Category: A Toy off the Rack

The dream is gone – 5 October 2020

Posted on by Zogman

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Today I took back the Sony A7. It was so nearly perfect, except I have the feeling it might have been bashed about by a few people before it met me. Scratches on the baseplate. A deep scratch on the border of the back screen. I could have lived with those. There was nothing there that my own collection doesn’t have in some fashion, but it also had lots and lots, I mean LOTS of baked-in spots on the sensor that I couldn’t shift with sensor swabs and sensor cleaning liquid, that was the final straw. I couldn’t live with that. It’s only a bargain if it’s worth more than you paid for it. This one wasn’t. So with a heavy heart I took it back to JL today and got my money back. However, before I took it back I did find out what that APS-C switch did. It worked. It automatically cropped off the bits the lens couldn’t cover. Nice work Sony.

After driving back home on a beautiful day and having lunch, I did my Sudoku and eventually dragged myself off to St Mo’s to take some pictures with my ‘old’ cameras. The ones with the clean(ish) sensors and fewer scratches. There wasn’t much worth photographing today, because the clouds had rolled in and the light was decidedly dull. I watched Mr Grey stalking something deep in the reed beds, but he was too far away even for the zoom of the TZ90. I did grab a few shots using the post focus trick, but again, the light wasn’t directional enough to make anything worthwhile of them, but it’s still a clever trick.

Spent a profitable half an hour after dinner sketching tonight’s Inktober topic which was ‘Blade’. Mine is a fairly direct interpretation of the prompt, but the clever ones were Blade(runner) and Blade, the Wesley Snipes character. They probably took hours to get just right. Mine was the rough for a more detailed piece, but as it was progressing it got better and better and I just liked it. So did Scamp. She gave me the greatest praise by saying she was wondering who had drawn it!

PoD was a mediocre St Mo’s landscape. I should have taken some time out this morning in Glasgow and gone for a walk, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

I hope some of you recognised the title of this blog which is the second last line from “Comfortably Numb” by Gilmour & Waters. Possibly the best Pink Floyd track ever.

No plans for tomorrow.

Another warm sunny day in October – 2 October 2020

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We went for a walk.

Packed a bag with the new camera and an old camera, although they were both manufactured around the same time. With the bag packed we set off on our travels. It was the reverse of our normal route. Heading out to Broadwood Loch and back round to the new shops. ‘New’ is relative as they are only about a year old. Anyway, we went in to get crème fraîche and came out with a full bag of stuff, most of which we’ll use over the next few days. Couldn’t believe that tomorrow its to be wall to wall rain and today was blissful sunshine with only a few little clouds to create some interest in an otherwise blue sky.

Back home after a second cup of coffee today, I grabbed both cameras again and went in search of beasties. Found a whole line of them ranged along the edge of the boardwalk. All except one were common darter males. Possibly just finished work and waiting for the pubs to open. The odd one out was a black darter and he was certainly in the mood for darting. No quick pint for him, he was off attending to business, or so it seemed. That’s where the PoD came from. I was quite pleased with it. It’s had loads of views on Flickr, possibly from disappointed viewers sucked in by the title: Full Frontal! Oh yes, and Schoolgirl is still trapping the unwary.

Took a few moody shots of flowers and cow parsley seed heads with the A7 and they looked impressive. I’m sure some folk on Flickr will love the ‘bokeh’ that it produces. Just looks like out of focus blobs to me. Overall, I’m settling down to it. It’s still not a definite keeper, but I’m quietly impressed.

Dinner tonight was Cod with Prawns and Fennel. It’s rapidly becoming a family favourite.

Today’s topic for Inktober was Wisp.  It stumped me for a while, but I chose a couple of dandelion parachutes to become the drawing of  the day.  Not exactly a wisp, but light as a fairy.  Close enough.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow, as I’ve said, looks like rain, so I don’t think we’ll be going far.

Temptation – 1 October 2020

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I warned you yesterday that I was going to do it and today I did.

