Gloucester - Sharpness Canal

Actually took this on my Nokia N73, whilst having a thoughtful stroll in early-ish December - nice scene though...

Trees

Not had chance to post anything for a while, but here are some rather nice pics of trees from the last couple of months - from Crickley Hill in February....

The 2 shots above are of the same tree, on the south-facing slope, below left are a couple of wind-blown specimens looking east, and on the right is a shot up into the trees on the lower, northern side.

And below are a couple of shots of an absolutely mad-looking tree at Bristol Zoo snapped last week - should have looked at the label to identify the species, but didn't - hey ho.

New Year's Day - Old Severn Bridge

The fun of it, eh, a drive down to Aust, what more could I want?? Camera did well, see shots below, and it's still on the batteries that went in it when I fired it up, in late October - can't be bad...



Rather a nice old tree, feeling the pace of the breeze... Shame about the barbed wire fence, but didn't think to try from the other side and maybe manage it out of the pic.













One of the rather surreal light clusters at the tolls... Think they winch 'em up and down to change bulbs etc...













Cliff on the England side down river - amazingly clear strata...












The good old bridge - looks like it's had a ick of paint in the fairly recent past - not too mucky.












View from the bank down to the first pontoon - that's a long old way down, and some pretty mucky water...







Second Severn Crossing, with some rather nice cloud behind...

Down Side??

Well, I've had the batteries fall out of the camera on the car seat, when the release catch must have snagged on something a bit too easily - not a problem there, but could have been in some situations, and have lost one of the plastic loops the strap secures itself on, so that's rather attractively knotted on one side of the camera at present - will look for a new strap when I get chance....

The Story So Far......

Not had much chance to try taking many "proper" photos with the new camera, but have used it a couple of times at junior rugby matches at Longlevens RFC - the 10x zoom makes a real difference, and the lack of appreciable delay between click and pic means you normally actually snap the action you want, not something 2 seconds later....

Screen is very good too - decent size, and seems to have run for well over an hour so far on the standard AAs that came with it....

Well, We've Got The Essentials!!

First things first - what's this all about??

Well, I thought, as the Powershot A70 I got for my 40th birthday has expired, I'd sort myself a new camera, and see if I can actually work out how to take a decent photo, as opposed to a snap, once in a while....

Did a bit of research, and plumped for a Fuji S5700 - others looked more attractive, but I don't think my bank manager would agree, and this seems to have a shed-load of features.







Have got the camera, courtesy of Amazon - a bargain price for the spec at £110, and a 2GB SD card for it for a whole £7 or so extra...

First impressions??

Well, they've taken a while, as I've had it sat on the shelf for 10 days without using it - but it had an outing this morning watching Longlevens RFC U16s (see my other blog) - but let's see, what can I say so far:

• It's a lot of camera in not too big a package - doesn't exactly fit in your pocket, but not too bad
• Excellent screen
• 10x zoom is superb - just what I wanted for rugby photos etc
• Good quick startup and reaction to the button being pressed - again, ideal for sport

Will hopefully get some time out and about in the countryside in the next few weeks, to learn some more....