So, Kathryn’s still not feeling great, and yesterday, in the hope that some fresh air might make her feel better we went for a gentle walk along the Thames; this allowed me to break out my AE-1 from it’s hibernation; the poor thing’s been sat under the bed since my Minolta got it’s moment in the limelight and hasn’t been out since.
Unfortunately, when I did the lens change I noticed that the mirror-stop/bounce-foam has gone manky. A quick look on the interwebz informs me that this is not uncommon, and indeed, I’ve splashed out a fiver to get new mirror-bounce-foam. Apparently the shutter speed might also be drifting, due to it’s age, so that’s something I’ll have to keep an eye on. Hopefully the foam’ll arrive before we head off for our holiday, and hopefully I’ll have time to at least swap the mirror foam, although it also suggests I should swap the light-seal foam on the back of the body too.
I’ve also been quite naughty and spent a few quid on a 28mm lens. I wanted a 17mm or a fish-eye, but am somewhat surprised to find that FD fit lenses seem to have held their value a bit. I was expecting 20 – 30 quid, much like my old Practika fit lenses, but no. They’re still in the priceyness arena – so since I want to save my money, in general, for the new digital SLR then that’s not going to happen. I did have a little wander around town today, Slough obviously being a mecca for photographers.
Yeah-uh-hu. Cash Converters, and Poor-bloody-porn-shop, or whatever they’re called, are the only places I’ve seen second hand lenses in town, and I must admit that I imagined with the recession there’d be a high potential for people flogging off old kit to make money. Yeah. No. No SLRs in one and one DSLR in the other one (not sadly cheap enough for me to want it).
So, I shall keep an eye on ebay for FD fit 17 or 14mm lenses (I’m sure that was the one John loaned me ages ago) – that are cheap. At least, until I decide to make the jump to a DSLR or a nearDSLR. Sadly, the quality of the Jessops scan is about what I remember. 1800×1200 pixels just aint a lot, and I’m not really very convinced by the quality of their scans.
I don’t know where else to go though. I doubt that any of the other local developers are going to be any better :-/
Also in yesterday’s tasks was ‘fixing the stairs’. Two of the steps have been ‘creaky’ since I moved in, and when the carpet was removed it was revealed that they’d obviously been ‘going’ for a long time. There was a split couple of L brackets on one step and some intact L brackets on another. So yesterday I finally lopped a hole in the ceiling and looked up. The quality of the stairs did not astound me. Still, I repaired the split wood with a big L-shaped wooden bracket I made up, consisting of inch-square supporting chunk and lots of glue. This was then glued/screwed to the steps and while they creak, they no longer move significantly; and it doesn’t feel like the widest step is going to give way in a spectacular style. It made me fear, though, the memory of taking the bath and the radiator up that staircase. All that weight on half-inch-thick pine.
I need to plaster the ceiling again where I ripped a hole in it, although I’m tempted to fork out 4 quid for the basic B&Q ‘lamp’ which I think would, in fact, entirely cover it. That’s quite lazy though. Plaster’d be better, wouldn’t it. :-/
Anyway, off to get my hair hacked off…
