Camera add on functions

1 August

And so the progress towards winter continues with the start of yet another month. I wonder where has the rest of this year has disappeared to? It seems that everything just flies by, it won’t be long for Crimble is here again.

There I was ready to go off into town yesterday afternoon and Jan decided that she would try to get my scooter going. I was going to go in the car and use my walker around town. Well, would you believe it, the damn thing worked straight off! Bloody brilliant! So off I went on me scooter. I did get some nice mono shots but will hold off editing them until I’ve got a few more. Maybe tomorrow there might be something in the park where I might get a few more.

Yesterday I wrote about camera choices and mention that I might write about some of the magic ideas that the manufactures come up with in an effort to get a step ahead of the opposition, and of course, parting us from even more dosh. Take my current D5200 for example; the only ‘extra’ it has is a video function. I bought the camera in October last year and I’d never used the video until now, and then it was just to see how good it was. I recorded just three seconds and it was enough to see it works OK; now it has been deleted and I very much doubt I shall use the function again.

It seems these days that video is now seen as being a basic feature, but why? There are a lot of photographers out there like me who don’t have interest in video. Personally, I would still be happy with my D5200 if it didn’t have it, but hey ho, it’s there anyway. But how about GPS? Mt Sony A77 had a GPS function, and I didn’t use that one either. I buy supplementary instruction books for my cameras these days; the one included in the box is fine, but the added one give that little bit more info. Like that GPS function on the A77; the included booklet didn’t say anything about the heavy battery drain when you use the GPS, the added book did. I wouldn’t have used it anyway. GPS is another add on that seems to be seen as a basic feature these days.

What do you make of 3D? I’ve seen 3D movies and never really rated them, the 2D is a much better format to my mind. And yet there were a number of cameras that had 3D added to them. HD is another add on that I don’t fancy at all. And the list can just go on and on. At times I look back to the days of 35mm film cameras, particularly my Minolta XD7. This camera was ideal for me and all I really wanted, or needed. It had Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program Priority and manual, where you set both the aperture and the shutter values. Oh the purity of those easy, long gone days.

But actually, it wasn’t really all that good. The amount of film you could go through was huge. One guy I spoke to said that he occasional went off on shoots for Nation Geographic magazine. He claimed that he would go through between ten and twenty rolls of film on such a shoot, but he claimed to know others who went through a heck of a lot more. Out of that film he reckoned to get maybe a dozen useable shots. The waste was huge. Just think of the daily national papers and the number of snappers they employed and the film they went through; it beggars belief.

Now we have digital and there’s not so much waste anymore, even though a lot more photos are taken these days. Even so, there are similarities to film use; things like the skill in using your kit, and of the most important in my view, an eye for a good shot.

Today’s photo then … 

The railway bridge at Barmouth.             

Today’s funny …

Did you hear about the about the Southern Baptist who was in the habit of sneaking to the race track to bet on the horses?

One day he was losing badly when he saw a priest step onto the track, walk up to line-up and bless one of the horses on the forehead. The horse was a long shot, but the Southern Baptist thought, "With the priest's blessing, surely this horse will win." He placed a small bet and, sure enough, the horse came in first.

At the next race, the priest stepped onto the track and blessed another horse's forehead. Even though this horse was also a long shot, the Southern Baptist was a little bolder this time and placed a larger bet on that horse. Again, it won.

A third time, the priest stepped onto the track and blessed a horse on the forehead. Like the others, this horse was also a long shot. The Southern Baptist placed an even larger bet this time and, sure enough the horse won.

This pattern continued throughout the day with the priest blessing the forehead of a long shot horse, the Southern Baptist placing larger and larger bets and the horse always winning.

At the last race of the day, the Southern Baptist thought, "I have got to go for broke here." With great anticipation, he watched as the priest stepped onto the field one more time, walked up to the line-up and blessed the forehead, eyes, ears and hooves of one of the horses. The Southern Baptist ran to the ticket counter and bet all he had on that horse.

The horse came in dead last!

As he was walking out, he saw the priest. Walking up to him, he demanded, "What happened? All day long you blessed horses and they won, even though they were long shots. Then at the last race you blessed a horse, I bet everything and the horse lost."

"That's the problem with you Protestants," said the priest. "You can't tell the difference between a simple blessing and the Last Rites."