Sunset at Thermopylae
Last night, we watched the sun set off Thermopylae, a steep and fast-breaking wave off Moulle Point, around the corner from Cape Town's CBD and harbour. I was preoccupied and Wendy was left to kick her heels. Tough. I think I'm in love. A colleague brought his Canon S3 IS in to work Friday, and I've thought of nothing since. A compact digital as opposed to an SLR, it allows the amateur to take what might look like pretty professional shots. A six-megapixel, image-stabilizing, super-macro enabled work of art, it has 12x optical Zooom.
Birds of an ornithological type, planes (I'm thinking Hueys), and surf — anywhere around the Western Cape, are on my mind. Those bloody crows I've been chasing for six months would be stopped dead in their flight path by an S3. Not only do they persist in avoiding me but, when I do frame them, they render as a fuzzy blur — no matter what I try. The family's worried about me. Bugger cameras. I'm obsessed with crows.
Off the wall... [Robben Island in background]
I've badmouthed my PowerShot A520 long enough now. It doesn't deserve it. I've seen fit to throw more than a thousand snaps into the old image gallery and wouldn't have done so had I thought them to be execrable. This little budget baby is idiot proof. Okay, I've learnt nothing about Paint Shop Pro and how to resize or crop, but so what? These things have survived a fair amount of mangling. One thing I've not enjoyed on the A520 is the flash. Though it's given good ratings, I've not been able to get the hang of it and avoid it whenever possible. The resulting natural-light pictures haven't been too bad and have taught me quite a bit.
Thermopylae has the kind of wave that made me swap surfing for skateboarding after three years. You know what's in store for you when you hit the road. A sickening thud, grazes, perhaps a bone or two that'll take some time a'healing and there you go. Breaks like those I watch others surf always promised me far more. All you have to do is watch and appreciate from close up the awesome power and energy coursing through those waves and you're done for. They promise permanent injury, drowning, or something equally bad, a broken board.
There were four guys out at sunset last night and, almost ritualistically, they watched the golden orb slip beneath the sea before continuing to savage sets that rolled in with remarkable consistency. I didn't expect to find any waves there, by the way. It just so happened that there were some, and they made the evening. I give you these seemingly pointless observations to highlight the fact that I'm not pissed off at my camera because it is useless. It's not. I took the above picture several minutes after sunset, in fast-falling near darkness. The ISO800 quality's lousy but, again, so what? I'm told very few cameras give decent resolution quality at that speed.
So, yeah, it's served me well these past six months but, hey, that S3...
Fading to black...
True to expectation, the FPSO Dalia made it out of port today and headed off past Robben Island towards Angola. We just happened to head to the Atlantic side this afternoon, which constitutes a lucky break. This rig's the quintessential outsized ugly duckling of Western engineering and I have a soft spot for it. On the downside, we caught it long after it had passed the breakwater, a great pity. And herein, once again, lies my A520 vexation. No zoom. Okay, zoom wouldn't have cleared the haze, vaporized the mist, or set the sun to her port side, but it would've given me far more options than those presented me.
In the city, we have several Hueys flying for those with deep pockets who want to either get up there or make like Vietnam. These choppers illustrate my point perfectly. Yesterday, I caught one coming in over the Dalia but, shooting into the sun, I ended up with a very ordinary, overexposed shot carrying little detail. I really wanted that shot. It epitomised the U.S.-ian capacity for innovation cocked up its propensity for adventurism. It coulda bin' good. Today, while watching the rig head for the ocean, another Huey buzzed the Sea Point coast, affording the chance of capturing some colour, clarity, shape and, hey, perhaps even the heat from its engines. No chance. Another far-off silhouette.
Yeah, that S3 again...
It'll have to wait a while though. Although several colleagues have shown me damned fine cameras, they're all too expensive for me. Just as I maintain none of us had happy childhoods and we all come from long lines of undistinguished people, so I believe we all live in different worlds. Nothing's going to change that and, for now, it's just out of the question. At least my mind's made up. And once my mind's made up...
Although I do have a nagging question. It has been mentioned that the S3's "...results look a little on the soft side." Then again, perhaps I'm just keeping my options open. I've a feeling I'll be using my Baby Canon for some time yet. It's time to start learning to optimise jpegs for the Web from RAW, I guess...
Taking a look at Shelley's latest pics, it seems I've quite some way to go yet...
