New Jam Spamera!

My new EOS450d with 18-55 IS lens arrived today, the camera is quite small and dinky compared to my D200 and the lens is very light and quite small compared to the Nikon 18-70lens. First of all I thought it didn't have a focus ring, which was quite annoying. But I just checked again now, and the lens does have an AF/MF switch. Switching to MF allows you to rotate a very thin ring at the right front of the lens.

I hope it will be able to AF with my big 77mm polariser on the front. I've ordered a 58-67mm adapter off spleenbay so I can use the same filters and adapter rings as on my Nikon 18-70mm. When I've used the 450d + 18-55 IS for a bit, if its better than the D200 + 18-70 I'll sell the 18-70.

I haven't had a chance to use the camera yet, the battery is still charging, but I went on canon's website to get the £50 rebate form. It says you need to send in a copy of the receipt, but unfortunately Empire Direct didn't send one, just a packing slip. So I did a search for 'Empire Direct receipt' and it doesn't look very promising. I've emailed them asking for a receipt.

Yesterday I got outbid for an MP-E65 on spleenbay, it ended up going for £510 + £10P&P. The one before that went for £480, and included a macro focusing rail, so I wish I had bid on that one. There doesn't seem to be any non Hong Kong MP-Es on ebay at the moment, and it seems to be at least £600 anywhere else (a Hong Kong MP-E would work out about £600 when VAT & import tax is added) so I guess I'll just have to wait until another one gets listed. Its looking rainy for all this week anyway, although would still be nice to have it to practice with.

I did a bit more work on trying to create a menu for my pog site using php and mysql, but asort() didn't work how I expected so I posted to Web Squeeze to see if I could get any help with it.

I checked hotukdeals, went in the garden and took a few pics but it was too windy so came back in and carried on checking hotukdeals.

Ate lunch, then after lunch tried to carry on checking hotukdeals but the site was down. The battery for my new camera was charged, so I spent the rest of the day testing it, and found that unfortunately it would front focus on subjects at a distance of more than 10metres. I guess I will have to send either the body or the lens into canon for calibration.

Food
Breakfast: Chocolate oat crunch cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Breaded ham with mustard sandwich; banana; slice of Maccy's birthday cake (Chocolate sponge with vanilla buttercream filling and chocolate icing); cup o' tea.
Dinner: Bacon quiche; potatoes; peas; butter. Pudding was a cherry bakewell. Coffee.