This week it has rained a lot after a short burst of sunshine. So I find it difficult to understand why people have decided that flipflops are now practical springtime footwear. In London when it is wet they must the the most manky thing to wear.
Flipflops are beachwear, not for cities. Wearing them does not make it sunny, wear some proper shoes and stop parading your tired feet around the streets. They may look cute in the shops, but have an honest look at 5pm on a rainy day.
April 2004 Archives
I have found that people have been searching for the words "take one" and arriving at this site. A few days ago I found one of the possible other sites that people have been looking for. It is a very interesting looking exhibition at the National Gallery entitled Take One Picture, where some school children are shown a painting and asked to produce work in response to it. This year it is a Caneletto. I think that this educational outreach programme is a great idea, encouraging children to see painting as an artform that they can embrace early in life is important.
The hateful midge, small biting menace, that irritates you and flies in your face. Whether camping, hiking, cooking or climbing they are a right pain, especially in July through September. According to anecdotal evidence on the ukclimbing forums, Avon's Skin So Soft Fresh is the formula to beat them. See below for how to buy.
Shopping outside the UK has always been popular, going to France has definite benefits if you want wine or beer or coffee or pretty much any super market shopping. However a trip to New York to buy consumer electronics or clothes has always had a certain appeal. BBC news had an opinion piece a few weeks ago about the pitfalls of importing and paying tax. I decided to check this out for myself.
Using an approximate US dollar exchange rate of 1.70, with Vat rate for imports at 17.5 percent seems quite attractive, depending on the import duty and price.
Import duty rate for camera lenses is 6.7 percent (?). The import duty rate for Camera Lenses, under Taric, the tarrifs database for the EU. Some useful instructions are on this site, they help you work out what is going on. Though essentially pick the country you are travelling from into the UK and then browse to the product you want. Film camera bodies attract a rate of 4.2 percent.
Therefore the approximate dollar pound exchange rate is 0.74, including the legal duties and taxes. so a $1000 lens is actually 746 pounds. The import allowance is 145 pounds, which is approximately $250. However given the near 1:1 exchange rate for camera prices, if you are thinking of buying a big ticket item, say that long telephoto lens you have been wanting for this summer, then you could nearly have a holiday in NY on the cost difference.
Approximate USD to UKP prices for a few Canon lenses follows, buying the EF 70-200 f4 L, which in the UK will cost £499, will cost you approximately £406, if you pay duty and VAT.
The EF 300 f4 L IS is £999 and will cost you £829 in New York
The EF 500 f4 L IS is £4699 will cost you £3922
The EF 17-40 L is £569 and you'll pay about £500 for it.
US prices from B&H Photo in New York and converted at a rate of 1.70. UK prices from Warehouse Express, a keenly priced mail order shop with a good reputation.
The savings range from about 100 quid to about 700, taking the exchange rate, the duty and the VAT together you get an approximate difference of about 0.75 of the US Dollar price. The prices are about 20 percent higher than the equivalent UK figure.
Not a bad saving on the whole, not worth a trip to save the costs, but if you are travelling to the US anyway then a good idea. Be aware that Canon in the UK may not honour the year warranty, as the lens was sourced outside the UK.
Having somewhat recently decided to make a bird table, we immediately attracted a host of very keen and hungry squirrels. This was not quite the desired result, as the squirrels were already keenly emptying the bird feeder in a most amusing manner.
They were simply climbing up the post of the table. So, we needed a cheap and easy way to stop them. A flowerpot is the answer, turn it upside down and cut up one side of it and then make a rectangular hole in the bottom of it. this hole should be smaller than the diameter of your post that holds up the table, Stretch it to fit over your post and then use some gaffer tape, or other waterproof tape to reattach the sides of the pot together. Finished results look like this picture and you get some mightily perplexed squirrels as a result, more photos to come.
Subsequently, I've had to add another pot so that the upper pot overlaps the lower one and the squirrels are now defeated, I think. Use a small nail to fix the pots in position on the upright of the table.
Now, instead we have attracted some urban pigeons. At least we do get some smaller birds and I suppose all the creatures are hungry...
Recently I have been rediscovering some springtime hobbies and have been surprised at my level of interest and my improving abilities in them. I've already mentioned carpentry, but this time it is gardening I mean. I'm starting to learn the proper names of plants and how they are best situated.
It struck me that these hobbies have a long gestation period, it takes time to gain the knowledge, especially in gardening, as the cycle is a full year or more for the plants to grow and flowers to form, then die. They comprise slow skills to learn, unlike many of the other aspects of life at the minute, which is very fickle. How many people will care about Beckham's sex life until the next time it is across the tabloids.
Photography is something else that I'd argue is a slow skill, you learn to control light to make pictures and so move from taking snapshots to creating pictures and become someone who regards themselves as a photographer.
