one ordeal too many. I glumly dried it out for a few days in an old yogurt tub filled with uncooked rice, then hooked it up to the computer. It recharged nicely, but apart from that, it's stone dead. Software and memory wiped. It was a useful tool, but now it's a paperweight at best, and a disagreeable reminder of my capacity for stupidity.
What moral can we draw from my tale of woe and the consequences of absent mindedness?
- Always check your pockets on wash day.
- Download your images frequently, lest ye put your camera in a washing machine.
- And better still, buy a waterproof camera. That's too big to fit into your pocket.
The good news - well, the least bad news - is that a comparable replacement camera costs a lot less nowadays.
The camera was light and small enough to slip into a coat pocket. The video quality was surprisingly good given its size, and the stills I took from it had a pleasantly painterly character, with extraneous detail smoothed out into blobs of tone and colour, like this:
Alas, it is no more.
Did it wear out? No, it was still going strong, and I used it daily.
Did I drop it? Several times, but that never seemed to trouble it at all. Six years of banging about in my coat pocket with a clasp knife and a pencil had barely scratched the finish.
Did I leave it in a coat pocket, then forget to check the pockets before I put the coat through the washing machine?
Yes. Yes I did. While most delicate electronics stand at least a chance of full recovery after a brief dunking, an hour and a quarter in a 40 degree suds bath followed by a 1200 rpm spin dry proved to be one ordeal too many. I glumly dried it out for a few days in an old yogurt tub filled with uncooked rice, then hooked it up to the computer. It recharged nicely, but apart from that, it's stone dead. Software and memory wiped. It was a useful tool, but now it's a paperweight at best, and a disagreeable reminder of my capacity for stupidity.
What moral can we draw from my tale of woe and the consequences of absent mindedness?
- Always check your pockets on wash day.
- Download your images frequently, lest ye put your camera in a washing machine.
- And better still, buy a waterproof camera. That's too big to fit into your pocket.
The good news - well, the least bad news - is that a comparable replacement camera costs a lot less nowadays.
 | |
| 2009-2015 R.I.P. |
