The Canon DSLR, after a year spent underwater.
Aspiring photographer Markus Johnson was scuba diving near Vancouver, British Columbia when he came upon a Canon EOS 1000D camera. He brought the find to the surface and managed to recover about 50 photos from its SD card.
Johnson decided to track down the camera’s owner using Google+. He posted the recovered photos as well as images of the camera itself on the social network, along with a description of his findings.
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“Approximately 50 pictures on the card from a family vacation. If you know a fire fighter from British Columbia whose team won the Pacific Regional Firefit competition, has a lovely wife and (now) 2 year old daughter – let me know. I would love to get them their vacation photos,” he wrote.
With the help of social networking sleuths who scanned the pictures of the firefighting competition and compared faces to those on various websites that covered the event, Johnson narrowed down the possibilities.
The owner, a firefighter from British Columbia, was finally identified. His station was then contacted and Johnson returned the camera to its owner. The waterlogged Canon, which can cost upwards of $500 in new condition, was lost and submerged in August 2010.
Unfortunately, the waterlogged device is completely useless now. But at least the family got their vacation pictures back.
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