I have taken a slight detour though from the second book and instead I’m reading “The man who mistook his wife for a hat” by Oliver Sacks. It’s an amazing book with unbelievable stories. Really makes me think about what the human brain and body is capable of. I’m halfway through it already and it’s a pretty easy read.

I’ve also placed another book order with Amazon UK. I’ve got quite a long reading list now but I think that’s good.

One interesting side effect from regularly reading is that I seem to be having (and remembering) dreams when I sleet. Really vivid dreams. It’s good.

I couldn’t believe how much cheaper it is to buy books from overseas. The order I did worked out to be around $130 AUD total (that includes shipping). That works out to be easily half the price of what I would have paid if I bought them from Australia. What’s up with that?

As an example I bought all the current books of the “A Game of Thrones” series. Four books in total. The cost of 3 books from the UK worked out cheaper than a single book if I was to purchase it in Australia.

I guess I just don’t understand why, with the current high Australian dollar, we are still paying a premium for most items.

Needless to say, its not surprising that Australian book retail stores are going out of business.

I have the 100mm macro lens, which is awesome for macro shots and also works a treat for portraits but you need a fair bit of distance for it so it’s not that effective in confined locations.

Everything I read about the 50mm lens said it was pretty much a “must have” considering it’s extremely cheap and also produces exceptionally good results.

I’ve taken a few quick snaps with it and they come up great. I’ll post some at a later stage.

Eaten 3 beans, and a few bits of lettuce so far. Can’t wait for the strawberries and tomatoes to come good.

Everything I read on the web said that both the 60mm and 100mm Canon macro lenses are incredible. Most people recommended buying both, but I wasn’t that keen. The big difference between the 60mm and 100mm is the distance you can be from the subject. In the case of macro shots of bugs and insects, the 100mm is more suitable because you can be further away. Something else I learnt was that the macro lenses take great portrait shots. Another feature of the Canon macros is they are internal focusing, so the length of them doesn’t change. I thought that was pretty neat as well.

I took a look at a few of the macro lenses at a local shop including a few cheaper Tamron lenses. I really didn’t like the feel of them at all, and the sounds they made when focusing didn’t make me feel very confidant. In comparison the Canon lenses where much quieter and the focusing was a lot smoother. I guess it’s a case of ‘you get what you pay for’ so I decided to bite the bullet and go with the Canon 100mm. I’m really happy with the quality of the shots.

The second lens that was in my twin lens kits also arrived after a shortage of stock. So I now have a 55-250mm IS lens. The image stabilizer (IS) makes a huge difference. Zoomed in shots that usually blur without a tripod come out crystal clear. I will probably have a bit more of a play with it on the weekend.

Overall so far I have found that I get maybe 1 or 2 “great” shots from a group of photos. My ratio of “great” vs “ok / bad” is pretty bad at the moment, so that’s something I need to work on.

I’ve also been using Aperture for cataloging and editing my photos. It’s a great piece of software. I also found the video tutorials on the Apple site really helpful as well.

So I took it for a slow drive around the front yard area without the top on, thinking it would be ok since I wasn’t going that fast. Unfortunately the plastic aerial cover came off and the aerial got wrapped around the front right wheel shaft and broke. Luckily it broke outside the receiver, so I should be able to solder / tape another aerial lead on to it.

Surprised me how difficult it is to replace the aerial lead. I guess people don’t really break them that often

So the good news is the truck still runs, but the receiver coverage is short so I haven’t tried my luck.