Dog pictures too. I was given a camera for my birthday and – this is always my biggest problem – I think I can focus sharper with it.
It’s got a video button too, so expect some Youtube action once I’ve figured out how to use it.
I’ve been reading an excellent book about animals, but that will have to wait until next time.
A Bad Guide 
Happy birthday! (I can’t believe I forgot it–it’s the same as my sister’s, as I say every year. Also what’s-his-name who invented the www. And who else? Frank Lloyd Wright, is it?)
Topsy, Topsy, Topsy!
Oi, oi, oi!
¡¡Fantastic, I love them!
Did you see? The right equipment is what you needed. I always say that about my husband’s skills…
We’re talking about photography and cameras, of course
What a memory, Ø. Even I had forgotten Sir WWW.
Yes, Topsy is the real star. All I do is click in her direction.
A bad workman blames his tools, so they say, implying what? That a good workman never complains? Has no one else to blame? I blame the weather.
Ooh, Julia, that’s a bit saucy.
I’m a foreigner, blame the language!
(and please Mr. Crown do tell here that we had a conversation about cameras before in other place, or what are they all going to think of me?
Julia sent me a very crisp and beautiful picture of a hummingbird, taken by Diego, her husband, in which she also praised his equipment (“he’s a great photographer, I’m not saying he’s not, but he has the right equipment”).
hahaha! … as I always do!
Yes, happy birthday! May you never run out of animals (even if the animals seems to enjoy running out on you)!
Topsy’s terrific in action! And you’ve captured her!
Many, many happy returns of the day!
Or that would be yesterday.
The focus is indeed very sharp, clearly setting out the details from the background. The details of the goat’s face in the top picture are amazing! (sorry, I can’t tell which goat it is).
What is the camera?
Thank you, Trond & Catannea.
The goat is Misty and the camera a Canon 5d. It has very elaborate instructions for different kinds of focusing; for example if you want to focus on a smoothly accelerating subject, or on one that’s dodging about in different directions (Topsy), you press different buttons. I still haven’t figured it all out, really. I took more dog pictures today at the dog run. You wouldn’t normally notice it, but they get such odd expressions on their faces.
Although it’s a little late, I wish you a happy birthday as well.
Thank you, Jesús.
Me too: I wish you have a happy birthday next year, Artur.
If you now have a disused camera that you are thinking of getting rid of, I know people who might be interested.
I don’t know if it is your wife who gave you this Canon 5D, but several times my wife told me I should buy myself a proper single-lens reflex camera. She’s probably right. Wives usually are.
Why, bonjour, Siganus!
Thanks, Sig.
Yes, we’ve still got my wife’s old 5D, the original model. I’ll ask if she wants to sell it. It has about 13 megapixels, I think, which isn’t huge these days; but it’s a full-format camera, so you can take RAW pictures and print them out at roughly 2 metres square or whatever without the consequent loss of quality you’d get with a non full-format camera. But that’s a bit of a specialised requirement – my wife wants very big prints occasionally, but not everyone needs it.
It was actually my mother who gave me the Mark III. My wife thought I ought to continue with the old camera, but now she sees the difference, I think. I love this new camera for its improved automatic focus; the speed and ease of making adjustments to the settings in “manual” mode; the video, though I haven’t used it yet, it’s good enough that they used the Canon 5D Mark II to make a 45-minute episode of a US tv show called House (some people think that was silly, others like it); the increased detail in the images. The pictures are big, and they’ll take up a lot of room on a computer, but Canon offers a free service where you can upload & store many Gbytes of images (I haven’t tried this, but I’m thinking about it).
Sorry to sound like a camera geek. I’m really not knowledgeable enough to be one.
If you do get a SLR you ought to get it in the duty-free area on your travels, unless you can write it off. I saw mine at London airport for 2/3 of the price my mother paid.
I too am very late, but happy belated birthday! (I know nothing about cameras and so cannot comment on them, but I love your pictures.)
Thank you and thank you, Language.
Next year Crown might be given a hat. LH would then have no excuse not to comment extensively on the post AJP will no doubt do about it.
Bonjour, Marie-Lucie. I quite like the way you started your sentence with a “why” coming out of the blue. Is it something that is currently done in the modern English-speaking world? To my ears it sounds a bit Jane Austen, but they may be wrong.
AJP, I still have my Olympus camera, which was bought in the 80s, and I suspect it will still be working when all these electronic-fed cameras will be left powerless, but I’m not sure I could even find films nowadays. (Not to mention having them processed.) But apparently Ilford films are still being produced, though I doubt they could be found on Mars. When it comes to Olympus, you know how they infamously disappeared recently.
I/we still have two Pentax (non-digital) SLRs languishing in a cupboard; but I “need” a camera that fits in my pocket and can be “quick-drawn” for capturing photos when I haven’t gone out “for a photo session” (and also is very lightweight). K’s pack-of-cards sized HandyCam (his second) is wonderful; but I am not in that price-range…Nor yours! Still, I am fed up with those dead insects inside my lens, and looking for another solution. So my ears are open like the well-know greedy shark for all counsel and advice…I, too, “need” to shoot dogs in action; and Marie-Lucie is right: the photo of Misty is even more beautiful than we are accustomed to and she is lovely with the dark background…
Thank you very much, you’re too kind! There was someone who was taking pictures of the dead insects and grass & dust inside their camera – who was that? I’ll look it up.
Olympus sounds shady. Damn good cameras, though. We’ve got a little one that I take to London when I go there.
That was me. I wasn’t taking pictures of those things willingly – they’re just in there and if I zoom at all, they come into semi-focus. I haven’t got my courage up to unscrew the microscopic screws and see whether I can clean them out myself.
No, it was a proper art project. I read about it in a newspaper a while ago, it was someone in the suburbs of New York, but I can’t find it back. The images I saw weren’t too exciting, but I thought it was a great idea. I love stuff like that, finding new ways to use equipment.
Oh, happy birthday Mr Crown! These are terrific pictures! I also use the action-photo setting on my camera and find it quite wonderful, as long as you set it properly to the moving creature at first.
Enjoy your camera and let us enjoy more photos!
Fantastic. Someone nice I can ask when I don’t understand the instructions. I’d never realised that focusing could be so complicated.
Sorry I missed your birthday, I was away, drinking wine in Margaux. But I hope it’s not too late to say Many Happy Returns!
Thanks. Lucky you! Are you a claret expert?
I’m not an expert at all, but I love visiting the châteaux and tasting the wines.
I’m very fond of Riesling wines. Post hock proper hick!
The pictures do look very sharp, although my eyes are not up to the task of seeing how much better they are than the ones taken with your previous camera, sorry! On the matter of goats and dogs, I thought you might enjoy this, in the unlikely event that someone has not already sent you the link
Oh, thanks Stu. Our dogs are a little bit scared of the goats. It probably helps when they’re introduced as small kids.
You’d have to see all the rejects to understand the fuzziness problem.
Once upon a time my cat and I had to deal with the fact that our housemate, who owned the house, decided to get herself a dog. I like dogs, but my cat had never lived with one before. It worked out fine, because even though Marie chose a Doberman, and a particularly nervous one at that, she got him while he was still a puppy: the cat quickly established some authority over the newcomer, and he was still treated with respect when the dog was big enough to eat him in one gulp.
I’m assuming it didn’t happen though, the eating.
A couple of times I’ve seen herds of horses being bossed about by a 75cm tall Shetland pony who was the boss.