blameable tools

I think I managed to persuade him that buying any filters for his current camera was probably not a wise investment given the quality of which the camera is capable and the distinct lack of low-light ability which might perhaps be worsened by the addition of anything like a polariser. More than anything else I would doubt that the AF on the s5000 could cope with anything complicated like a circular polariser. I had it for two years and quite liked it at the time but it was a camera of limited ability (particularly regarding getting things crispysharp) and it's probably nearing the time when some gentle persuasion should be applied regarding the relative cheapness of entry-level DSLRs at the moment and the vastly improved picture quality relative to a five-year-old compact and the importance of having something to do in the impending retirement era and so on. I also attempted to impart the value of having a target of something like a daily photoblog to aim for if seeking to improve photography though I've been mentioning that for a couple of years now to no effect.

On the subject of photography... popped to the exhibition run by the Edinburgh Photographic Society mentioned by myaimistrue the other day. MMmmmff. Mmmmmmmgmphhmmmff. Mfffff.

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Mfffff. Pfffghmmmm.

Some of them are very good. Some are excellent, either as statements or comments or photographs or all three. Some are in the technically-proficient-but-meh category. Some... suffer from over-sharpening, severe over-sharpening or other forms of oooh-what-does-this-effect-do? clicky-frenzy overphotoshoppery.

Some...

..were printed on those special 'art' papers available for fancyprinting. Rather a lot, in fact. All on the same type of paper, too. I'm not sure what the intended effect was but it made the pictures look like someone had done a painting on lightly-rippled wallpaper using cheap watercolours. From a longish way away (perhaps the maximum of one metre permitted by the layout of the exhibition) it didn't look too bad but at photo-detail-inspection-distance it didn't work at all and seemed to even cause the loss of some detail and clarity. O to be a fly on the wall at the selection and judging process. I've always been a wee bit wary of the EPS, a situation unchanged by seeing some of their stuff (rather than reading what some of their people write) though the reason has drifted slightly. Only my opinion, though. The exhibition's definitely worth popping to see (especially for the relatively cheap £3/£2) but it's not quite what I was expecting.

Clive James in the evening was exactly what was expected which was rather nice. He has the nice ability to write exactly how he speaks (or vice versa) and made a beguiling argument for getting his latest book, especially now that it's out in paperback compared to the expensive hardback edition available at the bookfestbookshop last year when he appeared.