August 17th 2005, 0255B
I’ve always loved that song, “Vincent” by Don McClean. Sad as hell, but it’s always been a favourite of mine. And it’s fairly apt to me right now actually, the opening few words at least – not the rest where it gets sad :P
It’s a little before 0300, & I’ve been awake for about half an hour now. I never seem to sleep past 0400 at the latest these days, regardless of the sleeping tabs, though I sometimes manage to fall asleep again by 0500. It’s a tad annoying to be awake right now, as the fire’s died down so I can’t even make myself a cup of coffee, but I’m sure I’ll get by.
But that’s not why I fired up the notebook – I’m trying not to bitch & whine in this post, for a change :P
I just got back from outside – funny how the bladder seems to fill up within 5 min of your eyes opening, isn’t it? – and you have to see the moon & stars that are out there at the moment. You just don’t get nights skies like this in Durban, or in any large town really as there’s too much light pollution. But up here, away from everything it’s crystal clear, still, & quiet. It’s beautiful, & it’s a real pity not to be sharing it with someone. You could pretty much read by the light the moon is giving off, & it’s not even quite full yet. It’s a bit cloudy, as we had a little rain yesterday, so there aren’t too many stars out this morning and we’re too far north here to see much of the Milky Way anyway, which is a little disappointing, but it’s still really beautiful.
I’m also really sorry that I don’t have a tripod & remote shutter release with me right now, as there’s a way to take fantastic landscape shots by moonlight that conditions here seem perfect for right now. I could probably get away without the tripod & just dead rest the camera on something, but you have to keep the shutter open for something like 2 minutes, and I’d never be able to keep the camera still enough to get a picture that wasn’t fuzzy if I was touching it – just your heartbeat causes enough vibration to blur the shot over that length of exposure if you’re touching the camera. The battery on the notebook is probably going to die in about 20 min, so when it does I’ll go outside and set the camera to a 30sec shutter exposure and crank the exposure compensation right up, and try it anyway – it is really bright here tonight, so that may be enough.
That’s the big advantage of digital I guess; if I was using film, this little experiment would set me back about R5 every time I pressed the shutter, with the cost of buying & then developing film. A digital camera costs a shit load more than the equivalent film camera, but you really save on consumables. I paid R15000 for the 20D, & I’ve bought about R2000 worth of Compact Flash cards, where Ash paid about R2500 for her 3000V for example, but when you consider that between the two of us we’ve taken over six thousand photos with the 20D in 8 months, & at least as many again with the Fuji…. I’ve taken over a thousand photos in the last 6 weeks alone , and there’s no way I’d have been able to do that with film. Most of those photos have gone straight into the recycle bin, I must admit, but I’ve got some good ones too.
Well, the battery warning has just come on, so I’m going to finish for now & go try to take some photos by moonlight.
0700B
It appears I left it a little late to try photos, as the moon had gone down by the time I got outside at about 0400. Oh well, I guess I could always have another go at it tomorrow morning when I wake up at some un-Christian hour again lol
Anyway, I think I’m going to end this here and go hunt down some coffee – God knows I could use some right now :P
Till later then ;)
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