I swithered, that’s a good Scots word, isn’t it? It means I couldn’t decide quite what to do about the camera. Eventually I settled for leaving it until at least the afternoon before choosing whether to go in to Glasgow or not. Last night as I was going to bed, ‘Not’ was winning. Today I swithered. I laid my case before that preeminent judge, Scamp and she listened impartially without giving any decision, because she knew I’d make my own mind up when the time came.

After lunch I made the decision to go in to JL and hold the camera if they still had it. That’s always been my way to assess the usefulness of a camera. You can read as many reviews as you want. Balance the Pros and the Cons, but if it doesn’t feel comfortable in your hot little hands, you’re not going to use it. Many, many years ago I picked up a camera, a Sony strangely enough, and knew it was worth having. That was a Sony F707 which I still have (Scamp will tell you I still have all of them and that’s nearly true) and it still feels ‘right’ in my hands. It’s just got a few problems now that aren’t repairable, but I still don’t want to part with it.

So now I have a Sony A7 full frame camera with a 28 – 70mm lens sitting on the table in front of me. It’s second hand.  It’s been used and taken back to the shop. There are a couple of scratches on it, but nothing serious. Tomorrow I’ll take it out for a walk in St Mo’s along with the Oly E-M1 which knows St Mo’s fairly well and we’ll see what they can come up with. Little and Large.

The new camera’s battery was charging this afternoon, so I took the Oly out to get some photos in the sunshine. There wasn’t much doing, but it was good to walk about without a raincoat or a fleece on. Cool in the shade, but plenty warm in the sun. I just found out about fifteen minutes ago that I picked up a tick on my travels. First one I’ve had in ages. Must be less blasé about them. I know our minds are on Covid just now, but there are other nasties out there, waiting for the unwary.

While I was out, Scamp was making mince ’n’ tatties with cabbage and carrots. She, of course, denied herself the pleasure of the mince and had the veggie version. Dessert was stewed apples and rhubarb with custard. Our own apples and rhubarb. All the apples have now been picked and the rhubarb too is finished until next year.

Today being the first of October is the start of Inktober. Today’s sketch is of one of the fish statues we saw in Corralejo back in 2016.  It will do to cover today’s topic of ‘Fish’. PoD was a bramble leaf from St Mo’s.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but the weather looks reasonable, so we may go for a walk somewhere interesting.

A new camera, a dash cam – 25 September 2020

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Dashcam day.

I got to use my dash cam a couple of years ago and I wouldn’t be without one now. Today I went to Halfords to find out when they could fit one in Blue. Luckily, they had a space this afternoon, so confirmed the booking and drove home for a quick lunch before driving up to allow the nice man to fit a brand new dash cam for me. Yes, I could have saved a few quid by using the supplied cable and plug, but it looks untidy and a new car deserves a new neat fitting. Even more unlikely, I could have fitted it myself, but I knew that would have involved a lot of swearing and a fair bit of damage to the inside of Blue. The bloke from Halfords had made a really neat job of the fitting the last time and I trusted him to do the same again.

With him working away in the car, Scamp drove me off in her car to a nice little parking place beside the Forth & Clyde Canal where we could walk along under a fairly blue sky and some sunshine as far as the ill fated Underwood Lock House. It had originally been the lock keeper’s cottage and around 2000 was converted to a pub and restaurant, but after a fire in 2013 it remains a roofless ruin. It seemed a sensible place to turn and walk back. I grabbed a set of seven shots to form into a panorama when we returned.

Collected the car and paid for the dash cam and the fitting and drove home. I couldn’t see any evidence of how that man fitted the wiring, but he did just as clean a job as last time, if not better. Dash cams are a bit like insurance. It’s something you have to buy these days, but you hope you’ll never need them.

Dinner tonight was Veg Chilli and AGAIN I forgot to add the kidney beans. I did the same last week down at Little Musgrave, so you see JIC and Sim, it was nothing personal, it’s just a mental block I have with veg chilli!

PoD was that seven frame panorama. The other thing I did today was set up Inktober 2020 on Flickr. Hope I don’t have the same problems I had last year with nobody except me being able to find it on the website!

Tomorrow we may go for a walk.

Ready for the off – 11 September 2020

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Waiting, waiting, waiting for the party to begin.

