On the Road Again!

I have been having a few problems with the Nikon D50 of late.  Due to firmware limits I have only been using 1gb and 2gb SD cards. The camera is fitted with a Nikkor 28-100mm lens. The problem is that the shutter won't operate and in viewfinder display it shows an r07 error. Googling gives the following:  The "r07" message on Nikon cameras (commonly D70/D80) is usually not an error, but an indicator that 7 shots remain in the memory buffer. If it flashes or prevents shooting, it indicates a full buffer, communication error, or power issue. Reset by turning the camera off, removing the battery/memory card for 15 minutes, or cleaning lens contacts.  If there are 7 shots in the memory buffer why does it do it as soon as you turn it on after weeks of no use?  I know this is an information display, but it shouldn't be 🔒 locking the shutter release before any images have been taken and saved. If anyone knows, then please comment. I took...

Today Reggie and I had a walk around Fisherman's Beach in Hythe. There aren't that many boats left and developers have put some apartment blocks on the the back of the beach . The white house is a Martello Tower that has been converted into a house.  The red flag was flying and so we couldn't walk along the ranges we went as far as we could and turned around. Walking along the edge as the waves rumbled in, revealed the number of Cuttlefish washed up beyond the tendrils of the waves. Too many to count. Very sad but they will provide food for the gulls.

The Nikon Bug ... The problem is that in this weather there isn't much around Hythe to go and photograph. With so much on combined with the bad weather, not much opportunity to go anywhere. I took Claire to Pilates and we parked in Waitrose and walked along the canal to the cricket club. I took a few photos again! When I went back to collect her I took this one of St Leonard's Church. The light was going and so it's a little dark. Shutter Count.

Today on the dog walk as it was sunny, I took the Nikon D50 with me. I recently joined a Facebook group for owners of older Nikon DSLR cameras. In the low winter sun, some of the colours came out so well.  The reds on the hillside are the hawthorn bushes. The canal lightly frozen The replica sound mirror Hawthorn. I went for the "bokeh" effect. The last standing sound mirror - nearly 100 years old. More Hawthorn.

I have made an upgrade to my Nikon D50 after a few years.... well, 15 maybe. When I am out I never use the neck strap and I end up wrapping it around my hand and hold the body in my right hand, and operate the lens with my left. Then I saw the neoprene wrist strap being advertised on Facebook.  Odd. As only a few old fogeys use DSLR cameras nowadays. Maybe it was targeted advertising... Anyway, it was a bit pricey so I had a look on good ole Amazon.  Sure enough, there were a few choices.  I chose the £7.99 version. Photo taken on Sony DSC-P200. It's only a wrist strap if you have tiny hands. For me it fits comfortably abound the four fingers of my hand and allows me to hold the camera with fingers and thumb as normal, and still use the shutter button. Taken on the D50 today All in all it's been a successful purchase.

We were up late, or rather we were up early and then late!  Reggie manages to sleep most of the night at home. I generally go to bed around 11pm and I leave him with his bed on the sofa and some treats to "find" before he settles in for the night.  Often when we go down around 8am (we are retired okay!!) he can be found still asleep. So when in the van in a much smaller space he is up around 5.30am and asking to go out. I end up getting up and turning off the alarm to get the sliding door open and he can get out. Then he comes in and repeats the same whine until I get up again or Claire feeds him his breakfast.  Then he wants to go out again! This morning was no exception.  So after all his visits outside, it was light at 6am BTW, we went back to sleep. It was 10am when we both woke up!  The site was still very quiet as it's March. It's Friday morning and only the retired are on site.  Oh. The workforce are out and about in tractors and other noise making e...

Spring is about to arrive and what better is there than a crocus? Such lovely flowers. Brighten up the day as soon as the sun comes out. Both photos taken on the old Nikon D50.  Not bad for a camera saved from the rubbish/garbage skip.

I was idly looking on eBay to see how much my nigh on 20yo D50 was worth. Not a lot it would seem. Entering D50 in the search also brought up a selection of lenses suitable. All of them Nikkor and none of the other makes like Tamron etc. What caught my eye was a used Nikkor 28-100 AF zoom lens. It was reasonably priced plus postage. I guess £4.95 is what eBay forces the seller to charge. It arrived earlier than expected. I fitted it and it works perfectly. The standard "kit" lens is 18mm minimum.   Having the extra focal length gives more options. A minimum of 28mm doesn't seem a problem most of the time. Sometimes you need to stand further back. Hopefully this weekend I can get out and use it... Here's a few I took today. The R08 message still flashes up and the camera locks up despite not having taken any photos to have filled the short term memory.

So a few months ago I  took the Nikon with me to an event and started to shoot some photos. As it is so ancient it will only accept a 2GB SD card. I guess it was state of the art back in 2005! If you click on the tags you can see the history of my ownership of this camera. I kinda became the adoptive father of quite a few used and discarded digital cameras!! I usually copy the pictures from the SD card to my laptop using a defunct but perfectly servicable app called Picasa 3. Google as usual failed to support the app. It works perfectly on WIN10. Once on the laptop filed  in folders by date of shooting, I backup all folders to a 1TB external harddrive. Then I format the card in the camera. However, on this day the camera refused to work with the lens switch set to auto. Sliding to manual, the shutter fired.  No matter what I did, it refused to shoot in Auto on the lens and the body. I didn't notice any error messages on the top LCD screen nor on the TTL screen. Today, I d...

A few photos from today's walk through the trees along the side of the Royal Military Canal in West Hythe. Amazing how over the years the trees have grown and spread their branches.