Tag Archives: camera issues

Friday 15th June 2018 – I TOLD YOU WRONG …

… yesterday about those photos.

They were not in fact by Emma Barthère at all. These are the ones that are by her – people sitting on rooftops (something that was the subject of some not inconsiderable discussion at that meeting the other night) all over Granville.

The ones that I showed you were by a photographer called Thomas Jouanneau and are part of his “Ile de Chausey” project.

So now you know.

What you’ll also know in a moment is that just by way of a change I haven’t crashed out yet today. And that’s despite being wide awake at 05:30. And it wasn’t as if I’d had a particularly early night either.

So I imagine that I’ll be paying for this in very early course.

After the usual morning performance and a little relax, I sat down to get on with some work. But it wasn’t long before I had a little distraction and ended up chatting to a friend of mine in Germany, about music and a few other things too.

And the result of this chat was that I ended up having a good hunt around on the internet. 30 years of storage haven’t been too kind to the bass guitar and it needs a few bits and pieces to restore it to its former glory.

Apart from a seized potentiometer, the machine heads and tuning pegs need replacing. And I’m not putting cheap rubbish on them but proper original Gibson equipment. And they took some tracking down too, but I might have found some in the USA.

They are going to be quite a price, and the person to whom I spoke is working out a price to include delivery to over here.

But before you all faint away at the price, just let me mention that the guy in the USA pointed me in the direction of a couple of basses the same vintage as mine that are currently on sale, and the cheapest one is at $5200 so you can see why I’m not fitting cheap and nasty rubbish to it.

Another thing too is that since I bought the tuning foot-pedal the other week, I have hit an unexpected snag. The foot-pedal goes on the floor of course, with the guitar plugged into it. And I don’t use an amplifier but a Vox Micro amPlug and headphones.

And now the amplug, instead of plugging into the guitar round about waist-height, plugs into the foot-pedal on the floor. And with the headphones only having a cable of 1.5 metres and I’m 1.73 metres, you can immediately see a problem.

You can’t buy headphones with longer cables, so eventually I was able to track down a 15m extension cable. And a proper pair of bass studio headphones while I was at it instead of the hifi headphones that I use. Might as well organise myself properly.

While I’m on the subject, another thing that I’ve been doing is to track down the guitar tabs for some of the tracks that I’ve been working on, and transforming them into images to save. I don’t read music quickly enough to play it with a score, so I play by ear. And I’m finding that these days it’s “ear today, gone tomorrow” and I’m spending more time trying to remember what I worked out the previous day than actually learning new stuff.

At least, having some kind of music enables me to work out at a glance where I’m starting and finishing, and where to keep in rhythm.

All of this took me up to something of a late lunch, so I made my butties (the salad oil mix that I made yesterday is delicious), grabbed my book and headed off for my wall where I was joined by my friend the lizard. He really enjoyed the pear leavings once again.

This afternoon I cracked on with the web page that I’m still miles from finishing, as well as having my walk. And spending 45 minutes trying to figure out the bass line to one of the tracks whose guitar tabs I worked on this morning.

And it’s times like this that made me wish that I’d paid more attention to Miss Ricketts’ music classes at school. That really WAS a wasted opportunity, that was. I don’t know what I must have been thinking when I chose my ‘O’ Level subjects and excluded Music.

My response from Nikon came back this afternoon too. Basically “ignore our earlier e-mail. You’ll have your lens next week some time”.

I had a mental block for tea tonight. I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to eat. After much binding in the marsh, I ended up with a vegan burger and veg with thick gravy.

Out for my walk this evening, there wasn’t much wind but there was quite a sea boiling up.

You wouldn’t have thought that there would have been enough energy in the sea to send the waves crashing up over the sea wall, but there we are.

And the photo hasn’t done too well, has it? I dunno what’s happening to my equipment these days. I think that the nut at the rear end of the camera must have a screw loose.

Just round the corner, I could hear some noise coming from the direction of the town.

