Old thread but: Try an electronic recycling place if you have one locally, or perhaps a store that sells TVs and delivers them and hauls away old ones. Post on Freecycle, or Craigslist. In fact, I often see ads on those sites offering huge old projection TVs free for the hauling. Sometimes, they don't even work, and ppl actually expect someone to want them, LOL. I might get one myself for the giant lens though!

I switched to CLEAR CARE because it is preservative free and have had no reaction to it so far. Very happy about that because most lens solutions do contain preservatives. Unfortunately, the problem reoccured about a week after I first posted my message. I had made an assumption that saline solution is just purified salted water and you can use whichever brand you like. You'd think by now I'd have enough brains to read the ingredients on anything I put in my eyes but I didn't. Lo and Behold the generic (Target) brand of Saline caused another allergic reaction and I was back on the hydrocortisone. In bold letters at the top of the bottle (on the back) it states "No Sorbic Acid and no Thimerosal". Not till you read the contents does it say "preserved with ...". So they're putting preservatives in Saline too! The only saline I found that does not contain preservatives is Unisol 4 by Alcon. Expensive, hard to find, and they only seen to come in 4 oz bottles (maybe because there is no preservative in them). My husband wears contacts too and he's never had a problem with products w/ preservatives. However, after seeing what it did to me he doesn't want them in his eyes anymore either. If you are like me (prone to allergies, excema, sensitive skin, etc) be very careful what you buy to clean your lenses. Hard to believe that such a small amount of liquid left on your lenses could do so much damage but it can. The chemicals will be absorbed into the skin around your eyes.

To follow up from January 2012. In January 2012, I was losing my sight in both eyes after having cataract surgery in 2010. The optometrist, Dr. Schell's attitude always included the words "at your age" it is the best you get. I was 47 at this point. It was another 13 months before I received a YAG, laser surgery to get rid of the scar tissue. Since the Crystal lens is back in your eye, the scar tissue is forced up against the lens and stops it from flexing. I was told this on the day of the Yag surgery, Feb 13, 2013. I no longer could tell when the eye chart was put on the wall, but could see down at the end of a hall. Felt very weird and frustrating that no one understood except the surgeon. I came out the surgery with more light than I could stand. It was amazing, but painful and hard to get through the day. That amount of vision did not last, but in 2016 my prescription remained the same. I definitely need glasses to drive, they annoy me to walk around the house though. Need reading glasses to read newsprint, but not the computer. Still have other problems. In the original surgery on my left eye, there was intense pain(think labour pain). I believe I had problems with the muscle relaxant, which I had noted in my file and spoke to the anesthesiologist about. He just rolled his eyes. He gave me too much for my system, the surgeon commented that my eye was spinning and then pain. I have complained continually that I am missing vision on my left side. I have also flew over the top of items, since they were below my line of vision. In my last appointment (7 years since surgery!), there was mention of a retina tear. There is two lumps in close proximity to the tear, The last optometrist mentioned the lumps might be cancer, the latest says maybe the start of AMD. Still believe it is better than being blind, but not a miracle cure. I do not feel the crystal lens flex like your natural lens. I have been in tense situations and when the other person crosses their arms, I think Great!, they are finally listening. After several different situations of arms being crossed, I know I am missing visual clues!:) Trying to learn patience... Sorry for the long post. Hope it is helpful.

Got up at 5:30, darn race didn't start until 8, they said 7 on one of the news websites. Had to get there early enough so I didn't have to park too far away, people everywhere all over town. Hot already but not as bad as I thought. Here I am telling you what to do and my photos did not turn out too great. I shot sports mode, buildings & background were bright but runners too dark, many blurry or out of focus, many good and fixable. I am going to have to process each one that's worth keeping (shot 594) and brighten most of them up with shadow highlights. Good learning experience. I shot most in sports mode which kicks into burst, but I'm not happy with a lot of today's because I can't change any of the parameters in that, picks too large apertures and too slow shutter speeds and continuous auto focus I'm not used to at all. It is hard shooting a sea of people, never been in a situation quite like that before. I'm thinking about what to do next time, couldn't figure out how set burst so I could use tv mode standing out there with all those people, should have shot tv mode, 1/800, ISO 800, partial metering. Maybe. I'll have to get some help with that. Coming home, I was trapped in by lots of street closings, had to go way out of my way to find a way out of that maze, lucky I know my streets around here, only one way out from where I got myself. Filled two 1 gig flash cards in about 1/2 hour! Good timing though, a few stragglers were coming up the hill when both cards were full. I'll wait for your photos. Yours will be easy. I know people steal photos. I haven't caught anybody doing that to me yet, maybe mine aren't that good? Somebody in France liked my peacock java applet and wrote and asked, I said ok. What do I care? I just don't want people making money off my work. Will address some of the other issues later. Too bad you have to break up your lily garden, that would be very hard for me to do. You must be either a specialist or have special lilies and maybe getting older like I am? Granny out shooting a race. Hah! I wonder which lens would be best for that? Used 50mm with a different race, much smaller, this time went with the 28-135 so I could zoom. 70-200 not wide enough even if I had it which I don't. That is a conundrum for sure since I was so close to most of them standing on the sidewalk, brushed by a few, tried not to get in their way. Then some other photog gets in my way. There now you taught me something about bracketing. I've been doing it the hard way. Shoot, look at histogram, set exposure comp or some other adjustment. I'm going to try bracketing and quit on the bright end like you do. So thanks for that tip! I dared not shoot that race in AV (my favorite) because with the early morning bright light and shadows, it would have picked too slow a shutter speed. Frustrating. THIS is where I would like to have been positioned lol. She hadn't turned her camera toward the race yet, she had to swing it about 45 degrees to her right to be pointing at the runners coming up the long hill. I fixed this one a little. Later, Alice