new toys

My father in law, lucker though he is, happened upon loads of boxes of cool camera equipment a couple of weeks ago. I've been dying to have a rummage through these boxes since I heard about them and now I'm back with a couple of new toys! The box even contained my very first SLR camera (Minolta Dynax 500si), which was a trip down memory lane.

The main prize is a Nikon fit Tokina 60-300mm ƒ4-5.6. I've never relied on manual focus for regular shooting before, so this will be an education for me. Upon first use, I have incredibly shaky hands! I stacked it on three extension tubes, and it's pretty nifty for macro. Just need to dig out my Raynox MSN-202 and we'll be in business. Does anyone remember where I put this?

There was also a couple of mirage filter attachments and a Raynox XL 3000. I was really looking forward to the Raynox, but it seems to be only for video cameras and needs to be mounted about 3ft off the end of an SLR lens, so it's a no-go. One day I'll just punt on a fish-eye or something. Samyang do some cheap ones.

On to the relatively good stuff.

My new moviepeg also got delivered. On first inspection, the packaging is adorable (that's right, I said it. Adorable) and the material they've used seems to be far superior to that of the iPad version. I don't know about anyone else's, but mine have all but petrified now and are basically useless. Post hoc ergo propter hoc though it may be, I'd say that Brendan took my comments on board. I might even go as far as to say that I'm basically the inspiration for the new material.