Time to lighten up a bit.

I've posted some funeral piccies to my facebook page already so time for something different.

Always an eye for things Fred (Dad) has spotted something, Jimmy didn't even see his pointing finger when he took this, but the cunning bugger must have caught the camera in the corner of his eye.

The target was a beautifully made birds nest.

The theme of the funeral was purple (it had become our favourite colour) and Jimmy was very pleased when his Mother (Jan or Rose) spied this lovely bush. Pity is that now Jimmy is smitten by pretty things so much more than in his youth he's concerned that he's either going to go blind or die, dunno which is worse?

Happy Birthday today Mario.

It's Mario Torrisi's birthday today (31st) so best wishes and a big thank you for attending Grace's service.
Mario's in the checked shirt and hasn't been well of late but he made the effort to drive up from Townsville.
Mario lives and works weather and used our website to aid in his knowledge of the region (of course being in the same area as where he was raised may have added interest), Grace did a great service to us by checking for problems and making sure the daily rain reading was updated and accurate.
Jimmy lacks the enthusiasm to continue but hasn't killed it off yet.

Grace's goodbye.

We had a simple but lovely service for Grace, I'll post more pics later.

Stone axe.

On my parents travels to see me my Dad Fred found this stone axe a bit north of Clermont when he stopped to stretch his legs. Quite possibly lost a long time ago as it doesn't appear to be beyond being given a bit of a sharpen up. It caught his eye because it was a different rock type to the surrounds.

Grace's funeral.

I'm not sure of the plot yet but I think Grace should be buried somewhere about here in the New Ingham Cemetery at 9:30 Tuesday morning. If anyone shall see this and come, wearing something purple would be nice.

Grace Hodge 1943-01-29 to 2012-10-23

With deep sadness I report to all that my Grace has died this morning, we'd been together for 24 years.

This is the last shot I took of her on her last afternoon.
Jimmy might be quiet for a little while.

Quite nice.

This ring arrived this morning, a bit more bling for Grace and looks much nicer than its sub $4 price, so nice that Jimmy had to take a photo.

Hopefully it'll perk her up a bit as poor Grace has been a bit unwell for a while.

Pink.

This lovely jug arrived yesterday, I'd ordered purple but since that was nil stock pink was a nice substitute.
The pity is having to chase one from China. Locally the only options seem to be white or black with a 1.7 litre capacity and 2400W element. I wanted something colourful with a smaller capacity, though 1.5l isn't much smaller but its 1500W element seems to boil every bit as quickly.
The old jug's lid became faulty along with three tap washers about the time my parents visited a month ago, but surely just a coincidence. This one also has the terrific properties of pouring without dribble, and not scalding fingers if gripped too tightly.

Bats.

On my travels this morning I heard some squawking and saw some black things flying around, I was suspicious and sure enough not birds but bats. I'm glad they're not up our end of town, large colonies like this are hard to endure.

Genius at work.

Usually this part of town would have a 60 km/h speed limit but I suppose someone may have wanted to give the legal system a work boost over the weekend.

Self indulgence.

I took a shot of myself this morning, I suppose I'll have to check the lens now for damage.
The green rope I use to keep my pants up, a result of weight loss, also green adds a bit of brightness.
I now have skinny old man legs that years ago were solid.
Niece Kasandra may notice my outdoor specs have blue earbits too, though mine are nowhere near as fancy, I prefer sturdy but for $15 I'll settle for just being able to see.

A shooter at Tyto.

It was a lovely morning for it.
A much fancier bit of gear than the little pocket camera Jimmy strolled around with.

Time to do the other driveshaft seal.

The seal to do the other side arrived from China a couple of days ago, $5.50 versus $29 locally, so despite pain and a lack of enthusiasm Jimmy still decided the sooner the better. The other side I did a few weeks ago was the bad side but this RH one also had a slight seep about it.

The old one fell apart removing it so I suppose I'll never know what the problem was but I suspect it had a split.

Rather than remove the shaft from the hub I pulled the shaft hub and all. Purists will note there's too much pressure on the hose but Jimmy may want an excuse to hunt pretty ones later. Annoying was the grease that came out of the ball joint, it was a bit of work levering the seal off so some fresh grease could be added.

The seal goes here.

Only thing left to do now is drop the jack and tighten the wheel nuts, perhaps the most used function of a torque wrench.

There's a problem here.

There should be a give way or stop sign sprouting behind Cubby, Tully St here was extended a while back due to the Library relocation and the Tyto development but this has now resulted in an uncontrolled intersection, a situation that shouldn't occur since the road rules were changed in about 1976.
I have contacted transport about it but it's actually a council matter and they passed it on, but since no action has been taken I suppose it'll be treated like nearly all other situations in Australia by doing nothing until someone important is killed.

Some sort of flower.

It's purple so it must be good. Not a lot of flowers at Tyto but I think I should do a flower trip soon.

One up, one down.

Ducks in a pond.

Full bin.