Further enquiry revealed that there’s some kind of event in the town tonight, as this photo of the rue Paul Poirier will reveal. I was half-tempted to go down and see what was happening, but these days, I have to consider that it’s a hell of a way back up the hill late at night after a full day’s work.

I’m not as young as I was, am I?

And I was buttonholed by four young teenagers, probably about 13 or so, sitting on the wall with a smuggled bottle of cider. Could I take their photo with one of their phones? And so I duly obliged.

So having written out tonight’s entry twice (having pressed the wrong key and wiped off the previous version by mistake) I’m going to bed. I’ve had a heavy day what with one thing and another and I need my sleep.

Shopping tomorrow, of course.

Thursday 14th June 2018 – I HAD AN EXCITING …

… e-mail today.

It’s from Nikon and it concerns the repair of my camera lens (which was the subject of a factory recall, as regular readers of this rubbish may remember). It’s the report of the examination of the lens to see if it falls within the guarantee, and the bill for any repair.

It tells me that it indeed a guarantee repair, and that the amount payable is €0:00.

It goes on to tell me that

I need to pay this before 15th August, or else interest of 10% per annum will be levied.
I can’t have my lens until I’ve paid the bill.
if my lens is retained after the 15th August there’s a storage charge of €40:00.

Therefore I have sent them an e-mail asking them for their advice in making payment. Do I pay with cash, cheque, banker’s order or credit card?

And I am awaiting their reply with interest.

We’ve also had a day of neighbourly interaction. I walked into town with one neighbour, and met another one while I was down there.

But first of all, I beat the alarm clock this morning. That is, I was awake before it went off, and that is not of course the same as saying that I was out of bed. That was slightly (yes, only slightly) later.

And a nice hot shower after breakfast and a change of clothes to make myself look pretty, and then off to town.

Remember the other day when I showed you the photographs that had mysteriously appeared on the city walls in the Place Maurice Marland?

Well, here they are erecting some more a little bit further along the walls. It’s going to be some exhibition.

And while I was standing on the wall overlooking the harbour taking this photo I fell in with one of my neighbours. She was on her way to the chemist’s for some medicines so we walked into town together.

From there I walked on up the hill to LIDL and I was in luck by the railway station.

We have central rubbish collection points here in Granville where we recycle our refuse. But the collection points look so small that many people wonder how we cope.

The answer is that they are icebergs. Only one-tenth of the thing is above the surface and the rest is submerged. And there they are lifting a recycling bin out of the ground to empty into the refuse lorry.

Apparently the lorry does the paper one week, the glass another week and the general refuse the third week, or something like that.

The roadworks in the Avenue des Vendéens are well-advanced and the road is open now in both directions.

They are working on the pavements now and there’s at least one car driver that is going to have a big surprise. Remember the car that we saw the other day parked across the pedestrian crossing? The driver isn’t going to be able to do that down the Avenue des Vendéens because the council is actively taking steps to prevent it.

And quite right too, if you ask me.

At LIDL I spent a little more money than I anticipated. Firstly, they had some giant cable ties on offer. And Iw as thinking yesterday that a couple of those would come in handy for fastening Caliburn’s fire extinguisher instead of having it rolling around the floor.

But more importantly, they had one of these Italian expresso coffee makers, the kind that you put on the hotplate to boil up and the steam pressure decants it. Being married to a girl who is half-Italian, I grew to like those very much.

I have one here but it’s not been used for years because it wouldn’t work on my induction hob so it’s in a pretty miserable condition. But this new hob that I bought the other week will work it just fine.

Back into town on my way home and I bumped into another neighbour, likewise on her way to the chemist’s. So I went with her and afterwards I invited her for a coffee. We were there for hours and when I returned here afterwards I found that it was actually lunchtime. It’s not like me to be this sociable, is it?

The weather was rather cloudy, overcast and windy. Not the day for sitting on the wall watching the world go by. I had my butties in here. And then I carried on updating the second (actually the first) page about my trip to the desert.

