FUN AND GAMES. (02/08/14)

I’ve had a pretty good couple of days. The new Transcend 1TB drive arrived and works like a dream. I have never had anything that uses USB3 before. “EE By Gum”…… It’s fast. I took the old WD hard drive apart and swapped it’s disc for the second the drive in my old laptop, found the WD recovery disc that came with it and was amazed when everything went to plan; took a while and a few “Bless My Souls.” I left it running overnight and in the morning I had 400GB worth of files. I have no idea if that is all of them as I’ll be blowed if I can remember what was on there….Seems about right.

I have a couple of card readers and on one the bit that guides the CompactFlash card onto the pins wouldn’t guide. I took that to bits gave the little plastic guide a stroke with fine emery paper and now that works as well. I looked at it under my magnifying glass and it looked suspiciously like a little dribble of sweet and sour sauce had found it’s way in there and dried. I like CompactFlash cards but am always a little concerned about all those pins in the readers and cameras. They are very fine and it it’s a miracle I’ve not fouled one up before now. I will have a look and see if Lexar do a USB3 reader. I like their stuff but the big 800x card was an eye watering price. Overkill really as the 1Ds’s write to card speed is only about 70MB/s. I suspect it does a little better but not by much.

I didn’t take one picture yesterday. It was wet, then dry and then perked up but by that time I was reading a book and cooking. This morning I took the dogs out at six thirty for a run on the beach. They do the running, I stand a watch. I lugged the tripod and a bag of filters. It's still quite breezy, north easterly a touch chilly.

   I took five shots and the filter was getting blathered with salt. I don’t like wiping salt off so I gave up until I could wash it off. These look almost sepia so I said to the dogs we’ll have some breakfast, go to the shop for some food, milk and Marlboro, then have another go when the filters are dry. I went for another go. I gave the whole lot a good dose of LensPen. I love the things. Brush off with one end. Give the cap a twist on the other end and then take the cap off and wipe with the little pad thingummy. I do have several micro fibre cloths but am wary of using them, they trap muck and can be mistaken for a hankie, snot on a lens is not conducive to clear crisp pictures.

  This is about twenty seconds and shot from a low promontory at 50mm. I then retreated and changed to 135mm. Focussed up and put all the filters back on including a polariser as the sun had decided to pop it’s hat on and come out to join the fun.

    The first is about 30s and the second and third are about a minute or more.

I kept the dogs on their lead. Molly is either daft or fearless and wanders down the cliff, Alf is just a bit daft and follows Moll. The last one is where they could have ended up. There is a one and half to two meter swell breaking and boiling in this little cove.

Heavy rain is on it’s way. I will think about doing a time lapse of a snail on a mirror eating Ragwort tomorrow. There are some wonderful tiny black and white snails here.

Have fun.