Buying yet more stuff

This morning it wasn't raining, making a nice change from the last few days (it rained all day yesterday). So I took my 450d and D200 on a very short walk just for one more test to confirm the front focus problem with the 18-55 IS lens on the 450d. I took a few shots, for each one, I did one using normal AF and one using liveview with contrast detect AF on the 450D and one using normal AF on the D200. The contrast detect AF pics and D200 pics were mostly focused correctly, whereas the phase detect AF 405d pics were mostly front focused. So I think this confirms the problem with the 18-55 IS lens. I think the problem is that its focus travel is very small, so a tiny movement of the focus ring equates to quite a large movement of the plane of focus, and the lens motor is just not accurate enough it get it just right when there are such small tolerances.

After checking the pics I had another cup of tea and went on the pinternet for a bit.

Then I went down the town, my shopping list was:

• Glass fish tank
• Plastic/tiles for mini studio shots
• 2mm perspex
• Sunflower seeds
• Shaving gell

First I went to Alliance & Pester to pay in a cheque. The teller woman asked me how come I wasn't working today and what I do, like she always does. Then she tried to sell me some life insurance, I think now that lending conditions have tightened they are trying to sell insurance annoyingly instead of mortgages annoyingly, as they asked me about insurance last time.

After that I went to the British Heart Foundation, then Help the Aged (or maybe Age Concern) to see if they had any fish tanks or books on photography. They didn't. Then I went to Sa✓ers and bought some Gilette Fusion Stealth gel, which was £4! Bit of a rip off probably, but I couldn't be bothered checking other shops to see if it was a bit cheaper. I carried on up the highstreet, and went into a hardware store that had what looked like cat/dog baskets outside to see if they had any fishtanks. Inside the shop was totally cramped and they had stock piled up everywhere. I had to wait for a few minutes while some other people were served, then when I asked them they said they didn't have any fishtanks.

I carried on up the street a bit further to Welland Valley Feeds, which had come up on a web search I did before as the only pet shop in Market Harborough. They didn't do fish tanks either and suggested to try Kettering or Corby. I went back down the street, then off a side street and went in an Age concern (or maybe help the aged) shop, they didn't seem to even have any non-fiction books. Then I went through St. Mary's place, past Sainsburys and into Instore, they didn't have any fish tanks or sunflower seeds. I went up to Homebase, they had tiles but only in large packs, which cost about £20. They didn't have any fish tanks either (they don't do any pet supplies).

Next I went to Wilkos, and they had some Sunflower seeds there so I bought them. They seemed quite expensive though, £2 for a kilo (I think bird seed is normally £1 a kilo). They were called sunflower seed hearts and looked grey rather than black and white like normal sunflower seeds. I went out of Wilkos, back through St Mary's place and along the road to the station. When I got to the crossroads, I went up towards the roundabout where Aldi and Lidl are, then right alongside the river and back towards Sainsburys. Then I went back up past Instore and Homebase and along the road past Welland Park College and home. In my whole walk I didn't see any shops that looked like they would sell plastics.

When I got home I had a cup of tea, then started adding info to my photoshelter pics that were accepted last night. Then I ate lunch, then finished off doing the photoshelter stuff. Quite a few of my landscape pics weren't in my accepted, nor were they in rejected or pending, so I wondered what had happened to them. Eventually I found them in the area your pics go when you first upload them (can't remember what its called). They had been soft-rejected for insufficient caption. Their rejection notice doesn't tell you why the caption wasn't good enough, but does give a link to a page with caption examples and advice. I couldn't really see what was wrong with my captions, but I hadn't put where they were taken, so I just added that and resubmitted them.

Water bell by ~djeyewater on deviantART

Now, if someone else is reading this (unlikely) or I am reading this sometime in the future and have forgotten, you (I) may be wondering why I wanted to buy a fishtank. It's not for fishes, but splash photography.

Quite a while back I tried taking some splash photos using Ben's tank that he bought for his stick insects. The pics didn't come out that great, contrast was very low shooting through the tank and also it wasn't possible to get both above the water and below it in focus, see Water bell pic.

citrus splash
Originally uploaded by mad_airbrush

A week or so ago I saw some really good pics of things splashing into a tank of water like this one on Flickr. They've done a good job at getting the object below the water (the lime halves) and above water (the splash) in focus, so I wondered if the reason for the problems with my pics was due to the tank I was using. They said they were using a fish tank, I guess its a flat glass design, Ben's tank that I used was plastic and with sloping sides.

Anyway, I couldn't find any fishtanks in the town so I had a look on the pinternet this afternoon. I found what looks like a nice basic fishtank eventually, a clearseal 18" x 12" x 15" glass tank. It was cheapest on onlineaquariumstore.com, at about £16, but when I came to checkout postage was £15!! The cheapest other place I saw it was petzoo.co.uk, where it was about £24 + free postage, so I bought it from there.

Other stuff I have done in the last couple of days is find another MP-E lens on ebay (is in the US though), auction doesn't end for another 6 days or so. I also bought a bottle of Melatonin after I got a shortcut bulletin email extolling its benefits. I checked wikipedia on it before ordering it since the shortcut bulletin article made it seem too good to be true. The bottle is 60 3mg tabs, a low dosage is recommended in the shortcut bulletin article (0.5mg), so I think what I will do is break the tabs in half and get 120 1.5mg doses. It cost about £5 including postage.

The rest of the afternoon I read a few threads on the insect board of the wildaboutBritain message boards and researched moth photography. After dinner watched firefly with Mac, then checked HotUKdeals. After that I did some research on moth traps.

Food
Breakfast: Pink Grapefruit marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: 2x cheese on toast; salad; satsuma; white (green) grapes; slice of coffee cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Chewy battered fish with vinegar and black pepper; peas; mushroom; potatoes. Pudding was tapioca with blackcurrant jam. Coffee and a couple of Roses.