A long session on the guitar (I have to get weaving) and my afternoon walk as well.

Tea was a burger in a bap with baked potato and vegetables. I’ve now run out of carrots (LIDL didn’t have any loose ones and a big pack of them won’t keep) so I’ll have to invent something for tomorrow.

The usual walk around the walls, and all is revealed. We can now see what this wooden framework was for.

Yes, more photos.

And I can tell you something about the photographer too. She’s called Emma Barthère, born in 1982 at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains, which must have been pretty uncomfortable for her mother.

At the age of 20 (ie 2002) she went to study in Paris and after 10 years of Parisian frenzy she abandoned everything and came to Granville in 2015. And if you can work that one out, please let me know.

As for the rest of her biography, I have at times been accused of writing pretentious prose … "you, Eric? Surely not!" – ed … but I can’t hold a candle to Emma Barthère, that’s for sure.

I’m going to try for another early night, but I’m stuck once again with Aqualung and Benefit. That means A Passion Play, Stand Up and Thick as a Brick are due to follow. Five of the best rock albums ever recorded.

And you know what that means, don’t you?

Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

… of these special spray-on cream tin things.

The one that tells you that it “contains the equivalent of 800 ml of fresh soya cream” – but doesn’t tell you that it only contains enougb propellant to eject about a quarter of it. That’s not very good and I’m not impressed.

In theory, I could puncture the can to liberate the contents but knowing my luck, there will be just enough propellant trapped inside to whitewash the whole apartment and everything in it.

Something else with which I’m not impressed is that the alarm went off at 06:20 as usual and again at 06:30 and I was out of bed something like. Only to read later on that morning that one of my friends is off on his annual Pentecost walk. Yes, it’s a flaming Bank Holiday here, isn’t it? Another day when I can lie in bed without feeling a pang of guilt. And I missed it.

And so I had a glass of Dandelion and Burdock instead. A bottle left over from Christmas 18 months ago. High time that I had a little treat.

I was going to say that I had done badger all today, but that’s not quite true. I’ve done a little tidying up of the crockery and cooking stuff. I’ve been looking for some glass mixing bowls for ages and as luck would have it, I found some in NOZ at the weekend so I bought two. Cooker, dishwasher, microwave safe too,, and at €1:99 each.

However, I have nowhere to put them, so I needed to have a sot-out of stuff. Didn’t take me long but it’s definitely working and it’s definitely tidying up. I ought to award myself a medal.

A beautiful afternoon so a long sit on the wall with my butties and my book, watching the heaving multitudes go straggling past.

And not so “straggling” either on some occasions.

The tide was right for the day trippers (or afternoon trippers in this case) to take the Joly France out to the Ile de Chausey – or were they going just for a lap or two around the bay?

But anyway, there was more than enough of them. The boat was pretty full.

And it’s rather ironic really. There was an article in the local paper about “Are there too many tourists going over there?” And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, and that is that if the tourists stopped going over there would be another article in the local papers about the islanders complaining that their economy has collapsed because there aren’t enough tourists going over.

Like many places, the inhabitants would be quite happy for the tourists to stay at home and just post their money over to the island.

That wasn’t all of the excitement either.

There’s another boat – the La Granvillaise – that does tours around the bay too. And that was setting off on a jaunt too. She looks quite an elderly boat too but in fact was built in 1990, albeit as a replica of a fishing boat – the Rose Marie – of 1897 that was a typical fishing boat of the bay at that time – a bisquine.

She has 410 square metres of canvas sail – the largest amount of any boat of her class in France – and so that’s much more like my style of voyaging

And I was there for ages sitting on my wall, totally engrossed in the Hundred Years War.

We British people think of the Hundred Years War as just being Crécy and Agincourt and not much else in between. For the French though, it was almost 120 years of complete and utter terror. In the past I’d been hunting high and low for a book that gives a detailed French perspective on the war and I finally found one a couple of years ago.

