Single In Single in January (SiJ) 2021 - day 8

Somewhat distressed, I was, when I went to see what the new yard guys had done in mowing, edging and weeding. They destroyed my two dwarf callistemons, thinking they were weeds. Note to self: check horticultural knowledge when employing new yard people. :(

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And this is what it has been producing when flowering. (Obviously not a submission for today, taken some time ago)

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Had to pop into the office in town today which really annoyed me - I’m quite enjoying doing nothing in this brief period before work starts for real on Monday so I could have done without going in. Still, it gave me an opportunity to bring the gear with me and today’s image was taken whilst waiting on the platform.

Other images today, which show a police sign outside Sydney Central Station (seeing what this lens is like wide open), a nosy man coming out of the station to look and find out what the hell I was up to taking a picture of said sign and the main clock inside the station building are in the Day 7-12 Outtakes thread.

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Had to pop into the office in town today which really annoyed me - I’m quite enjoying doing nothing in this brief period before work starts for real on Monday so I could have done without going in. Still, it gave me an opportunity to bring the gear with me and today’s image was taken whilst waiting on the platform.

Other images today, which show a police sign outside Sydney Central Station (seeing what this lens is like wide open), a nosy man coming out of the station to look and find out what the hell I was up to taking a picture of said sign and the main clock inside the station building are in the Day 7-12 Outtakes thread.

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Love the old Sydney rattlers :) Old, dirty, draughty, covered in bad graffiti, but more soul than the newer ones :)
 
Another grey day forecast here for today, but i have every intention of getting out, walking 3+ miles and getting something interesting today. Just not sure where that may be! I have some thoughts, but nothing concrete. I have a 1pm work meeting, so need to be some place relatively close. That bumps up awfully close to my lunch time!
 
Had to pop into the office in town today which really annoyed me - I’m quite enjoying doing nothing in this brief period before work starts for real on Monday so I could have done without going in. Still, it gave me an opportunity to bring the gear with me and today’s image was taken whilst waiting on the platform.

Other images today, which show a police sign outside Sydney Central Station (seeing what this lens is like wide open), a nosy man coming out of the station to look and find out what the hell I was up to taking a picture of said sign and the main clock inside the station building are in the Day 7-12 Outtakes thread.

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I used to have one of those old 35-70/3.3-4.5 lenses. I'm not quite sure why it gets such a bad rep, as I found it an admirable performer on my Df. I see here by this image that your D800E is playing nice with it as well.
 
I used to have one of those old 35-70/3.3-4.5 lenses. I'm not quite sure why it gets such a bad rep, as I found it an admirable performer on my Df. I see here by this image that your D800E is playing nice with it as well.
Thanks Andrew. I’m not a lens snob and sharpness is not what I primarily look for in a lens but the thing is, pretty much every image from my copy of the 35-70mm requires some lengthy PP, it really does. Every image I’ve posted so far on the challenge has had to be subject to some time consuming sharpening, masking, clarity, noise reduction saturation and fringing correction, I’ve really had to boost these files as much as I can. And this is when the iso is at 100(!?). Shooting at night, even at slow shutter speeds, is a no-no.

And what does this have to do whether one likes an image or not? Nothing of course. But when you’re used to lenses from whatever brand that render fine out of the box and don’t need that level of PP, then getting the most out of the 35-70 is indeed a challenge.
 
Last night after I posted to the Day 7 thread, I saw the topic of "Books and Knives". This morning I set about to make an image for it. My first attempt was this but I decided that a sword was a bit much for a knife even if the literal translation of "dao" is knife :D so I made another for the knife thread and foist the dao and book on you here.

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This morning I had a telephone call from Graham my landlord. He told me that his wife Noreen was going to make a beef casserole for their evening meal and would I like them to send me down a portion? Would I? YES PLEASE, wow, no food to cook and only one dish to wash up, what could be wrong with that.

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Here it is accompanied by a glass of cider, in this case Slack Ma Girdle which is actually the name of a traditional Devon cider apple variety. The observant amongst you :) will notice that this is a monochrome image, really, for an image of food? Well it just shows how perverse I am. Since I intended to make every image during this challenge a monochrome image that is one resolution where I don't intend Covid to win. There is a concession in that a colour image, slightly desaturated as is my way, will be posted in the outtakes.

Barrie
 
The meal looks great, but I'd really love to try that cider someday.
William, it's excellent. I would normally have a pint or two with a pub meal, but that hasn't happened for about nine months. Non the less I've been getting it from the supplier in 20 litre boxes, about 35 UK pints, so I haven't gone short of my cider :drinks:

Barrie
 
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