Health: My health issues are ongoing, and probably always will be, with some periods brighter than others, those being pretty abysmal. I struggle on and at times I feel very angry at having this M.E. thing. That doesn't help of course.

Photography: Because of mobility limitations, I am very restricted as to whereabouts I can get to, which means that the majority of my photography has to be done from the road-side, or just down a short track. Living in Dorset, I find the scenery generally very boring these days so I tend to not want to bother with it. This means I have long periods of time when I do not photography, or just stick to making what I can of what there is in our garden or around and about.

Photographic Equipment: For a very long time now I've been wanting a greater scope than is offered by the 17-85mm lens. I've also wanted to try and keep the weight of luggage down so that I can handle it myself. To cut a long story short, I tried a Canon Powershot SX1 IS... for a day... and was totally disgusted with the results - but what would you expect anyway? We had hoped it would be a good compromise for me to use, as it's light and has a long reach from the equivalent of 18-560mm (compared to my 17-85mm lens). It didn't even match up to the quality produced by my Canon Powershot G10, which I was subsequently informed does have a far superior lens in any case!!! (I really love that little camera as a stand-by.)

Anyway, we took the Sx1 back of course, and I bought a Sigma 18-200mm OS lens for my EOS 400D (which I've decided I cannot let go as a main camera). I didn't want to have to keep changing lenses all the time, which is why I went for such a wide scope on the lens, in itself comprising some compromise at some settings (but I don't use those particular settings much in any case).

This makes my gear very heavy indeed for me to use (although a normally fit person wouldn't notice that), but I'm hoping to manage with the aid of a shoulder support my husband's currently making for me: and for carrying it around, we have bought a well padded and fitted camera bag that slips nicely into my mobility scooter's basket. Monopod fits ok into the bag on the back of the scooter, and the only time I ever use a tripod is if my husband both carries it and sets it up for me, since I just don't have the stamina to handle that as well.

We shall see...

Holiday in Cornwall: We had a lovely holiday and it was great spending the time with my daughter and her friend. However there were set-backs...

* Such as me having to have an air-bed as the main bed in the caravan was intolerably hard; the smell of this airbed (brand new from Tesco's) was disgusting to me, like sleeping in a tyre workshop! The smell got into all my bedding, so that when we returned, we left the airbed behind and packed everything smelling of it separately, putting it straight into the washing machine on our return. Boy was I pleased to get into our own bed at home!!!

* I didn't have the strength to go out every day, so I missed some good photography opportunities. However, I did get shots when I did go out, although there were only very few that truly depicted the Cornish countryside or coastal areas. M.E. has given me weak neck muscles (another reason for needing to keep the weight of camera equipment off my neck); this meant that I became pretty distressed when travelling by car through some of the very hilly little towns, and ended up in considerable pain as a result. On the day following such trips I needed to rest up, and unfortunately whenever there were scenes I wanted to shoot, there simply wasn't any road-side stopping available - so no photo's of such places either. Arrrgh!

So... I do have some photos to show, but not all of them will be typical of Cornwall and some will not have been taken there at all! In some instances, such as when we went to Tintagel area, the atmosphere was exceedingly hazy; I've got some better results by making HDR's of those shots. Possibly the very best shots were at the Wheal Coates mine area, and I couldn't resist making HDR's of those because of the drama in the clouds.

Now I wait for my shoulder support to be made so that I can get a good steady focus with my new 18-200mm lens, and look forward to future trips out when the June/July/August weather isn't so darned hazy.

If you've read down to here, you have my greatest admiration! But as you see, I don't write journals that often! zzz to you all.













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