Last year, Matt Jones asked about slow systems on his weblog, he got a range of responses, some of them were technology focused and some not
If he'd been able to ask about this a different forum, say The Guardian, then he might have been offered a range of different systems, from democracy to gardening.
Slow systems are more satisfying in many ways, a conversation over the Easter weekend was about jetskis, prompted by the noise of one whilst sitting on the beach at Brighton. I've been on one and throughly enjoyed the adrenaline rush of speed and excitement, but I think that long term it'd be quite dull.
My evidence for this is the continual pursuit of tricks and stunts across snow-boarding, skate-boarding etc. Mountain biking cross country vs "stunt", the younger you are then then more likely you are to do the tricks and stunts.
Maybe getting older makes you think more about the longer term enjoyment hobbies and less about the quick fixes. You do not necessarily stop doing the fast things, just do more of the slower things.
Slow things are deeply pleasurable, but maybe you need to be older to appreciate them, or at least clear of your twenties...
So it seems that Canon are not giving up on film, photo.net message board post about new EOS 30V. See also EOS Magazine and Canon UK details.
Personally I'm pleased to see Canon revising a good film body, the 30 is a great amateur camera, it gives the majority of what is needed for controlling light, the 3 and 1V give faster frame rates, spot metering and better build quality and AF performance, which are nice but not critical.
Improvements are essentially better flash system, same as the EOS 10D and backlit top display. The viewfinder blackout time has been lessened a bit too and they have made it even quieter.
I have the EOS 30, which I really like a lot. These changes would not make me change my camera for the same model, but they are an improvement. Things they could have improved are the low light performance, the 30 series are not that amazing at twilight, you often need to prefocus, or even manually focus the lens. This is especially true around f5.6. The spot meter would also be useful, 10 percent partial metering is not quite small enough sometimes.
A second hand EOS 3 might be a better buy, but then you need to buy a flash gun too, as it it not included, which pushes the price difference up to more like 3-400. The comparable digital model to the 30 series is the 10D, so there is a 900 quid difference in price for similar picture taking capability.
I hope that Canon release an EOS 3D equilivalent, at say a street price of 2-2500 pounds. Build quality and AF performance of the EOS 3, with the same bright clear viewfinder. I guess it might happen later this year, as there is a space at that price point that Nikon have placed the D2H.
Buy Canon EOS30V from Jessops, buy a decent lens with this too, I'd highly recommend the 28-135 IS USM, as a perfect travel lens.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been in the garden and doing decorating, but the aspect I have been surprised at is the discovery of carpentry. Lucy and I mended a fence last year, by putting up a new fence panel, it was a lot of work and frustrating. This year I mended a fence panel, one which had broken in the winter storms. It was much easier and pretty much enjoyable.
So with my burgeoning interest in photography we decided to get a bird table. Having looked at the range of tables availble, which ranges from twee to extremely expensive, we bought a bird feeder and I decided to make a bird table.
I had a bit of a hunt via google and saw the basic idea, then set to work. Essentially the idea is to have a flat surface, which the food does not blow off, but can still drain surface water from, so you need a rim around the table. I gave myself 45 minutes to make the table and set to work with the saw. No chainsaw involved, though thinking of this did make me smile whilst sawing. I cut up some old planks and used screws to attach them together with shorter bits of wood underneath, look at the photo below and you'll get the idea. It was an interesting experience, having an idea in mind just thinking how to solve it. The other important criteria was to make it for free, just using stuff hanging about the house.
When I lived in Nottingham I used to have cable and watch a programme, which I'm sure was called the Nantucket Sawmill, but google knows nothing of it. I'm fairly sure it was on Discovery home and leisure, as a daytime programme. Full of men making cabinets and bureau and garden furniture, using thousands of dollars worth of woodworking tools, great fun and completely unattainable.
So I made the bird table and did it for virtually free, we had to buy the metpost to hold it up. Making things for free is an interesting challlenge.
Having a bird feeder and table has dramatically increased the amount of wildlife in our garden. We get robins, a jay, wood pigeons, great tits, blackbirds, magpies, coal tits and 2-3 very persistant squirrels. It is fascinating just how quickly the garden becomes a home to animals that must be around the corner, but as there was no food, they did not visit. We are now avidly using the RSPB bird guide to identify them and taking plenty of pictures.
The squirrels are a different matter, they are very cute, but chase off the smaller birds and have a good run at the wood pigeons too. I am now locked in a gentle battle pitting my ingenuity against their intelligence. Maybe as this
quite sweet American story says I just need to learn to appreciate squirrels.
Recently I've been thinking a lot about photography, the return of the light maybe being the prompt. I've also discovered that I do not have time in the week (or maybe the inclination) to be a photoblogger. Though I think it is important to try these things, even if the results never see the light of day. Trying and letting yourself fail, sometimes is important.
Give it a month or so and the results of all these thoughts will appear. It won't be a photoblog, but will be about photography. Oh and I'll be finally putting some more pictures on gavinbell.com...
