Out of town again into the Karoo - shot a few panos with the 28 2.8 with interesting perspectives!
We spent the last two days in the little Karoo near a town called Barrydale. The area is struggling with the worst drought in a century and while the soil is fertile and good for fruit growing, water is a real problem.
One person in the town has a house built from local stone and a garden of gravel and succulents, mainly aloes.
The Langeberg (long mountains) stretch for about 150 miles and effectively cut off cloud and rain from the seaward side. The one picture shows part of the range from our rented cottage gate and the other the little cottage that we rented for 2 days for about $100. Self catering but great value for money. Too windy to fish so we contented ourselves with wine tasting and tapas style lunches. Someone has to do it!
Still in the little Karoo - a small village named Mc Gregor about 180 Km from Cape Town and a bit of a "get away from it all" weekend destination for the laid back. Very dry Karoo town with eclectic but basic Cape style architecture.
It's a great place to sit in the shade and do nothing except savour a Windhoek lager, ice cold, on a 32*C day!
McGregor town house
Typical Architecture
3 Houses combined as a retreat. guest house and excellent restaurant.
Peter (Knysna), very enjoyable summer scenes, especially those cottages!
Buddy, very interesting reading about your tryst with the moulting tarantula. Keep them well secured, and well fed Now that is quite a hobby!! And Anouk's 2 years old already?? Wow, very cute 2 year portrait with the 55 1.2!
Jay, I have never stop admiring your work with the 24 PC-E lens!!
Jose wait, so you are going non-Nikon too Well at least its with one your faves, the 400 AI lens, and either way the bird images are marvelous as ever!!
Using and handling the 24 PC-E for the first time today, my admiration for Jay's work went up even more. the 24 is a far cry from its predecessor, the 28 3.5 PC, which just seems like child's play now. The newer PC-E lens has a lot more knobs and parts to keep track of, is considerably bigger and heavier. Unilke the 28 3.5 PC (or the 28 f4 PC and the even older 35 2.8 PC which I have also used before), the 24 is definitely not conducive to use without a tripod. I also found that it was better to set it at its minimum aperture setting and control the aperture from the camera. One less thing to worry about on the lens.
I haven't even gotten to the tilt function yet.
From a quick look at the second photo, I am thinking this newer lens may not have the fuzzy top edge issue, that the older PC-Nikkors did. More testing is needed though.
The following mundane, nothing special photo brings me a great deal of joy. About 8 months ago, I picked up a Nikon F out of a junk box at an antique store for $15. It is in beautiful cosmetic condition and my sole purpose in purchasing the camera was to display it on a shelf in my office. Absolutely nothing on the camera worked.
As I looked at it each day, I decided that I would one day attempt to make it work again. Well, one day has come. The day after Christmas, I tore it down about as far as I dared (shown in 2nd photo). It was very dry and had a fair amount of rust in the shutter speed controls. With a lot of careful cleaning and lubing, the camera is now fully functional. The meter is still not working and never will, but that's a different story.
This photo of an office building is the first photo taken with the camera post-cleaning. Most of the roll of film was used taking more mundane shots. I did a series of exposures of the same scene using shutter speeds from 1/15 - 1/1000 /sec to see how accurate the shutter speeds are (at least in relation to one another). I'm happy to say that, other than depth-of-field, the exposures all look the same. This indicates to me that they are fairly accurate.
the solitaire wrote:
With not so much time spent taking pictures in the past two months, there isn't a lot I can share.
The good about that is that I have more time reading the 50+ pages that appeared in the time my notebook gave up on me, until a replacement was found.
The "bad" thing about it is that I spent a lot of time thinking about photography and came up with a few ideas.
Still, a few photos had to be made.
Anouks 2nd Christmas. First time around she was just two months old, and we were still getting over the initial shock of the happenings around Anouks birth. This year, we enjoyed her through and through positive nature all the more.
Something of a more crawly nature had me worried this Christmas though. One of my tarantulas disappeared somewhere around November (disappeared is relative, as she could not have gotten out of her enclosure). I chanced a glance into the entrance of her home using a pen light a few times, and noticed a strangled mess of legs but nothing that resembled a living creature. Now, spiders moult when they grow, and the bigger they get, the longer it takes for this process to complete, but after over a month without movement I got worried.
I even carefully sprayed water on to the presumed spider, but did not notice movement. I pretty much gave up, and was already searching for another spider to move into the empty residence when I noticed this:
This is Lieschen (derived from the German Meckerliese, which is the German equivalent of Moaning Minnie), a Poecilotheria spec. Lowlands lady with a TL of 2 3/4" and leg span of 8".
She got her name because she always got out when the residents below her, a group of Octodon degu, made too much of a racket. Actually, this time she got out after Kristina fed the Degus some walnuts, which makes a hell of a racket as well.
Either way, I was glad to see this view for a few reasons. One is that Lieschen is, as it appears, in good health (and hungry) after her moult. Another is that I found out she's still around before I started redecorating her enclosure. Poecilotheria in general are rather poisonous and have a bad rep for belonging to the less patient amongst Tarantula species.
This afternoon she greeted me with all fours spread while I tried to carefully replace some of the plants in her enclosure. Anyways, I'm still glad to have her around, even if it means that redecorating needs to be done when Anouk and Kristina are a safe distance away from the enclosure. ...Show more →
Such a precious picture of Anouk... you both are truly blessed to have such a wonderful and beautiful little girl. Thx for sharing with us. Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!
rafaelcasd wrote:
This is my happy new year -2018- to every one of you. May we find heaven in our earthly soul. May earth be a paradise for every person on it.
Now that is quite a hobby!! And Anouk's 2 years old already?? Wow, very cute 2 year portrait with the 55 1.2!
Well at least its with one your faves, the 400 AI lens, and either way the bird images are marvelous as ever!! 