It’s certainly a right riveting read and it’s easy now for me to understand why the French hated the English so much after reading the stories of the atrocities that were committed by the English and their allies. “l’Albion Perfide” indeed.

With the weather being so nice, I had my two walks too, even though the place is heaving with people. And for tea tonight I had vegetables with a burger and some delicious gravy. It was really nice too.

So tomorrow I must take Caliburn to the menders for his service. And it’s a loooooooonnnnnnnng walk home from there. I’m not too keen on that idea. I’ll probably be ill for a week afterwards.

Tuesday 15th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that on Saturday, while looking for something completely different, I found the mobile phone that I had lost back in December.

Today in the post was a letter to the effect of “could I contact the Prefecture of Police in the Arondissement 15 of Paris, quoting reference …” – and for those of you who don’t know it, Arondissement 15 is just round the corner (well, sort-of) from the Montparnasse-Vaugirard railway station, the terminus of my train from Granville.

So, what have I been up to now? I contacted them to find out.

“You reported a wallet lost or stolen on December … last year. A wallet containing documentation with your details thereupon has come into the possession of the Police. Would you like to come and pick it up?”

Well, badger me? That was most unexpected, wasn’t it?

I tell you what though. At this rate, by the end of the week I’ll have found Lord Lucan, Martin Bormann, the Lost Tribes of Israel and the Loch Ness Monster.

But I wish that I could find my appetite. I’ve had no tea tonight because I couldn’t stomach it. Mind you, I can’t say that I need it. I need to shed a few kilos these days as you know so a few days without tea will do me good. But it’s depressing all the same.

Mind you, it all stems from the rotten night that I had last night. The perils of crashing out good and proper during the afternoon are that by the time that it’s bedtime, you’re still wide awake. 02:25 whe I finally went to bed and as a precaution, I switched off the alarms. I didn’t want to make myself any worse.

And so it was 09:05 when I crawled out of bed. A late morning, and with a late breakfast that followed it too. I’d missed the best part of the day. But there was a stack of e-mails that needed attention and so this morning I sorted out all of those.

And there was one from Nikon’s Customer Service people about my lens. “We are sorry that you have had trouble with your lens. Other people have reported the same error so please return your lens for our attention ….. The repair time will be between two and four weeks”.

It goes without saying that this has dismayed me more than most other things just recently.

Another thing that has dismayed me is (yet again) my useless load of bankers. I received a text message the other day “your account has gone into deficit. Please regularise the situation …”

Deficit? How is this possible?

So I went into town to look. And sure enough, my account is in deficit by all of €12:57. It seems that when the bank transferred my money from Pionsat to here, they transferred it into the wrong account.

I despair.

But it wasn’t a totally wasted trip into town.

I was able to see where they had reached with the fibre-optic cable laying that they were going. It’s not at the roundabout on the edge of the port so they seem to be making some good progress which is always useful.

And while I was down there I bought a baguette in the town because I like the bread from that boulanger on the corner, and came back here to make my butties

And having done that, I went to sit on the wall in the wind for lunch.

Back here, I was gone again. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of this right now and I wish that I could do something about it. it was a real ache to haul myself off outside for my afternoon walk in the wind.

I managed some kind of session on the guitar but I’m not up to that too much either. I couldn’t stand up for more than about 15 minutes. I had to sit down.

No tea of course as I said, but I did crawl off outside yet again for my evening walk.

The wind was strong at lunchtime but this evening it seems to be worse. And with it being high tide at walkies time, we were treated to the glorious spectacle of some mega-waves and tons of spray crashing over the sea wall onto the promenade.

And as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … this is why I’m here

And that wasn’t all of the excitement either.

We’ve been having some beautiful sunsets just recently and while the one tonight wasn’t quite up there with the best, it was still quite impressive nevertheless.

And I was surprised about how quickly the sun goes down. I almost missed it tonight and that will never do.