This was a good sight, there was not real evidence of rubbish anywhere and the bin was actually used, this cheered up Jimmy a lot, until he saw a dog being emptied just afterwards, since it was before office hours there would be zero chance of any penalty being issued for not picking it up.
Pity too that the moron taking this photo didn't check for his own dumb shadow, but he didn't feel like cropping it out later either. There's a blown highlight from the rubbish but there's only so much dynamic range you can have with a camera like this and it's not something that's worth worrying about.

Nice and clear.

Even Mt Hawkins 12km away was fairly clear this morning.

Point and shoot.

Horrible light but at least I can use the WB210 now.

That's the Victoria sugar mill puffing away in the background, the truck in screen is a local one so thus is also unbelievably noisy, unbelievably because it can't be possible to make as much noise as they do without careful modifications, or absolute neglect.

Samsung WB210 revisits Tyto with its new firmware.

The results I posted here a few days ago with the old firmware had this camera headed for the drawer of retirement, but installing later firmware has salvaged it. I now expect to use it a lot.

Another nice sunny morning had me wandering about Tyto again.

This is the super wide setting which is a menu item that sets the lens up to a 21mm eq. wide shot.

Now the normal wide shot, a 24mm eq.

And full zoom 12x to 288mm. Zoom is a very handy thing to have in your pocket.

These shots have a much nicer exposure than the ones from last Sunday.

Jupiter taken by the Nikon P510.

I'm sure I can do better later when it's a bit closer but it's a start.

RX100 and WB210

While I'm in a camera mood I took a casual shot of a storage box this arvo with the Samsung WB210 after I'd upgraded its firmware and I liked it, so here's a full pixel shot of the pretty area, pretty because the writing's purple.

So I just wandered out and took a shot with the RX100 to see what it does with it. They should be fairly similar, taken with the same casual automatic settings.

Again a full pixel crop and not a real lot of difference but the weakness I'd noted earlier has reared its head, the short depth of field has resulted in the "made in Australia" being just a bit out of focus, sure I can narrow the aperture and correct that but that's not something you want to do with casual shots.
I'm going to have to pay a lot more attention to the WB210 that has been largely unloved because Sony released a game changing pocket camera right after I grabbed the WB210 (at a very good price), In this casual comparison the WB210 wins, and that surprises me, possibly because of the new firmware?

Long and short at Tyto

I may as well post some test shots I did at Tyto this morning, at least it may provide some fun comparisons for someone. I like to shoot auto and make no apologies for that, a camera should do a good job without having to play with settings however there are times a bit of playing helps but the camera makers put effort into doing the thinking for you.

I've resized all shots to the same size.
First the Sony RX100, not much zoom here but it has plenty going for it and has extra megapixels that allow a bit more cropping.

The Nikon P510 has been the zoom champion for a while but with Canon having released the SX50 the crown may be changing hands, It'll have to be good though as the Nikon just seems to work.

The Olympus SZ-10 has enough zoom for mere mortals, fits the hand, and was cheap. I should do a decent session with this, it may not have the greatest sensor but could be very handy sometime.

And lastly the enigma camera, the Samsung WB210. It has a special super wide setting that doesn't allow zooming so I've included that to make up three shots for it. A feature that probably doesn't justify having.
It overexposes a bit which is a downer, however I must now test further the new firmware I've installed.
Fits easily in a pocket has, 12x zoom, a good lens and a touchscreen which is something I like, I really hope I can use this more without having to adjust settings.

Flower time.

I was in a playful mood this morning and gave some cameras a workout.

 

The Nikon P510 does a great job with flowers and colours, has a fantastic zoom but is too big for any pocket, and that's quite limiting.

The RX100 has become my workhorse, it fits in a pocket, has a good lens and sensor and can get great results, however I can't take to the Sony firmware and I can't see myself buying Sony again. It also lacks zoom but that's a result of being pocket sized and having a large sensor for a compact, IMO only a pro camera needs a larger sensor and then they suffer even worse than this of the weakness (that too many drool over) of lack of depth of field.

Here we have the bargain priced Olympus SZ-10, it actually works very well for its price point and has a 18x zoom. The sensor is a bit noisy but Olympus have good processing, it fits in a pocket and feels nice in the hands, I feel sorry for not using it more but it does take up a bit too much of a pocket to be always with you camera.

Now an enigma, the Samsung WB210, I got this at a cheap price when my old pocket camera the SH100 was getting noticeably soft photos on the right edge, it does however make a fair extra load on the pocket.

The extra wideshot it has got me curious but in hindsight it isn't something too useful, the results I've been getting have had a tendency to overexpose but are good otherwise though I haven't been excited enough to use it much. This morning I updated the firmware and I may get a good use for this camera now but more testing is needed, it still did the white flower overblown but not as badly perhaps? I shall do more testing with this as I still have a want for a reasonably good camera that has zoom and fits easily in a pocket.

Bird sunning itself.

It has webbed feet so I suppose it must be some kind of duck. Taken at Tyto this morning.

Is that the moon?

There's a speck in the sky, better swap over to the P510 and check it out.

Yes it's the moon.

Busy behind us.

Saturday brought a bit of noise when the sugar cane field behind us was cut.