How I solved my missing 8GB CF card mystery.

On Friday, as I was getting ready for Saturday's outing with the Photo Safari Montreal group, I noticed I was missing my spare memory card. I looked just about everywhere I might have left it, but could not find it. No data was at risk, but I paid a $100 for it and it's a useful item to have when you'll be taking pictures far from an electronic store. I had tweeted this, but somehow it didn't help the situation.

So, I went to our outing, at Exporail, in the Canadian Railway Museum, without my spare card. I didn't need it, so no big deal. But what I needed was my tripod's quick-release adapter, which attach to the camera and slides into the tripod's head. That was missing from my new bag as well. That was a bigger deal, because inside photography without a tripod is more of a challenge. Good thing I had just bought my new Canon Speedlight 580 EX II at the same time I bought my new and bigger backpack camera bag. Still, I missed using my tripod, which I carried around all day for nothing.

Coming back home, I figured I would find the adapter on a different camera, but such was not the case. I was now missing two items that used to be in my old bag, a Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200 AW. It's a nice camera transport bag, but it had become too small for me. I searched that bag many times before, looking for my CF card and proceeded to go through it again, as it was the only logical place my missing items had to be. Again, all pockets were searched carefully and in depth. I was starting to feel like a proctologist... Then I noticed the sides were attached with Velcro to the inside compartments. What's that? I separated the sides and pulled out the insides of my bag. What did I find, at the bottom of my bag? A video cable, a USB cable, my darn 8 GB card and my fraking tripod adapter! What I thought were front and back pockets turned out to be only gaps in the bag, not meant to put stuff in them.

There's a lesson to be learned, here. When emptying a bag of any kind, don't be afraid to TEAR IT APART to make sure it is really empty.

I'm sure other models and brands of bags have the same design, so be warned and keep this tale in mind if your things start disappearing.