Our Wood

Fall at least in my area is almost coming to an end with the leaves having changed colour dropping on to the wood like a vast carpet of vivid colour so I thought I'd share with you this week this picture of Wild Berries taken in my local woodland.

As well, the acorns are falling which is great news for Squirrels, but not so good if you get several underneath of your feet  which happened to me on Tuesday when I was out walking!

New compact camera

As you might know photography and me were film based with things around that being the backbone of this blog but for a long period I have been without a pocket or compact camera as my old trusty Halina I had from the eighties died.

Recently I got this discontinued Canon Powershot A470 digital compact with a 3.4 times optical zoom that covers the 35mm film equivalent of  38 through 105mm which is handy from modest wide angle through short telephoto and has captures images at 7.1mp using its sensor.
Although it's program only, it takes good images aided by the much better than it needs to be optical zoom lens and accurate auto focus.It uses regular AA cells that are easy to find too.
I also got a Sandisk 16gb SD card for it to store images to as they're cheaper now.

The end of a photographic era

One thing that cannot be ignored is how changes in the photographic market have effected traditional photo retail with this weeks announced closure of Jessop's of Leicester who have branches here in North Staffordshire and also in Wolverhampton that I regularly visit ever since first getting into photography all those years ago.

The thing is a combination of many people using smartphones as cameras and the ascendancy of digital photography has cut the repeat custom as today a person can get a phone or even a digital camera and apart from maybe getting another lens, that is it.

In the past of course we came in week after week to buy film, hand films for processing, get enlargements done and while doing that we saw things that may expand on what we were taking.

You developed a relationship with the staff who tended to be experienced amateur photographers too so they were able to advise you on problems or where an idea may not work so well. 

In Jessop's case they even run photo courses for people who wished to up their photography featuring many experts.

R.I.P Jessops