Hello everyone,
I bought a thing …
Yep. Went for it with the camera. It’s the Canon R50 mirrorless camera in the package that comes with a backpack, 32GB memory card, extra battery and a 18-45mm lens. I ordered on the Friday afternoon and it arrived with me on the Tuesday afternoon.
Quick aside – I’m struggling a bit with the physical and mental health at the moment … I’ll be ok, just getting older on the physical side and I think I needed to go back on the multivitamins to help me out mentally. It’s almost certainly why I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like lately. Just so tired and mentally blasted.
So … mid last year, Doctor Sleepy was looking for an answer to tiredness. So Doctor Sleepy started taking Vitamin C/D supplements as well as the multivitamins and Magnesium (for cramp). However, I was getting increasingly savage cramps. When the cruise happened, I deliberately didn’t take the multivits and was just on the Mag and Vit C/D. And the cramps were almost gone. So I’ve been off the multivits since. I think that’s been starving me of some of the brain chemicals … And it’s been manifesting into snapping off at stuff that really shouldn’t get to me.
Like having a fraud check imposed on the buying of the camera. Yeah, I flared over that. I should probably be seeing an actual qualified Doctor about the mineral imbalances that I still have, instead of trying to go by Doctor Google and Doctor Sleepy. Cos I’m a techie and engineering geek, not a body or brain geek.
The TLDR though is that the online Canon store did a cracking job getting the camera to me in very quick time and they dealt very professionally and courteously with the email comms with my angry email about the fraud check. Would totally go back to them again and not just because they gave the best deal this time. (Disclosure note – I bought all this stuff and went back to Canon because while the Ixus has limits, it’s a great little camera)
Camera ?
There we are. I’ll hopefully get chances to do some comparisons of all 3 cameras I have available to me now. In that pic, we can see the R50 pointing at us. That’s it without a lens attached. The Ixus 265 is behind and to the right. It suffers for stabilisation and low light but they pack incredible zoom capability into the tiny pocket package. And there’s my Pixel 4 sitting in front.
That’s from the first out and about and it’s taken from a camp site that will hopefully offer good views of both Severn Bridges. I hadn’t used or investigated the camera much but it was good to be out and about. I’d been suffering from an increasingly painful back at work (I think one of the chairs violently disagrees with me) and heading out over the bridge to find a little place called the Black Rock Picnic Site. (Link) There used to be a service station that offered incredible views of the Bridge (and was accessible) but the prime location got bought by a company that locked off the access … and have since moved out. Looks like it might be accessible again in 2026. (Handy Linky)
Anyway, that’s from the R50 on a tripod. It was steadily drizzling, so I didn’t want to venture out too much into the open with the new shiny … so the tripod was a bit too far back meaning the camera’s focused on the foliage instead of the bridge. Next time :-D. The little Ixus was able to zoom all the way into the vertical spars of the bridge and focus into the cables.
First attempt at a night time shot. Not sure what’s happening on the left there with the lighting. Maybe something was being sprayed. It was a bit of a fight making the camera take the shot, I think it was demanding a flash. I do like the definition there though, this was with the camera braced on a fence. I wasn’t going to stick around to figure out what was happening with the lights on the left, by this time I was massively tired (first day back on the multivits) and while my back had freed up a bit, it was still Angry. I’d gone partly into survival mode by this point (and annoyed at pizza shop guy attempting to clear up uneaten pizza while trying to rush me out of the Hut) and needed to get home.
Friday saw me getting out and about again. First up, Cardiff to have a quick look around. I’ll likely acquire a longer lens for the R50, especially for the cricket in the summer. I’d like to see what it can do there and I’ll have the tripod along as well. I might pick up something from the Cardiff camera shop, as it’s really handy to be able to check the sizes of stuff before you buy them. However, it’s also really handy to be able to check the prices of what you’re looking at.
There’s a saying “if you need to ask the price, you can’t afford it”. I prefer to go by “if you’re not showing me the price, you’re planning to rip me off”. I could look up the price online … but that’s not the same as actually displaying it. Anyway, Cardiff let me look in the model shop (where I got put off a bit by them talking disparagingly about “over educated student types”, Sleepy will remember that) and the snack shop. More on that later. I didn’t have too much time in Cardiff though because I wanted to try and look at the castle before it was too late in the day …
There we are. This is Whitecastle, in the depths of Wales near the border with England. Nice little castle … not much left of it though. I managed to completely blow someone’s mind by saying that this castle was rebuilt in 1260. Here’s the wiki link. There isn’t much left of this castle and to be honest, the nearby Raglan castle has much more to see and is in better condition. I didn’t stay here too long, you’ll probably see how lush the grass is there. The ground around here has been treated to a Lot of water from the sky and wasn’t in great condition. I could see a slip and fall and lots of mud in the immediate future of my jeans :-D.
So I moved on and had too much fun on the roads on the way back, letting the car make very nice brum brum noises on the tight and twisty roads. I may have to do that more often. Setting the satnav for “short” instead of “quick” makes it avoid the motorways which are just set cruise control to Snore. Tight and twisty roads with no one else on them are more fun.
Snacks ?
Snacks ! That’s the haul from Wally’s Delicatessen in one of the Cardiff arcades. Good place, nice people, great snacks. And a tasty haul of (back row) candy mice, pineapple chunks and cola bottles plus (front row) fudge, fruit jellies and chocolate coin things.
Time to hit post though and get tonight’s dinner in the oven. Nite all 😀
PS The lens cap survived 3 days before I lost it … I realised before leaving the castle though and spotted it, lying on the path where it had been dropped. Will have to figure something out there.