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Monday 8 September 2008

cakes, cameras, cards, and a bit about books & the weather...

Friday's little gathering seemed to go well. There were 11 of us in all - sadly Sarah was not well enough to come. It was lovely to see Rachel, however. Her archaeological dig was rained off on the Friday afternoon so she curled up on our sofa and read her book - with me joining her in between preparations! M surprised me by bringing a beautiful birthday cake she had made, as you can see, with the help of her 3 year old daughter. Rachel bought me an absolutely gorgeous orchid for my birthday present, which I am now trying to work out how to care for properly in our (somewhat cool) house - I have put it in the spare bedroom as that is likely to be the warmest. I don't know much about caring for orchids - any tips?

I've asked for money for my birthday, towards a digital SLR. Have been trying to do some research but it is difficult to know where to start. I want to get something good, versatile and something I can be happy with for a long time to come. Again, any tips? I'd love something I could use with the old lenses from my film SLR but I'm not sure which cameras take what and scrambling around on Google takes ages...

Andy keeps squirrelling away my birthday cards as soon as they drop through the letter box! I'm afraid I adore receiving birthday cards. I am terribly, terribly sad, because I even count them (sigh). That is my confession for today (!) Seriously, though, the wonderful thing about birthday cards is that they tell a story, of where you are, what new friends you have made, who you've lost - and maybe regained - touch with.

My back aches, which is aggravating. Pfft! I have just finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula which completely absorbed me the last couple of days - not the subject matter per se, although of course suspense is what is aimed for, but the style of writing. It got to the stage where I was annoyed that I had to stop reading because my eyes were hurting. I did the same thing with the Lord of the Rings once, reading the trilogy in three days flat - yeech!! I was a student on holiday; I had time for such things! Was weird 'waking up' to normality after I'd finished that, if I remember rightly.

Anyway.

A welcome respite from the rain today. The news from Northumberland and other areas, particularly poor Tewkesbury, which was completely flooded only 14 months ago and is suffering the same again, is appalling. I can't imagine losing every thing, attempting to recover, only for the same thing to happen all over again. They are saying that more rain comes in tomorrow...all over the world, the weather rampages...

Today: 4.5/10, medium

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there. Happy Belated Birthday! I have my eye on the Digital Rebel by Canon. And have wanted one for a while too. Right now I have the Canon S3IS and love it! But will be ready to upgrade very soon! Have a good day!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday! :-)

I'd check out dpreview.com to research cameras. They're extremely comprehensive, and I believe they're based in the UK, so they list camera models by the European numbers in addition to the U.S. names. The Canon Digital Rebel is called the Canon 450D and the 1000D in Europe, for example, depending on how basic the model is.

As far as lenses go, it depends on how old your lenses are and who the manufacturer of your camera is as to whether they will work on a digital camera by the same manufacturer. Canon digital SLRs, for example, will only take autofocus lenses, not manual focus lenses. I think Olympus takes all types, with varying degrees of usefulness. Just remember that most digital SLRs (except for very high-end ones) aren't full-frame, so what you get from your lenses will be magnified by a factor of 1.3 - 1.5 or so. My Canon 50mm standard lens became, essentially, a 75mm telephoto lens. This can be nice for wildlife photography if you have a long zoom lens (300mm becomes 450mm!), but you have to remember that the extra focal length means you need extra steady hands or a tripod or some other means of support to keep it steady.

(Can you tell I've been there, done that with our Canon cameras? LOL!)

Anyway, I hope that helps a little. :-)

"The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."- Richard Foster