Not exactly a party, but the start of a week in Engeland! We were leaving around 2pm to coordinate with JIC and Sim who would be leaving earlier, except, as usually happens, they were delayed, but we left around 2pm anyway, because we were excited and ready for a fun-filled week in the North Yorkshire Moors. Even the very name reminds me of The Slaughtered Lamb pub. Nah, it will be fine. Anyway, it was a chance to test out the new Micro, ‘Blue’ to put it through its paces and hopefully achieve a better mpg than the Red Juke was capable of.

We drove through the rain and little bits of sunshine all the way down until we nearly reached Penrith, that’s when the traffic started backing up on the slow lane of the M6, hundreds of yards before the first countdown marker for the exit. We didn’t mind all that much, we had plenty of time. The problem was two different diversions, both of them funnelling traffic into the exit we were taking. Coupled to that, it was Friday, early finishing day for work and school so once you’d factored that in, it was really surprising that only half an hour after we met the holdup, we were back on our way again after forcing our way through two roundabouts of merging traffic. Not an easy thing to do in a nearly new car with folk thinking they could cram you out of the way because you don’t want to scratch a new car, do you? I didn’t, but I hate queue jumpers too. So I did what I usually do in these cases and drove even slower to make them wait.

Got to the house and were just investigating the rooms when JIC and Sim arrived. That holdup had balanced our times so they weren’t that late after all. I’d grabbed the garage as our parking place to leave room for their Volvo. Only fair, I thought. To the winner, the spoils.

The PoD was the view from the upstairs lounge. As you might just be able to see, it was still raining.

Weather fairies say the weather will improve tomorrow. Let’s hope so.

The Teacher and the Teacher – 9 September 2020

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Out after a quick coffee this morning to meet John.

Drove to Chatelherault to meet John. We were going for a walk in the Chatelherault Estate to talk about cameras, apertures, shutter speeds and the mysteries of ISOs. Things I’ve been using for years and years, but never really had the chance to explain to anyone. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve talked about them to lots of folk, but very few of them listened. Even fewer understood a word I said. Someone said of photogs, that they could conduct an entire conversation using just letters and numbers. I’m not sure that’s entirely correct, but there is a semblance of truth in it.

We started off going over the Duke’s Bridge and on past Cadzow Castle which is pretty much a ruin now. It would appear that the restoration has hit a roadblock, judging by the fact that nature has more or less covered the scaffolding that was erected about ten years ago. John took us up to the Cadzow Oaks which are much more impressive than the ruined castle. They are reckoned to be over 800 years old and as someone commented, they look like how you’d imagine Ents to look in The Hobbit. They surround an area of earthworks that may have been the groundwork for a castle that would predate Cadzow Castle and may have been Roman in origin.

Ah, but we weren’t out to do historical stuff, we were there to take photos. The weather was mixed. While we were sitting talking beside the oaks the light was constantly changing, making it difficult to get any decent shots. That’s my excuse anyway. I tried to explain the basics of exposure, using the triangle of Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO. I don’t know if I covered it all that well and I’m sure I didn’t explain it as lucidly as I’d have liked, but it was a decent day, and we were out for a walk. While we were photographing leaves and moss on an old (not oak) log a woman stopped to comment on the shapes the lichen was making. She had a dog with her. A white dog with a face like a lamb. When I got home that’s how I described it to Mr Google and he informed me it was a Bedlington Terrier. We, John and I went for coffee and a cake before we parted company. He was determined to walk home, I was driving.

Got a bit of a fright on the M73 passing a Land Rover which was tootling along doing about 50mph while I was in the outside land doing a neat 70mph. Then the Land Rover started sliding across into my lane. Whoever was driving must have seen me at the last minute and swerved back into their lane as I took evasive action. In my rear view mirror I saw them indicate and fishtail onto the hard shoulder. Glad of the dash cam which caught the incident nicely! The clip is now downloaded just in case.

Dinner tonight was chicken stir fry made by Scamp of course. I don’t do stir fry. I won’t say can’t I can, just not as good as Scamp. After that we watched the final episode of Series 3 of Line Of Duty. Irritatingly, halfway through it I remembered how it ended. It didn’t detract from the build up though.

