Tag Archives: Brompton

A New Camera

Photography, Retirement, , , , , , , ,

Over the years, my cameras seem to have got bigger, and so have the lenses. I have resisted this tendency recently, first by changing to mirrorless from DSLR cameras, but also by investing in Canon’s cheaper lenses which have the advantage of being much lighter than the “professional” range. This makes it possible for the Old Git to handhold a long 800 mm lens and still get sharp results.

Brown Hare, Lostock, Cheshire.

However, it occurred to me recently that my concentration on wildlife has restricted my photography. A long time ago, I used to carry a camera for most of the time, so I was always ready when a photo-opportunity arose.

Fish awaiting cooking, Ntonso, Ghana.

Now, the size and weight of my equipment make this problematic, and I rarely carry my camera unless I expect wildlife opportunities. Also, I have now bought a folding bicycle, a Brompton, and go for a ride most days, and intend to cycle further afield, taking the bike by car or train. So what I needed was a “point and shoot” type camera, and after considerable research, settled on the Sony RX100 vii.

The River Weaver, Cheshire.

This is a tiny camera which retracts the lens when switched off, so it fits in my pocket comfortably. However, despite its diminutive size, it is a very capable camera, with the lens having a wide range from 24mm to 200m, and a lot of capability in both video and stills. I have always been in control of my photography, so calculation has always been involved before pressing the button, so it has been a new experience for me to frame a photo and then shoot with no further thought. I have been pleasantly surprised by the images it is capable of, using its lightning fast auto-focus and accurate judgement of exposure, but also its ability to change its choice of settings in different contexts, eg landscape or porttrait or macro.

Granddaughter Bethan with great grandson Phoenix.

However, it’s possible to operate the camera in full manual mode, so I can take control of the settings and capture an image where the automatic settings would fail. For example, I have found that it is possible to use the built-in flash to trigger a complicated lighting setup.

The camera is also very good for taking what I believe are called “selfies”, a type of photograph which was considered to betray a certain character weakness in my day. It was OK for you to be photographed by someone else, but not by yourself. Times change and old dogs can learn new tricks!


A New Start

Retirement, , ,

It’s seven years since my last post on my previous blog, and now I’m ready to start blogging again. My circumstances have changed dramatically since then (see About), so the focus of this blog is quite different – as of now in 2024, I am 82 years of age, and I have the experience of 23 years of retirement behind me. I can claim to be rather more expert at this phase of life than I was in 2001, but I feel I am entering a time of life which is different, in which friends and relatives see me differently, partly due to changes in their own life, partly to changes in mine.

I am fortunate that my body is holding up better than most at my age. I have a maimed finger because of a poor decision involving a chisel and a tin of paint, a rupture due to a moment of poor technique while lifting, and my senses are failing. However, my joints remain sound and I get around well enough.

But I look at my hands, and I see the wrinkled skin, parchment thin, which seems to have shrunk around the bones and tendons. Some of the finger joints are swollen with arthritis, and there are usually blotches where tiny blood vessels have burst. When I use them to grip, hard, the fingers often freeze and have to be forced back into shape. There’s no getting away from it, they are the hands of an old man, which seems strange to the twenty-something living in my head.

I shall try to use this blog to comment on life at my time of life, a perspective which is not often shared. I will also talk about episodes in my past life that I like to think about, and share an old man’s present day foolishnesses. Photographs are likely to feature frequently.

As a possible example of such foolishness, I have recently bought a Brompton folding bicycle, an electric one. This is a bike that is beautifully engineered, built by a company which takes a pride in their product, which has an outstanding reputation for quality and reliability. My struggles over a few weeks to purchase a working defect-free bike from them has left a succession of Brompton employees embarassed and shame-faced. I am on my third new bike, all of which suffered a variety of faults, and my second battery. There was a point where I wondered whether life was trying to tell me something, rather than just inflicting a period of incredibly bad luck on me.

But I now have a Brompton bike which is perfect, good-looking, and ready to take me on new adventures, sometimes by train and car. No, don’t tell me I’m too old for that.