The Cedar City slack part of the rodeo started at 10:00 in the morning which was great because I was able to sleep in, but it was also bad because the sun was already up and warm when I got to the uncovered bleachers. By 12:30 I was melting. And then my camera froze up. It was stuck with the “writing to memory” on the screen regardless of the time I left the camera on or off. I called it a day. I was way too hot and very worried about the camera.
I called it a day and went back to my hotel to assess. I tried swapping out memory cards but that didn’t work. I looked online for an answer but nada. Finally I thought about a hard reset. I took the battery out of the camera and counted to 10. I then put it back in with the new memory card and voila. It was working again. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the photos from the previous night off the old memory card, but wasn’t going to worry or chance it till after I got home to my big computer.
The evening rodeo starts at 7 and I was going to be there at 6:30 so I could get a good seat which meant I had a few hours to kill. Last year I went up one side of the loop to Cedar Breaks. Now I drove the whole loop going the other direction. It was a gorgeous day.
I looked for birds but only found 4: a red tailed hawk high up on the way towards the mountain, a turkey vulture soaring over the peaks, an unidentified sparrow diving into thick evergreen shrubs, and a lone fast diving raven. I may have missed the birds, but the scenery and the beginning of the fall color was worth the drive. Oh, and it was much cooler on the top of the mountain.
When I did get home, I was able to recover the photos off the older memory card. I’m not entirely sure why the camera froze, maybe I was trying to do too many things. Lots of fast frame photos combined with choosing images and sending them to my phone and then to Facebook, or was it the heat. There is a known issue with this camera having problems in the heat. I’ll be sure to be more careful next time I’m shooting in 95 degree temps and direct sunlight. By careful, I mean I won’t do it. It was way too hard on me too.
— Jenny
BlueRavenBirders 