Back here now and I’m going to have to think of a plan to get to Paris to pick up my wallet. How am I going to manage that?

Tuesday 20th February 2018 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

… with having a really major crash-out during the day is that when it comes to bed-time, you just aren’t ready for sleep. So never mind 23:30 – at 01:20 I was still wide-awake and reading something on the laptop.

And when you do go to bed and finally fall asleep, then you fail to be up and about by the time that the second alarm goes off.

Mind you, I’d been off on my travels again. And weird travels they were too. It was the story of some little cartoon-character marionette who was the butt of the humour in this cartoon strip because he was always falling off objects and making a fool of himself. he had a couple of partners – one of them an “old man” rather in the style of Big Ears and the other one was a bird who was the “conscience” of the cartoon. And so in the new revitalised comic strip each character had a window where they introduced themselves, and in the fourth window were signs that the three characters had decamped rather quickly, with a speech bubble appearing from offstage saying “and I’m a bear”.

I ought to do this stuff for a living.

Which reminds me – if you have enjoyed what I’ve been writing or want to express your gratitude for the effort that I put in on your behalf, why not make your next purchase from Amazon via the links on the sidebar to the right? It costs you no extra but I receive a small commission on the sale and it helps with my web-hosting expenses.

Make sure you pick the correct box for your country.

After the medication and the breakfast, I had a little relax and then had some work to do. And there was plenty of it too.

First job was to download all of the files from the travelling laptop onto an external hard drive and then copy them to the one here. That’s not as simple as it might have been as there is stuff on this external hard-drive going back to 2014. This meant that I had to review it all, categorise it and either copy it over or delete it. And this led to confusion when I had two files of the same name, each one with different amendments.

Another task that I needed to perform was the result of a total mystery. There’s a site on the internet that I access with quite some regularity but for some reason about two weeks ago it gave me a “403 error” message – “you are not authorised to access this directory from this server”, even though it’s a root directory.

And so after much trial and quite a few errors, I abandoned the site which was a shame, because it had been of quite some use to me and I’ve not subsequently been able to find another with similar information. But when I was in Leuven with the travelling laptop, I found that I could access it as normal.

And so back here this morning, I tried to access it with the travelling laptop. But no luck whatever. Back to the 403 error message.

But there’s an open wi-fi network from the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs that I can access with a little configuration. And so I configured the travelling laptop to access that network and, to my surprise, I’m back in.

It seems that my network provider doesn’t like this particular site – the blockage is at their end, not at the receiver’s end. And I’ve no idea why because it’s not as if it’s a “black” site or anything like that. It’s a total mystery to me.

After lunch, I had a shower, a shave and a change of clothes. I need to look my prettiest best because I was going out.

The tide was right out when I set off, and so I went down to the tidal basin to see what I could see.

And would you believe it? Although you probably would. The battery in the camera went flat just as I was about to take a photo. So you’ll have to make do with the photos off the new smartphone.

But the quality of these images is rubbish, especially on telephoto or zoom, so I’ll have to replace them in due course.

The mystery of what the digger and the men were doing in the tidal harbour is resolved, thanks to a local yokel, who turned out to be a very vocal local yokel indeed.

What the digger was doing was dragging for the anchor chains for the boats that are moored in the tidal basin. It seems that many of them have sunk into the mud, taking the odd small boat with them.

Now that they have been uncovered, they can be examined, repaired or replaced as necessary.

The quality of this photo is really so poor that you can’t tell what it’s supposed to be.

But in fact it appears that they have installed a kind of guillotine lock gate installed that rises up to hold back the water when the tide is out.

I’m not sure whether it’s a permanent or a temporary arrangement, but it seems to be working after a fashion and there’s quite a lot of work going on around it.

And another mystery is solved too.

Remember the big crane in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers? It seems that they are knocking down this house in the rue du Port and intending to rebuild it with something else.

The crane is for handling the deliveries of building materials.

And at least the camera on the phone can produce something that might just about be reasonable for this close-up view. Right now, I’m not impressed at all with my photographic equipment.

