The End of the Road for the SX50

The news is very sad, but it is true and I must admit it: my beloved camera, my constant friend, my Canon PowerShot SX50 HS, has reached the end of the road. I can't say I don't know why. It's been a workhorse of a camera, and I have used it a LOT.

I checked back through my records and realized that I have taken around 170,000 photos with it in the nearly three years I've owned it. Maybe it's simply worn out! On Sunday morning, it finally just stopped working.

I remember the day that it arrived. It was November of 2013. The camera I had been using, the Canon PowerShot SX40 HS (purchased in mid-December 2011, and I started blip within a few days), had begun to make an ominous noise every time the lens extended. I sensed that its demise was on the way, just a matter of time, and so it was time for a back-up plan.

So I ordered a newer camera online at the good prices you can get in mid-November. Since I loved the SX40, I simply bought the newest model up: a Canon SX50 HS (including the camera, one battery, a camera case that didn't fit, and an 8 MB memory card) for about $350.

It was due to arrive the day before Thanksgiving, and on that morning we had an ice storm and a power outage that left our home without power or light until about 7 pm at night, when the lights suddenly came back on.

At 7:30 that night, the doorbell rang, and it was the delivery guy with the box containing my new camera. The whole experience was sort of surreal: no power, no light; then light, and a brand new camera! I just knew that camera was full of magic. It was a strange day, indeed.

I began noodling around with the SX50 the next day, and it soon became my go-to camera, accompanying me everywhere. (Here are both cameras side by side.) You've seen some of the very best of the pictures we've taken together since then, my trusty friend and I. We've loved every sunrise, every moonset, and every minute in between.

On this morning, I checked the camera one last time. I tried a bunch more things. I looked at the manual. I looked at online help. I switched batteries, took the battery out, changed memory cards, tried every setting.

The lens still extended. Data still displayed on the back of the camera. But nope, no image could be seen through the camera, not on the back panel, not through the viewfinder. My friend and I couldn't take pictures together anymore. The end had come.

You might think I would be heartbroken, but the truth is that I was (and am) stunned. I just can't believe it. If I somehow push the right button, won't it simply come back to life? WON'T IT??? (Is denial the first phase of grief?)

So I prepared a little farewell photo shoot to celebrate my friend, the best and funnest camera I've ever owned. In this photo, you may see some of our usual suspects: my little Dancing Girls on the right, a larger Dancing Girl (a cousin from out of town) riding the Jeweled Stag on the left, the Crittergators, and Daisy the Hedgehog.

I am full of gratitude, and we have gathered to say thank you. Thank you for the sunrises, the flowers, the snowstorms, the misty frozen dawns, the cat pictures, the hummingbirds, the full moons, the rainbows, the whimsies. Thank you for the pictures of these everyday beautiful things.

The soundtrack . . . this is one of my favorite Led Zeppelin tunes, and I can't believe I have never used it until this moment. The song is Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin, with Thank You. Enjoy!


P.S. This photo was taken with my Canon SX40 HS, which I have now moved back into. Yes, it makes a funny noise when the lens extends. No, it doesn't have quite as much superzoom. But it has a lot of the same features and I think it'll hold out long enough. For November is coming, and I hear they have good sales on cameras during that time. I might just need the next model up, the SX60.

P.P.S. Oh, and coincidentally - but is anything EVER really coincidence? -  a $500 check arrived in the mail on this day. It was payment for the little photo shoot that I did of Childhood's Gate, the children's garden at the Arboretum. When I undertook the project - my first paid photo shoot ever - I told my husband I hoped to make just enough money to buy a new camera. The news? The check should just about cover the cost of the newer Canon PowerShot I'll be looking at purchasing. (Isn't it a strange, strange world?)