PoD was of ivy growing on the Juke’s Bridge at Chatelherault.

Tomorrow we may go to Glasgow, just for the run and the dash cam will be on!

Back in the old routine – 8 September 2020

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Going for the messages in Blue.

I drove to Stirling today with Scamp. We were heading for Waitrose ‘for the messages’. The sky was dull with occasional attempts at rain, but nothing that you could really call precipitation. Parked at Waitrose and walked in to Stirling town (it’s not a real city, even if Mrs McQueen says it is). I went to M&S and Scamp went to Debenhams both for different reasons. Met up again in the Thistle Centre and decided Nero was too busy and Costa was too dark and gloomy, so we went to HSBC to get some English money. I couldn’t tell you the last time I used a ‘hole in the wall’ machine. Some time in early March I think. Thankfully I remembered my pin.

On the walk back we stopped as we usually do to look in the picture gallery.  This shop usually has some good and some not so good artistic works.  However, we’ve neither of us seen anything to match the clumsy painting of a girl and a dog.  I think it’s downright dangerous to give a toddler oil paints to play with.  This ‘painting’ was priced at £450.  Unless, of course the decimal point wasn’t working on the computer used to print the price tag!

I think we did actually buy Waitrose this time. It was really just a test to see how much we could cram into the Micra boot. The answer was quite a lot, or maybe even Too Much! However, at least we got to walk round a fairly quiet shop pushing a trolley. Won’t need a Tesco delivery this week or next.

Came home and I tried to install the supposedly brilliant Nissan Connect Services which is a phone app that can do all sorts of wonderful things. I’d tried and failed to get the last one to work on the Juke. This one was no better. Got as far as creating an account, then things went belly up. You can scan in the VIN from the plate on the windscreen, but the app says it’s wrong. You can scan the VIN from the door upright, but the app says it’s wrong. You can type it in, but … Nothing I did worked, then I read the comments on this 1.2 star app. Almost everyone had the same problem, apart from the obvious ‘ringers’ who said it worked perfectly. With so many people having the same problem, you’d think a warning light would come on for the developers, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Another lost opportunity, Nissan.

Took my frustrations out on St Mo’s with a couple of circuits of the pond. Not a lot of light at all by 4.30pm. My PoD was a sideways look at a spider on its web, getting bounced about in the breeze.

Beef burger for dinner. What Scamp had dubbed an Artisan Burger. I’d made it myself, with my own fair hands and a pound of mince. It needed salt, but otherwise it was fine. Scamp had a piece of salmon and we both had some of those Home Grown and Artisan Charlotte potatoes. So, a hand-made dinner.

Thought I’d have to de-coke the coffee maker. Orange steam light flashing away apparently means de-scale. I managed to get the light to go out by resetting the water softness setting. Hope that keeps the orange light at bay.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet John at Chatelherault outside Hamilton for a walk and a chat about photography and cameras. ‘Hoping’ because it’s torrential rain and high winds here just now.

Drumpellier – 7 September 2020

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Driving to Drumpellier for a walk in the rain.

Before we get into the driving and the walking and the rain, we had a bunch of apples sitting on work surface in the kitchen and by the watery light they looked very photogenic, so I took a few photos and then a few more at different settings, some hand held and some using a tripod. Knowing I had some shots in the bag I settled down to solve today’s sudoku, an easy Monday one. Scamp was getting itchy feet and wanted to go out driving, that’s what we did.

Scamp was driving today and she wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but it soon became apparent we were heading for Drumpellier out near Coatbridge. In the park it was a lot more relaxed than the last couple of times we’d been there. Loads of spaces in the carpark and very few people out walking. Today was a weekday and it was raining, softly, but it was raining. We walked round the pond, but let’s face it, Coatbridge in the rain isn’t the most photogenic of places. The apples were winning. I didn’t even take the camera out of the bag, that’s how dull and uninteresting it was.

Scamp drove us back home again and even managed to reverse park. She now rates the Micra much better than the Juke but not as good as her own red Micra. I totally understand and am pleased that she feels she could drive the new Blue Micra without getting stressed.