Down at the Post Office I finally sent off the letters that I had typed before going to Leuven. And that was an adventure too as I struggled to come to grips with the self-service technology.

And to my dismay I found that I had actually purchased a stamp for a letter that was postage-free. That upset me.

The Carrefour was next, and I was struggling for shopping there as they haven’t had a delivery for a week. I had to go to the fruit shop for some more expensive bananas, but at least they have some fresh coriander for my carrot soup.

Back here I had a coffee and some more German vegan chocolate and then, shame as it is to say it, I was away with the fairies again.

18:45 once more when I finally surfaced, and that at least gave me sufficient time for a strum on the guitar.

Tea was oven chips, beans and a vegan burger, and then I went off in the wind for my evening stroll.

Now I’m going to try for an early night, although how that’s going to work with the good sleep I’ve had this afternoon I really don’t know. And that also means that you’ll have to wait a little longer for your missing two days.

Wednesday 13th December 2017 – “SMILE”, THEY SAID …

… “things could be worse”

And so i smiled. And sure enough, things WERE worse. In fact, they are just about as bad as they can be right now. It’s Friday 13th, for heaven’s sake, when things usually go wrong. But not for me. I’m a Wednesday’s child, and Wednesday’s child is full of woe. And there is no-one more woeful than me just at the moment.

At least I was out of bed early. That’s the good news. But from there, it went steadily downhill. The torrential downpour outside with me having to walk all the way to the station dragging my suitcase behind me really put the dampers on everything.

But I had a good breakfast, tidied the apartment a little, emptied the rubbish, and set off through the rain.

Up to now, this was a reasonable day. And the train journey to Paris was quite uneventful. We actually pulled into Montparnasse, right by the entry down into the Metro. Saved me a pile of time, that did.

Down in the bowels, I bought two Metro tickets. I’m usually pushed for time on the way back, so I buy my ticket in advance. And then down into a crowded metro and into an even more crowded train.

Alighting from the train and going up to the barrier, that was when disaster struck me. On Saturday it was my telephone that had disappeared. Today, it’s my wallet. With all of my money, my bank cards, my driving licence and everything else.

Somewhere in the Metro that had gone for a burton.

And so there I was, stranded in Paris with no money, no bank cards, no means of support – you don’t go far on €0:46. There’s a secret pile of cash at home – the ‘fighting fund’ for emergencies – but it’s no good there.

I filled out a report for the police and they gave me the Credit Agricole’s cardstop number. So I was able to do that.

And lucky I, having kicked my phone network provider around the head and having made the internet on it work, I was able to track down the Cardstop numbers for the Fortis Bank and the RBS and stop those too. Luckily I was quicker on the phone than the new possessor of my wallet is, because no payments had been made.

All of this made me late and I had to dash for the train, and luckily I just about made it.

On the TGV there’s internet so I tried to contact Alison. But my laptop chose that moment to do an upgrade (and while it was at it, it upgraded my web browser so I’ve now lost the =.ftp extension there too).

But having persevered last night with the mobile phone I had eventually made my Social network register itself (and it took hours too) so with the slowest connection I have ever seen (it’s quite an old ‘phone) I could finally contact the outside world.

But Alison had by now gone back to work and had switched off her phone.

So there I was with no cards and no money and no way of getting from Brussels to Leuven.

But I’m nothing if not resourceful. The train docks at 15:47 and there’s a branch of my bank down the road 5 minutes away that’s open until 16:00.

And so I was first off the train and down the ramp.

And I’d actually gone halfway out of the station before I realised that I hadleft my jacket on the train – with my camera and a few other things in the pocket.

And so I raced back, and just about caught the train before it pulled out to Amsterdam. And in a frightful panic, retrieved my raincoat.

The Bank closes at 16:00, and I had my foot in the door at 15:59. It’s a good job that I had made a declaration to the police because, armed with that and a passport, I could be issued with a temporary Bank card.

