Wee men – 28 July 2022

They don’t come out as often as they used to, but they enjoy being in the limelight.

Before we got to that, there was a new lens to test. And before that there was messages to go for. We needed some messages and we drove up to Tesco. Just some veg really, but it got us out the house on a dull day. On the way home we stopped for a stir fry kit from M&S. Chicken strips, veg mix, noodles and a carton of chicken stock to make a Ramen just as good as Wagamama and a whole lot cheaper.

Back home there was more pruning to do and also I potted up a Ammi Majus I’ve been growing from seed. Scamp bought me the seeds when we were down at Jamie and Simonne’s in the spring and the plants have been very slow growing. I sowed a row of them in the raised bed and another row in the ground. The ones in the ground have never developed. Most of the ones in the raised bed had disappeared too, but three plants remain and I was potting up the largest one. They look a bit like bushy carrots, but should grow into a plant resembling the Cow Parsley that I love to photograph. I’m hoping the slow growth is because the plant is biennial and will survive the winter to flower next year.

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After lunch I took two cameras out with two different lenses for the big test. It wasn’t a great day for a test because it was dull and uninspiring. I did get a few photos taken with the new ultra wide zoom lens. It’s actually designed to be used with a smaller camera like the A6000, but it copes quite well with the much bigger sensor of the A7iii. At its shortest setting, 10mm there is a lot of empty space on the photo. It’s a bit like looking down the wrong end of a telescope. At 13mm the empty space is gone and the distorted image is very sharp indeed. It can go as far as 18mm and is then almost in the realm of wide angle. Ultra wide is much more interesting to me. It passed today’s test with flying colours. It’s a keeper.
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An even bigger surprise was that the A6000 coped with the 105mm macro lens and produced some good images. Worth trying again, if for no other reason than it weighs a lot less than the A7iii.

After dinner I started building the set for “Kiss”, Flicker Friday’s competition. No prizes, just an exercise in covering the prompt. My solution to the prompt made PoD. A “Troopies” wedding! Just a bit of fun.

The dinner, by the way, turned out fine, except … the veg mix had green beans in it and I’m sure two of my readers know that Scamp will not eat them. I was going to pick them out of the dry veg, but Scamp said I should just keep them in and she’d spit them out! That’s what she did, but delicately leaving them at the side of her plate, rather than inelegantly spitting them out. Other than that and the fact that the chicken stock was a bit spicy, it was a good meal.

I have a morning to myself tomorrow as Scamp is out all morning! What will I get up to, unsupervised?