All change

Where the hell has the time gone. I've been off of work this week and yet still I've not updated the Blog - not that I have much to write about. No garden mothing and such shite weather that I've not bothered going out other than taking the kids to various indoor venues.

Yesterday we had a nice weather day though and decided to visit Twycross Zoo - haven't been for a couple of years and seeing as my new toy turned up I thought I'd try it out.

Despite not considering myself a photographer, I've somehow managed to aquire/get through a couple of digital cameras over the years - not including the crappy low res cameras on various mobile phones - and a few 35mm compact and SLRs cameras before that. Most recently I've been using my trusty old Nikon CoolPix 4500 for macro photography of moths and a few other insects, a Sony Cybershot compact for general shots when out and about (and the macro on that is not bad either), and my second hand Canon 350D with 90-300mm zoom lens for birds and other stuff.

Trouble is that the DSLR setup really is not up to the job - the body is only 7Mpixel with a dirty sensor and the lens is rubbish when it comes to depth of field and low light levels. Whilst I'd really like to uprate both body and lens there is no way I can justify the substantial cost. Uprating the body to use with my existing lens, or a bigger lens with the existing body, wouldn't really help much.

So, as an interim measure (as in for the next 2 - 3 years or so) I've gone backwards. Whilst certainly not anywhere near as good as a decent DSLR setup (mainly due to shutter lag and autofocus speed), I've bought the latest Panasonic Lumix  FZ45. It has a 24x optical zoom, is 14Mpixel, has HD video, macro zoom down to 1cm - basically does everything that all of the other 3 cameras do and more but in one easy to carry lightweight package. I took it out yesterday to the zoo and early impressions are very good.

I've also taken the long overdue step of updating the family PC from an archaic heap with no ram, very slow processor and crappy CRT monitor to a 3Ghz, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb drive machine with a 23" widescreen LED monitor. As anyone who has changed PC over the years will probably recognise, this means a bit of time sorting out software and moving files etc. which may affect my ability to get photos sorted in the short term, especially if I can't find my Photoshop discs!

So, plenty to keep me busy over the next week or so - though we have several more days out to come. Hopefully that Eyebrook Kentish will stick for a couple of days as I can't get there tomorrow.