It’s only valid for a short while and there are limits with what you can do with it, but anything is better than nothing right now.

Back through the driving rain to the station, and armed with a ticket I could board the train. And then from the station at Leuven a walk through the driving rain to my flat-hotel at the back of the nick. Luckily I’d paid that in advance.

Later on in the evening I went out to do a little shopping. And the rain, if anything, was even worse. I might have felt better had I not had to buy my toiletries, seeing as how I seem to have forgotten to bring them.

But at least I can eat – and the microwaved potatoes with spicy beans were delicious.

But to add insult to injury, the battery on the camera is flat and I’ve forgotten the charger.

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s just not your day?

Saturday 22nd JULY 2017 – SO WHAT …

… do the following four hotographs all have in common then?

Apart from the obvious fact that they were all taken from exactly the same viewpoint.

And I’m sorry about the choice of viewpoint, but if anyone really thinks that I was going to look for a more scenic viewpoint in all of the torential rain that we had for most of the day yesterday, then they are mistaken.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about a week ago I told you that I had just made (yet another) major expense.

And I also said that the other day I’d had a visitor. The visitor was the man from FEDEX and he had brought me my parcel from Germany.

And I’m now the proud possessor of a new camera.

Cost me an arm and a leg too, but I’m sure that it will be worth it.

The Nikon, after many vicissitudes, has temporarily given up the ghost. It needs a new lens at least I reckon, and I have just the aforementioned – sitting back in Virlet. No good there, of course.

So being rather stranded for my holidays, I’ve splashed out.

Rhys (and a couple of other people too) are extolling the virtues of these new mirrorless digital SLR cameras – small, lightweight but very rugged, and there have been some good offers going around just recently.

And I’m now the proud possessor of a Nikon 1 J5.

It’s quite small, not the thing if you have big fingers or are wearing gloves, that’s for sure, and it’s comparatively heavy for its size, but it really is pocket-sized, which will be very handy.

And it’s with this camera that the first two photos were taken.

The lens with which it comes is a 10 – 30mm, so it’s a 0.6 to 1.6 zoom – the first photo taken at min and the second photo taken at max.

With all of the photos scaled down to 800×533 from their standard format of … gulp … 5568×3712, quality to 60% and size to 170kb from … gulp … 11,000kb, they aren’t bad at all

As for the following two photographs, the camera was not the only thing that I bought.

While I was at it, seeing all of the fun that I had had with a cheap telephoto lens, I lashed out and bought a zoom lens.

30-110 zoom it is, so with the focal length of a standard lens being 18.5mm, this is something like a 1.6 to 6-times zoom.

Not as powerful as the big one that I had, but these cameras are in their infancy and good second-hand stuff is hard to find right now.

The first shot was taken at maximum zoom, and the second one is at minimum.

It’s a little grainy and not as sharp as I would like at maximum zoom, but like I said, it will be a while yet before decent second-hand stuff comes on the market.

So when I was wondering where most of the day went, now I know.

I was up early – and reasonably brightly considering my late night last night – and I did manage to dodge the rainstorms down the pick up the baguette – but that was about the limit. No going out for butties on the wall, I’ll tell you that.

I cracked on with the blog for the morning and I’m advancing quite well, but knocking off for a coffee round about midday I started to play about with the camera.

Later this afternoon I was invited for tea round at Liz and Terry’s. Vegan home-made hot-pot followed by vegan glazed apple flan and soya cream. Terry is busy plastering the living room but has hurt his shoulder and finding the rubbing down of the joints very painful.

So in a moment of weakness (my spirit easily succumbs when it’s tucking into Liz’s baking) I shall be out working on Monday – and maybe for a couple of days afterwards too. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

But the drive out to Roncey was a nightmare. And living here might be bad for my health – I’ll tell you that.

Grockles wandering down the street pointing to the sky going “oooh look Doris, a seagull” and stepping off the kerb without looking – I bet that he had to go back to his hotel and change his trousers when Caliburn let fly at him with a volley on the motor horn.

