Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sunday June 30, 2013

Sunday June 30, 2013  update #498
Another good sleep last night, and again didn’t want to get up but knew I have to regulate myself to get off my butt and lose some weight.  As always the chores come first, and someday I may change that because it tends to make me lazier, the longer I wait to go out, and I know that.  It is just that the early morning are generally foggy, cloudy and cooler so I will wait until closer to noon, after I have had my cabbage lunch to go out.
I decided today to give my new 75-300mm lens a workout and see if it is as bad a lens as a friend has claimed.  I put on the polarizing filter and took one shot of the sky from my window before heading out.
My intention was to ride up to Turi, take some shots of the city from above, then walk back down.  As I was waiting for the bus I realized there was a Deportiva Cuenca futbol match today at 2pm so the run up Solano would no doubt be interrupted and cause me grief.   What to do???
I looked south and decided to walk up the Autopista to try to get some shots.   I didn’t go very far when I realized that there were roads up the hill further south so I made a climb up there and found whole subdivisions up there that I never knew existed.  I thought there were only a few scattered acreages but they had streets, schools, the works.
I was amazed that I didn’t like the 75-300mm lens right away because it couldn’t actually back off far enough to get a complete shot.  This thing wanted to zoom in much farther than I recollected my old 70-210mm doing.  I didn’t take many shots as a result but did manage to get a TAME flight coming in for a landing.
I switched back to the 15-85mm and fell in love with it all over again.  It has a much more useable range and you could tell the shots are crisper too.
Rain clouds snuck up behind me so I had to pull out the rain hood for my camera back before using my broken umbrella.  I waited for a few minutes, hoping for a bigger jet to pass by , but the rain didn’t seem to want to quit so I started down again, crossed the Autopista and came out above the Monay Police station and Coopera.
Since I was in this area I figured I might as well stop in at my favourite video store, pick out 4 more movies for $5 and wait out the rain.
It always makes me smile to watch the fellow actually copy the movies in front of you, then copy the movie jacket and put it all together.   This fellow knows I buy a lot there so he also knows I need confirmation the movies are definitely in English, and I need a hard DVD jacket for them.  Very few people get this treatment, but then I always buy in bulk and come by fairly often.  He also provides quality copies, not crap videoed on an iPhone in a theater.
My strategy to outwait the rain did not work, in fact it just got worse just to spite me so I got a little wet under my tiny broken umbrella for the rest of the trek home.
I have downloaded the photos and can definitely confirm that this 75-300 lens is a huge disappointment.  The quality of the shots is way below even that of my old kit lens so I doubt I will be keeping it.  There is just no crispness to the shots at all and way too much graininess.
The Boys are a welcome distraction after my extended absence and I am sure they are missing Bella who should be home late tonight with the winner’s trophy from the bridge tournament, we hope.
Oh, it is still raining…
That was the day's excitement,   Cheers, Al  

Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/

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