After lunch I checked the photos of the apples and discovered the highlights were blown out. Nothing I did with Lightroom made them any better. I just had to re-shoot.

Finally I started making the dinner and shooting the apples again in what was left of the daylight. I think the finished article has better exposure than the ones from the morning, but the composition of them was better. Not to worry, it’s done and posted.

Scamp gave me a tutorial today on making apple crumble (with our apples) from scratch, using a mix of 3oz plain flour to 2oz butter to 1oz porridge oats plus a dessert spoon of brown sugar. I peeled and chopped the apples and added some frozen red berries and topped it off with my crumble mix. Baked at gas 6 for thirty minutes(ish!). It worked! I was amazed.

Tomorrow no real plans although it looks like the weather will be much like today.

Going Solo – 5 September 2020

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No co-pilot, no radio operator. Flying solo.

Scamp suggested I go out for a walk along the Luggie today while she went to Tesco. It was her turn to cook and we’d discussed her short list. It seemed like a plan.

Before we went our separate ways in separate cars, we emptied our ‘Tattie Bag’ which we’d planted with three carefully selected Jersey Royals or something that looked like them away back in early May. Not seed potatoes, just some ordinary potatoes that had been chitting on the window ledge in the toilet. We actually got better results than we’ve had with ‘real’ seed potatoes. A nice big bowl full of them. Only one scabby one. I’d consider that a success.

Scamp drove off and I followed suit a few minutes later. Found out a few more things about Blue, like where to find the ‘destinations’ I’d programmed into the satnav. Took a dozen or so photos of the railway bridge over the Luggie from one side and 42 photos of it from the other side. I was intending to create two panoramas from them in an old piece of software I’d found the other day. Surprisingly it handled both sets of images well, although it struggled with the larger of the two. Not surprisingly the finished article weighed in at just under 2GB. That’s a lot of GB. The larger one became PoD.

Scamp’s dinner was Tuna Pasta with Beans (and chilli flakes). Possibly a touch too much chilli flakes, but it tasted very good indeed. I think we were both thankful for the half price trifle she’d bought for dessert!

Apparently NLC in their wisdom have granted permission for an outdoor funfair in Cumbersheugh in these Covid-19 times. What else would you do when Lanarkshire is about to have sanctions imposed to control an increase in infections than encourage crowds of people to attend a funfair? I suppose the council will have been paid royally by the promoters.

Tomorrow we may go for a socially responsible walk down Glasgow Green.

DML – 4 September 2020

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As is traditional, Blue had to visit DML within the first week.

We drove the traditional route too, just to see if Blue (named by Scamp today) was big enough and strong enough for us. The route took us through blue-rinse Callander and up over the Duke’s Pass. It’s a road that has enough tight bends and sneaky climbs to test any car, but thankfully Blue passed with flying colours.

Parking was free today, presumably because of Covid restrictions, but the actual lodge was closed. The place has been called David Marshall Lodge for as long as I can remember, but recently it’s been rebadged “The Lodge”. Allegedly because nobody knew who David Marshall was. If that’s the case, build a statue to the man, place it in a prominent spot and put a plaque there explaining his significance. After all it was named in his honour after he pushed to have the lodge built. It’s in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, but I don’t see any of the pinheads deciding to rename that to “The Forest Park” because royalty are falling out of fashion (and falling out with each other). Wait until the slave stories start to come out, then there may be a change of heart.

Following the traditional route, we drove down through Aberfoyle and stopped at The Smiddy near Blair Drummond. I had a burnt burger and Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese, both of us had their excellent chips. Shame about the burnt burger. I don’t think that will catch on. Had a look at the lovely looking cuts of meat at the butchery counter and at the expensive groceries in the deli. Neither of us was tempted by anything there, but Scamp bought a carton of milk for more than twice the price Tesco were asking.

Drove home and again were amazed at the 60mpg we were achieving in this tidy little blue car. Not as smooth or as big as the Juke, but big enough for us and it had achieved a pass at the Dukes’s Pass.

PoD went to a view of the river that runs through the park with the waterfall in the background.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we have no plans.