FlyingPete
27th of November 2005 (Sun), 03:14
Well, back at work tomorrow :( after two weeks off work, one on Norfolk Island in the south Pacific. For those who don't know, Norfolk Island is a little island in the South Pacific covered in pine trees. The population is around 3000 (1/3 Pitcairn Islanders, 1/3 Kiwis and 1/3 Aussies), and everything on the island either has come in on a 737 or on a big dingy. It used to be a penal colony, but was gifted to the descendants of the Botany mutineers by Queen Victoria when they ran out of space on Pitcairn Island, as a result have the locals have Christian as their surname. No taxes on anything, cheap liquor, no income tax etc... Anyway, enough of the history, I digress :rolleyes:
As far as destinations go, Norfolk is very quiet, but very scenic and very safe, the kind of place where you have no door locks, and leave the keys in your car, a saying around there is the destination is for either the newly wed, or nearly dead (in fact at the resort at breakfast time, there was around 80 people in the room, six were under 70 years old, and three of them worked there :eek: ). Anyway I digressed again :rolleyes:
My point? None really, just rambling. On the subject of photography, as there is no tax or duty on anything, anything normally taxed is really cheap, in fact they have the second best camera shop I have ever been in, second to Auckland Camera (one day I will get to B&H :D ), much better than the Queen Street crowd. They have an excellent selection of lenses and general bits. Finally found my 58mm ND filter (been looking for a while), and scored a 77mm CPL for a quarter of the cost I would pay in NZ :D
Whilst on the island I got a lot of comments from people about my gear I was using, all positive, even got asked by a few people how to use their camera, one old lady came up to me and said that her grand daughter had lent her digital camera to her, and wanted me to make sure she was actually taking photos on it!
On the flip side, whilst in the camera shop in town, an elderly lady (another 70+), was flicking quite quickly through a series of images with remarkable dexterity on her Oly E-1 DSLR, commenting about the success of her daily shoot to the shop owner. I enquired about her shot, and she showed me some fantastic bird shots, I her how she got them, and she said it was patience, she had been waiting for six hours for that shot! We got talking about cameras etc, talking about the digital revolution (which she had fully embraced) I mentioned my old Oly OM1 which was so simple you could run it without a battery, but the meter didn't work, she said when she started shooting cameras didn't have meters and they were too expensive, so she metered everything manually, she was still able to tell me what shutter aperture combination to use with no meter, now that is experience, not bad for 70+! Amazing skill and talent, been shooting for 60+ year, and made a seamless transition to digital - impressive!
Enough of the rambling from me for now.
As far as destinations go, Norfolk is very quiet, but very scenic and very safe, the kind of place where you have no door locks, and leave the keys in your car, a saying around there is the destination is for either the newly wed, or nearly dead (in fact at the resort at breakfast time, there was around 80 people in the room, six were under 70 years old, and three of them worked there :eek: ). Anyway I digressed again :rolleyes:
My point? None really, just rambling. On the subject of photography, as there is no tax or duty on anything, anything normally taxed is really cheap, in fact they have the second best camera shop I have ever been in, second to Auckland Camera (one day I will get to B&H :D ), much better than the Queen Street crowd. They have an excellent selection of lenses and general bits. Finally found my 58mm ND filter (been looking for a while), and scored a 77mm CPL for a quarter of the cost I would pay in NZ :D
Whilst on the island I got a lot of comments from people about my gear I was using, all positive, even got asked by a few people how to use their camera, one old lady came up to me and said that her grand daughter had lent her digital camera to her, and wanted me to make sure she was actually taking photos on it!
On the flip side, whilst in the camera shop in town, an elderly lady (another 70+), was flicking quite quickly through a series of images with remarkable dexterity on her Oly E-1 DSLR, commenting about the success of her daily shoot to the shop owner. I enquired about her shot, and she showed me some fantastic bird shots, I her how she got them, and she said it was patience, she had been waiting for six hours for that shot! We got talking about cameras etc, talking about the digital revolution (which she had fully embraced) I mentioned my old Oly OM1 which was so simple you could run it without a battery, but the meter didn't work, she said when she started shooting cameras didn't have meters and they were too expensive, so she metered everything manually, she was still able to tell me what shutter aperture combination to use with no meter, now that is experience, not bad for 70+! Amazing skill and talent, been shooting for 60+ year, and made a seamless transition to digital - impressive!
Enough of the rambling from me for now.