In the meantime...

Something I forgot to mention, but I got my sensor cleaned, before the trip to Cambodia.

And for people who don't know what I'm talking about, see this post and this post.

I flashed Tha Professional card in their (Canon Malaysia Headquarters) faces and that got me a 'please sit down and wait 15 minutes', whilst other less fortunate people could pick up their camera the next day. I'm not one for special treatment, but in this case I felt I payed Canon enough to deserve it.

A bit apprehensive I tested the camera at home. Afraid they might have made it worse. The hair I already removed myself, but in that process I messed up the sensor even more, so I was really hoping for an improvement. And indeed there was. Almost spotless, not enough spots left to be bothered about, you'd never see them on a regular picture. They really cleaned up the mess I made of it.

I also ordered two new focusing screens. Turned out that replacing those, although technically easy, isn't that simple, because no shop has them in stock. Even Canon Malaysia didn't, they had to order them in Japan. Guess the model camera isn't that popular here, which is not a total surprise if you look at the price of the thing.

And for people wondering, a focusing screen is a small piece of glass that hangs directly under the viewfinder inside the camera. It disperses the light and you really cannot do without. I tried the camera without it, but apart from a very distorted image in the viewfinder, exposure gets all mixed up. Sensors in the camera clearly expect this thing to be there. Apparently ít's engraved with laser, not just an ordinary piece of glass.

And the final issue, the 70-200mm lens making some shaky noises after a small drop on the tiles of my apartment turned out to be normal. Something I suspected, but wasn't sure of, cause I didn't know if the sound had always been there when shaking the thing. It's the image stabilizer rattling around a bit. Wasn't too concerned about that anyway, cause the lens worked fine after the drop, but it's nice to know for sure.

So, all issues surrounding the camera resolved, waiting now for a phone call on the arrival of the focusing screens. I ordered two, the regular one, to replace the present scratched one, and an extra, with a grid on it. I tend to make shifted pictures sometimes, where the verticals or the horizontals are not completely straight, and the screen with the grid on it is supposed to help you prevent that. It's easily corrected in any editing software, but it saves time if the photos don't have the problem to begin with.