Exercise:
Focal length and angle of view.
I was initially reluctant to do this exercise as I felt that I was a bit above this level but I’ve had to eat humble pie. I foolishly assumed that on a 35-420 zoom lens the sizes of objects through the viewfinder and via the other eye would coincide at the standard size lens of 50 or thereabouts; I was wrong, and by quite a large margin in fact. Unless I’m doing something terribly wrong, the setting is more like 80. I’ll try this exercise again next week.
It might sound rather odd but I wish I had a monocle for my non-viewfinder eye as the viewfinder’s adjusted to suit my presbyopia but while my glasses are perched precariously on top of my head my other eye can’t focus on the switches, dials and settings. Other bespectacled photographers must have come across this problem but I’ve never heard it mentioned before. After “googling” the subject, I find that most well-meaning people fail to understand the problem and offer irrelevant or impractical solutions. Apparently some models are better than others but in my case I can’t quite see a full frame image with glasses on so perhaps I’ll have to live with it and just do a bit of judicious cropping at the editing stage.
In a Damascene moment it’s just occurred to me; take the left lens out of an old pair of specs! Sorted!
Starting the Course.
17.06.12
In order to combat the anxiety that I’m experiencing right now I’ve decided to make a start. I’m approaching the task of writing a learning log by following the advice given to me by my erstwhile Art Master back in the 60s. “When confronted with a blank canvas, the act of just making a few initial random marks renders it less threatening” so here are the first tentative marks.
I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by the quantity of reading material supplied for the course as well as the recommended books that I’ve purchased so I’ll have to discipline myself and take in a bit at a time. Having left school over 40 years ago I’m going to find it difficult to study and I’m sure I’ll have to re-read some passages several times before I can assimilate and retain the information.
I’m forced to admit that I’ve been rather lazy in familiarising myself with the camera, it was good advice to go through the manual, I’ve hitherto relied on prior (but incomplete) knowledge or scrolling through menus hoping to find what I wanted. A perfunctory glance is all a manual can normally expect from me but I’ve now downloaded an electronic version of it to my iPhone and iPad so I should always have a copy available.
I’ve been reading the relevant materials for a couple of hours or more daily but feeling quite drained afterwards and even had a headache on occasions so I’m going to try to reduce the length of time spent studying and take more breaks until I become accustomed to the task.
