Once, I would have said, "So much to do, so little time!" Now I would have to say, "So much to do, so little energy!" There's never any shortage of work waiting for me, and plenty of time to do it in, but no energy do it with. The bottom line is that I haven't recovered from whatever the virus was back in September, much less from the covid in October. I'm thoroughly messed up this time, and I think ... I think, I think ... I have to start cutting myself some slack and awarding points for trying.
One of the ways I can keep track of myself is to blog a little. (Oddly enough, this was the advice given to John Watson in the first episode of Sherlock. I never grasped the value of it, till now.) In fact, it's been so long since I updated this blog, I haven't written anything, not a word, about the camera dramas I've been through in this last year. Where did time go?!
Long story short ... the Panasonic Lumix FZ80 that was the mainstay of my bird and wildlife photography began to die at the end of 2022, and since February '23, it's been in its electronic death throes. It actually gave up the ghost juuuust about the time Dave and I went orchid hunting. One function after another went splattt, and eventually all the camera would do (when it chose to) was zoom and record an image. That was when it wasn't giving me a "zoom error" message, and telling me to "turn the camera off and then on again." During which time, your subject has flown. Literally.
Well, that put paid to my birding! You can't photograph birds without a long lens, and yet very often the lure of photographing birdies on a bright, sunny day, particularly if it isn't cold, was the only thing getting me out of the house. The problem was, when we had a look at the price of new cameras, the price tags were silly. Two thousand bucks, to catch up with yourself? Not going to happen this year, or next, or even the one after. (Sure, I have the cash; no, it's not for spending on hobbies ... not when you have to pay for teeth in Australia.) So it looked like I was just out of luck there, until...
...somehow, and I don't actually know how, Dave stumbled over an ad for an "open box" FZ80, from the same company where I got the original one. Not the $960 that had been quoted for the same camera, brand new, elsewhere ... $440, or similar, because it had been used as the shop's display model, sitting on the shelf for six months or whatever. Then checked over 100%, put back in a box and shipped out for less than half the price. Now, in lieu of the Canon EOS R50 plus lenses, which I cannot afford till about 2026, this was doable. And it would arrive in time for my birthday...
Suffice to say, the camera issue was solved with a new one. And although the FZ80 doesn't give me quite the quality of image I want, it gives me the 1200mm that makes it well worth getting out there and putting in the miles, keeping the old body going, because the lure of photographing birds is powerful. Especially birds I haven't photographed before. This post, for instance, I'm showing off the Great Crested Grebe, the Sharp Tailed Sandpiper, the Great Cormorant, all photographed for the firs5t time (by me) on the same day, down at Goolwa, on or near to the Barrages. And there's more.
I'll keep up with this blog, for the same reason John Watson was advised to blog: it's therapeutic. Also, looking back on this as a journal helps to put dates to things that have begun to blur out with the passage of time. (This brain ain't getting any younger!)
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