David Currie

342Impending baby has been a good excuse to stay at home for the bank holiday weekend and catch up on lots of odd jobs. One of those has been sorting photos from the past couple of weeks. My shots from the Marwell Zoo photo challenge two weeks ago are now on flickr. The ones I submitted for the competition were the giraffe with legs akimbo, the friendly penguins, and the ostrich. Given the number of photos to chose from I was pleased to get a vote for each and two for the giraffe putting it in joint third place. I have also published some more shots from another trip to Hillier Gardens last weekend. The rhododendrons were absolutely superb.

Having just sent off for a £33 rebate from Canon on my 70-300 lens, my brother points out that there are some bargains to be had on Canon PowerShots if you buy this weekend. I think he may be tempted…

With my new selection of glass, I’m in need of something to keep it all in. I don’t want anything too big but would like it to fit the body with 70-300 attached. Consequently I packed everything in to a rucksac and headed in to Southampton to visit a few of the camera shops. London Camera Exchange had a good selection and the final choice was between a small Tamrac backpack and the Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW. Anyway, I had no intention of paying high street prices but to salve my conscience I bought the lens hood I had failed to obtain when getting the lenses. Or at least I thought I had…

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330Today was the latest outing of the Hursley Photo Club. Courtesy of Helena, we all had cheap tickets for Marwell Zoo. Helena was also able to give some excellent advice on where to find the photogenic animals. As I’m about to disappear off for the next week, I was feeling a bit guilty at abandoning Christine again so didn’t stay too long but was pleased to have a great opportunity to give my new telephoto a good workout. The photos need some weeding out which will have to wait until I have a spare moment next week so I’ll post again when I’m done.

324We made the most of the sunshine yesterday and headed over to Hillier Gardens near Romsey. By way of an early birthday present, Christine bought us joint membership for a year on the basis that the gardens will be an ideal place for wandering around with a pram. Actually, at £47.50, joint membership is a bargain given that admission is normally £7.50 and, in addition to free access for the year, you also get six vouchers to get friends and family in for free. On top of that, you also get free admission to Kew Gardens so I reckon my paternity leave may include a trip to London. The trip was also an excuse to take my new glass out for a play. With stunning displays everywhere you looked the telephoto didn’t see much action but the 50mm prime is great for shots in shady spots not to mention the speed to stop bees in flight. There are a few more pictures over on Flickr.