Sunday, September 19, 2010

D300 shutter failure

Two days ago I was the proud of owner of a D300 that finally crossed 100,000 actuations of the shutter.

Now, I'm effectively the proud owner of an expensive paperweight.

The shutter died on my D300 after 100,549 frames (as best as I can count). Now I have to find a place to service it other than Nikon. Why other than Nikon? Because they took nearly two months the last time I sent them my camera for "extensive repairs." I won't be making that mistake again.

My only real hope is to get it down to a shop in Phoenix, get it repaired in under a week, and get it back before October. The reason this is important: I need a functioning camera for my job. If I don't have a camera, I can't do my job and I get fired. Not ok.

For the near future I'm borrowing my good friend Jenn's D300s... but I dont expect to be able to do that for long. In a perfect world I'd be able to borrow a $2,000 to buy a new D300s and a 35mm f/2.8 lens. It would be smart of me to have a backup camera body, and at that point I'm still only spending $2,000 for a year of college tuition (instead of the $8k I should be paying each year).

All I have to do now is work on a source for $2,000 or so. Anyone?