And perishing grockles driving along at 10mph admiring the seagulls when I’m in a hurry. And bleeding grockles simply driving out of side streets totally oblivious of give-way signs and road markings – I bet that he had to go back to his hotel etc etc.

And blasted Belgian grockles who can’t figure out how the cash card reader at the petrol station at the Casino supermarket works (and I bet he had a surprise when I told him what I really thought of him – and in Flemish too!).

And the flaming road closed at Donville-les-Bains as they lay out the street for some kind of street festival tomorrow.

I didn’t go for a walk either – what with the rain this evening.

Ahhh well!

Saturday 8th July 2017 – WE HAVE ANOTHER …

… Ship of the Day today.

A regular feature when we are up and down the various waterways of the Northern Hemisphere, but it doesn’t happen quite so often here.

Well, at least, not as often as I would like it to.

It must have been a very high tide today because it brought into harbour the Pluto. She’s a bulk carrier of 1762 tonnes and was built as far back as 1984 – which is an impressive age for an ocean-going ship.

She’s come to Granville from Felixstowe, via London and Ramsgate.

We’re also having issues with grockles, as exclusively forecast on these pages only yesterday.

The holiday season has started and even at 09:30 this morning as I was on my way for my baguette the streets of the old town were littered with them, blocking the roads as they heave piles of suitcases out of the boot and into the little cottages that they have rented for the season.

And loads of caravanettes parkeed everywhere too. When I went for my butty on the wall overlooking the harbour, there was even one parked up on the lawn.

Still, it’s my choice to come here. I shall just have to put up with it.

Other issues have reared their ugly head too.

Photos that I’ve been taking with the Nikon have been coming out horribly over-exposed and everything that I’ve done this last few weeks has been ruined (these photos here are taken with the phone cam).

I’ve tried it with another lens, and it seems to be that my 17-105 “standard” lens has handed in its notice. At least, I think so. It’s been on its last legs for quite a while so it looks as if I shall have to replace it.

It’s something that I shall have to do quite quickly, because if the new lens doesn’t fix the issue, I’ll need a new camera body, and I’ll need it quickly. I go away in 5 weeks time.

Having had another decent sleep, I was off on my travels during the night – alone, unfortunately. I went to a motorcycle shop to discuss the kind of bike that I need – something like a 175cc “all weather” motorbike that’s good for around town but can keep up with the traffic on the motorway – when I was distracted. On the shelf in a dirty plastic bag was a single-cylinder barrel, cylinder head and very rusty piston of a DBD34 – a 500cc BSA “Gold Star” high compression racing motorcycle of the 1940s and 1950s. But “ohh no it wasn’t” said the guy in the shop – it’s off a Triumph. But Triumph haven’t made a single-cylinder bike over 350cc since Edward Turner joined them in the mid-30s and you could tell by the shape of the barrel and piston exactly what it was (and if I can do that on a nocturnal ramble then I’m clearly pleased with myself).

The alarm awoke me at 07:00 (and again at … errr … 07:15) as a cue to start the day.

It’s been another day on th blog, and another day working just three or four lengthy pages, including this page with 1200 words, which had just 170 when I left it back in August 2012. That kept me out of mischief all afternoon.

Tomorrow is a Day of Rest with no alarm, seeing as it’s Sunday. And I’ll need it too I recko, seeing as how I’ve managed to keep going all day without a little … errr … pause for reflection.

So watch me wake up at something silly like 06:30.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: camera issues

Friday 15th June 2018 – I TOLD YOU WRONG …

Thursday 14th June 2018 – I HAD AN EXCITING …

Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

Tuesday 15th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

Tuesday 20th February 2018 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

Wednesday 13th December 2017 – “SMILE”, THEY SAID …

Saturday 22nd JULY 2017 – SO WHAT …

Saturday 8th July 2017 – WE HAVE ANOTHER …

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