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Well, I’m not sure what’s up with my Canon 40D right now. After just 3 months and ~15,000 shutter actuations, it’s dead. I put a fresh battery and any one of my lenses on, and things are OK for the first few shots. After 5 or so pictures, the buttons on the top of the camera stop working. Then, the shutter button stops working, and ERR 99 appears on the readout. After taking the battery out, putting it back in, the error is cleared. And then it’s good for a few shots before ERR 99 again

Looks like I have a trip to make to Pro Photo Supply in Portland to see what they can do for me. I’m out of the 30 day return period, but still within Canon’s 1 year warranty. I’m wondering if I should have just bought the camera at a Best Buy, along with the extended warranty. At least they’d just swap me over the counter for a new one.

Update: Pro Photo says I have to send it back to Canon, and it should take at least 4 weeks to return

Update: Because Pro Photo sent the camera in, there is no way for me to call Canon to check on the service status

Update: 5 weeks and $14 in shipping charges later, I have my camera ..

There have been several mentions of Eye-fi’s new SD card for digital cameras, but to be honest, I was thinking “vaporware” the entire time. This slick $99 piece of hardware adds wi-fi to ANY digital camera supporting SD media, and includes 2GB of storage to boot. All of my past (and present) Canon SLRs have been CF, so it looks like I miss out big time on this one. Why no CF version!?! I’ll buy one TODAY! Check out DPR’s great review, or the official website – http://www.eye.fi

Got a call today from Pro Photo Supply in Portland, OR telling me that my Canon 40D is now in stock. Quick trip downtown, and the camera is now in-hand! I’m glad I got my name on the waiting list, as there were several people in the store checking out the display. On several occasions, I heard over my shoulder, “sorry, but we don’t have any in stock”.

Fav’s: 10.1MP (cropping and big prints); compact and lightweight (compared to 1D), HUGE 3.0″ display (with zoom on playback! – not found on 1D); controls and menus very similar to 1-series, pop-up flash (not found on 1D); user defined shooting modes (nice to have HDR bracketing ready to go at a moment’s notice); battery lasts FOREVER; I can choose battery grip or no-battery grip depending on how big I want the camera to be

Hates: my 1GB CF card holds only 70 shots; my semi-wide angle lenses (28mm) are no longer semi-wide angle (1.6x crop compared to 1.3x); no ai-servo focus sensitivity adjustments; no battery grip included (yeah, that one is a stretch)

All in all, I’m really excited about this camera!

More to come, I’m sure!