Adventures of an Idiot - occasional ramblings of a photography freak

Busy day Thursday… up all night Wednesday then catch the 0720 bus into town Thursday morning.
There was of course a reason for this (to be revealed shortly) but suffice to say for the mo’ that I’d plotted the day out in advance and, unusually, everthing went pretty much according to plan. Amazing!

First task… mate and I (mate from The Bear pub that is) had spent a little time a coupla weeks or so ago taking some pics in an area of Bedford known locally as Russell Park (see this post).
It had worked out ok but the thing we both failed to do (pressures of time and so forth) was to get any pics of the actual Park the area’s named after.
So I’d had it in mind to remedy this oversight soon as pos’. Which, Thursday morning, I did. The light was a bit curious, bright and sunny one moment and overcast the next and of course it was early in the morning. So I kept tinkering with the white balance… bit of a bad move I suspect (with the benefit of hindsight!).
However, objective achieved and I now feel my Russell Park set on Flickr has been suitably completed.

On to the next task then… and the very reason why I’d wanted to get into town instead of just grabbing some sleep after a night spent staring at computer screens.
Ages ago (or so it seems) I’d ordered a new lens from my local friendly Jessops.
Well, time went by. Then more time went by. Then I started getting emails and text messages from them on practically a weekly basis letting me know that the lens still hadn’t arrived.
Then a week or so passed with no word at all… until Wednesday. Get both a text and an email (about half-eleven in the morning) that the lens has arrived! Yippee!
Problem was though, couldn’t get into town Wednesday. Hence, taking on board the eagerness to get my hands on a new bit of kit, the incredibly stupid plan to get into town first thing the following morning, despite the fact I already knew I’d be up all Wednesday night.

“Yeah, I can do that” I thought. “Easy”. Yeah. Right.

So. The lens.
Well, its a Sigma… their 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC “Macro” as they call it. Not a proper macro in the strictest sense (its a 1:2.3)… that’s still on my shopping list. But hopefully a bit better for close-ups than my existing Samsung kit lenses.
And that’s the point.
To replace the kit lenses that came with the Samsungs (fortunately both the GX10 and GX20 lenses - Pentax fitting - are interchangeable).
Ok, theoretically its not a huge improvement cos, let’s face it, the lens is at the lower end of Sigma’s range but I have no doubt whatsoever it is an improvement. In fact, on the basis of the first session I had with it, quite a significant improvement… but more of that anon.
So essentially I’m gaining one extra stop, and its a 17-70mm as opposed to the kit lenses that are 18-55mm.
It also feels a lot more substantial. And its a whopping 72mm diameter at the front! The UV/Skylight filter for that’s gonna cost an arm and a leg (relative to the other filters I’ve got that is… none of which come anywhere near that size). Dammit.

As a general purpose walkabout lens I’m well satisfied… so far. But time will tell of course.

Ok. Having got the Russell Park shots out the way and collected the new lens I was of course eager to try it out.
But needed somewhere to have a play with it first… check everything’s present and correct, make sure I’ve been supplied with the right fitting, and so on. Bit too early for The Bear (about 0930 now)… but hey, its breakfast time!
Find a suitable establishment, attend to the needs of the inner man, then open the box. Instruction leaflet/guarantee? Yep. And quickly discarded with little more than a cursory glance. Lens hood? Yep. Apparently Sigma include them with practically all their lenses. Top marks Sigma. Right fitting? Yes!
All that remains is attach it to camera (the trusty old GX10) and start using it for real.

Onto stage three of my pre-planned day then.

For some time I’ve had in mind to take the camera to a part of Bedford known as Ampthill Road. Its actually a bit of the A6 that takes traffic coming from Luton through the town centre then on out northward to Rushden (or vice versa of course).
Some years ago (and for quite a long time) it was a thriving manufacturing area of the town providing significant employment for local people. Most of that’s now gone. There were a couple of petrol stations along the road (the section I’m talking about, from off the town centre southwards for about a half-mile) that have been closed down for a while. Large blocks of office accommodation stand vacant and up to let, and quite a few small retailers have closed up shop too.
Despite the construction of a few new apartment blocks the whole area now has a somewhat depressed feel (shame really, cos there’s some very nioe, and old, houses along there) and I’d thought it would provide opportunities for some interesting shots.

That was the plan then and, though I didn’t exactly set about it with gusto (cos by this time I was feeling a tad weary) it all worked out reasonably well.

Hmm. Now lunchtime, head back to The Bear. And of course I couldn’t really regard the session with the new lens fully over ’til I’d grabbed at least a few shots from there, now could I?

So, loiter round there until mate finishes work then wander over to the supermarket for my weekly shopping (all part of my carefully constructed plan… “In town Thursday? May as well do the shopping then”.) Which meant I didn’t manage to get back home until early evening.

Of course, throughout all my ever-so-careful pre-planning I’d overlooked one small but quite important situation.
Having been out a significant portion of the day taking snaps I’d now got a good 160+ of the damn things on my memory card. And they had to be edited (down to a sensible number at least), processed, uploaded etc.
And I’d still not had any sleep!
Ho hum. “In for a penny, in for a pound” as they say. Just plough on regardless then.
In between dozing off over the keyboard a coupla times finally managed to get everything done by about 6.30 Friday morning… and at last I could get to remind myself what my bed looks like.

All in all though a reasonably satisfactory session. But never again!