The Miracle of Christmas ...

I have posted this blog as I don't quite believe what has happened today.  If you read the blog you will already be aware that  I was without a camera after selling my 5D a few weeks ago. Since then I have been (Im)patiently scanning the web to find a supplier that has a 5D mk2 in stock and at a price I am prepared to pay. Best so far was Amazon, no stock but £300 off msp.

It's not close to the holiday but I was starting to worry. A little bored with not much to do I went to Bristol today and as usual I looked in the window of Bristol Cameras. Posted in the window was a A4 printout announcing stock of the 5D MK2 at £1900 (£400 off msp!!)

I went in and cautiously asked the assistant if there were any and he produced the last one boxed and sealed. After the ritualistic taking out of the box fitting a lens and taking a few snaps - I bought it, then rushed back to cancel my order withy Amazon. As I left they  removed the poster and said that stock would be back to their usual price of £2,250 (or there abouts)

It's on the table at the moment while the battery charges and I read the user guide (honestly). With just about a week of the holiday left then let the fun begin!!! - poor Barney.

Father Christmas has indeed been kind to me this year...

Photographic Developments…

The main theme of this short Blog is photography which I suppose that you guessed from the title – but for two different reasons.

The first is that I sold my 5D a few weeks ago to take advantage of the reasonably good 2nd hand prices that the camera was commanding and also to make me commit to buying the 5D MkII.

Trouble is, that they are in short supply at the moment and although I have one on order at Amazon the delivery date is mid January and that’s starting to get a little close to my New Zealand holiday in February. I just hope that I can get one before I leave for NZ.

The second reason is that Carol has entered the world of SLR Photography. Becoming increasingly uninspired by the limitations of compact cameras she has bought a Canon 100D with the 18-55mm kit lens and a very nice 18-200mm Sigma zoom – which when you take into account the crop factor gives an nice optical zoom range.

She was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have a try before you buy with a friends camera before taking the plunge.

So now Carol has her new camera and I don’t – bugger!!

Anyway I haven’t bored you with work for a little while and that’s because I have so busy doing it. Last week I was in Milan for the week and as I write this I'm in a hotel London but just for the one night.

It follows quite a busy weekend when I ran the Christmas cracker run – organised by Weston Athletic Club. My time of 50 mins 26 secs for the 10k race was 4 minutes faster than the time I did 10 years ago !!!   

The photo was taken before the start of the race I would like to say though that we all got through it quite well.  Proves that there is life in old dog yet.

Last night was our FM Xmas party and this Friday is the Office Party, then there is the breakfast next Monday and a drink or two after work on Xmas eve so just getting in the mood for the big day.

Pretty sure what pressies I’m getting and so is Carol so no big suprises this year. BTW only about 9 weeks until our holiday and a little over 3 weeks until 2009 when we have been married 25 years.

Back From Our Holidays ...Sigh

 

Well, the holiday that I have been waiting for so long has finally been and gone.
Having said that we did have a good old time and managed for the first time in ages to include some relaxation time as well as the site seeing and shopping. This was helped by the Nile Cruise that turned out to be a really effective way of travelling between locations whilst sipping a beer or two and reading a good book.
All of my camera equipment went on tour too and most of it got used - the most useful being the cheapo 50mm f1.8 lens that I bought from amazon for around £60.00 last year. This was particularly good for the early morning balloon flight when the ambient lighting wasn't as good as it could be.
I took a lot of holiday photos (1000+) but following a substantial cull they are down to around 150 images and these form our photo album that you can reach by clicking on the link. Carols photo's are listed separately and can be reached by clicking the link.

The number and size of the images has raised the question of off line and on line storage. A recent deal at ebuyer got me a 1TByte external SATA drive which is just used as a photo backup drive.

Looking ahead I noticed that PC world have BlueRay writers for around £130.00 with media at £5.00 per 25 GByte. This seemed a good plan for long term archiving of data and I may look at this for Xmas.

For Offline storage I am trialling a photo storage site called Event image, which for a basic subscription of around $25 per year allows up to 1500 images. There are a few nice features that it also provides which will be very useful. I will keep you posted on how I get on with this.
Both Carol and I have suffered with colds over the past few weeks and they seem difficult to get rid of - hardly surprising though when you see how many people are coughing and sneezing on the trains and tube.
Not been around much these last few weekends  as we have recently been back to the Midlands - its a dirty job but...

Sailing has long finished and the boat is back at home waiting for some TLC before the new season. I will soon have to return my trophy too the AGM is in early January.
The present buying period is upon us and I have few suggestions from Carol on what to get her, I just need to get around to buying them now.

This post was created a few weeks ago but has only just been published but the update is that I have now sold my 5D and have placed an order with Amazon for a 5D mk11. They are as rare as hen's teeth at the moment and I have to try to get one before we go on holiday in February.