same shelf, different device

Uploaded 05/09/2009

I evidently always sit in the same place when testing new cameras. For my first two digital cameras, anyway.

The last pictures I have from my previous camera are dated January but they weren't the last photos I took with it. Though I had recently had had to use a large elastic band from my tent repair kit to keep the battery compartment cover sufficiently tightly against the batteries I still carried it around with me, including down to my parents when we visited them sometime in February. On the way back up we stopped for a few days in York, stopping slightly further up the road than usual on the way back up than we would usually when driving the whole way in one go. Most of our stuff was in the boot but my bag, coat and a small bag of Nicky's were in the back seat. We both popped into the services at the same time to use the conveniences, but when I emerged and started to head back out to the car park I saw Nicky running towards the door, shouting out the number plate of the car squealing towards the car park exit after parking next to ours, hastily sawing the lock out of the passenger door, nicking the stuff then driving off just as Nicky reached the driver's door. It was entirely our fault for leaving it unattended and in view which we haven't done since, always keeping one person in the car when stopping (and avoiding that particular service station and going to the one at Durham which has a proper coffee shop) and leaving nowt on the back seat. The fuzz who turned up to the service station didn't have any fingerprinting gear with them so we popped into Gayfield station when we eventually got home but anything useful had been removed by the wind and rain on the journey back. Apart from a pair of trainers and a pair of shorts of which I was very fond (and Nicky's boiled wool jacket which also appears irreplaceable) the only things I was really annoyed about were my Look Around You series 1 DVD in the bag and the camera in the pocket of the coat which I wasn't really fussed about. Every now and then something else which was nicked comes to mind (I still think the stolen beard trimmer was better than the replacement I have today every time I use it) but I'm grateful in a way to the thieving scumbag for giving me an excuse to upgrade my camera at the next suitable moment.

Though still shite (my dad inherited this s5000 and I shudder slightly every time I see it) it had a significant feature which finally let me take properish pictures again; a sensor large enough and lens not-shite-enough to be able to have some bits of the image distinctly in-focus and other bits distinctly out-of-focus. Unless using macro mode on the Epsilon 1.3 this was not possible but until I upgraded I hadn't realised that without this ability I wasn't really trying to take proper photos.