In what has been an adventurous week perhaps the song that's been sticking in my head all week being hummed has been this 1977 offering by the Steve Miller Band which the single has minor lyric change to comply with then radio station policies on cuss words.
The songs kind of apt because that big issue of the week is foreign travel and specifically travel to Spain which hasn't been banned but people are being told they have to stay at home for fourteen days because of Covid outbreaks in Madrid, Barcelona and around the "Costas" which are on the coast of the Catalonia area of Spain.
You may recall the outrage when fourteen day quarantines were suggest on travel due to this jolly norty Covid being World-Wide and easy to spread from country to country and how we made a bit of list of countries that we may be able to travel to.
Thing was, there always was this caveat that infection rates in those countries went up it would be reviewed which is just what has happened and the travel industry is howling with protests saying how people would lose jobs and businesses being lost.
No one can say it may not happen and nobody wants people to go through that but public health - our public health as Britons comes first - and if we start to have massive infections again then even more jobs and businesses will be lost never mind the impact on the health service and loss of lives which has not been inconsiderable so far.
While I have understanding for individuals own circumstances, we just have to accept such things will happen unless and until we have a vaccine ready to protect all of us.
All our lives matter.
Well we'd of been somewhere this week but that's not - couldn't really - be happening so my mind such as it is has been looking back at a few things one being an interesting of mine being flowers.
This is a sunflower we have presently indoors taken on the Sony camera I got after February's adventure when the old one just died on me.
As you can see it does have surprisingly good resolving power even if the programmed exposure usually needs tweaking a little after the event.
I find sunflowers interesting.
This life perhaps unlike the expectation you may of things online is very much for real, I don't as close friend knows collect 'friends' like some may collect trading cards because being a friend actually means something and not just another set of people for sites and social media to collect information about and make money from.
My camera comes into this too because it's a memory preserve which believe me when your memory is badly impacted as mine is by various things is a godsend and this was a picture I draw in a class taken by that friend in 2017 of a Monster that having given a presentation on, we were to undertake this task.
She struggles at times with things as indeed I do but she got it together pulling that class off so well.
Let's hope we can get together in the near future.
We're kind of moving to wearing "facial coverings" - better not use the "M" word - come July 24 although as ever there appears to be some confusion over where it is you should.
Let's simplify this: You won't be arrested or refused service IF you are wearing one so the number one place this applies is to visit a shop. Any shop.
Doesn't matter if it's Lidl, a sandwich bar or the jewellers and the entire point is to prevent you from spreading Covid which you may be carrying without realizing it from anyone else so when we all do it we're not potentially infecting each other.
It will help with virus infections such as flu and the common cold too which is why most people in South-east Asia just do it.
In England and Scotland you are doing this on the train, subway, tram and bus already because it's a condition of carriage presently - no mask, no travel, period.
Only car drivers and cyclists don't have to.
Places where you won't will be include places to eat or drink on the spot such cafés, pubs, and restaurants although there is no reason for your mask not to be one while lining up to be escorted to your table which may take minutes rather than seconds.
That's cos food and needs access to your mouth and even with crazy straw designs you still SHOULD NOT TOUCH your mask front while fitted so no you can't start feeding straws underneath of it.
It's highly likely the premises will have a sign saying the require it or it may be found on the shops Facebook or other website.
Today's post was brought to you by the letter M and the number 1.
JUST DO IT!
The week has been a damp one, this is being typed when it is too damp to be out, but much happened over the weekend such as a few more types of businesses being allowed to open such as Public Houses of which one of ours did for drinks.
They decided to leave meals a fortnight until they what demand is and if the lockdown doesn't return as this was the week before last the worst district in the West Midlands for Covid infections.
One other significant thing was the reopening of Barber's and Hairdressers from 6 AM Saturday as many places started on the dot as they had a large number of people to see.
This meant after a very long wait the mess that was my hair could finally get trimmed and tidied up on Wednesday although the trinity of PPE, Social Distancing and Hand Sanitizer were all present and in our case everything was appointment only.
Conversation was side and back in line with Public Health England guidelines and obviously all equipment including chairs disinfected and hair swept away before the next person was done.
I'll swear I weigh less for having it sorted out at last!
On Thursday last June 25th, It was announced that Olympus would no longer make cameras and that the different divisions such as optics would be repurposed.
To me there was no sadder day previously than when in 2003, it was announced Minolta/Konica were sold to Sony and that brand with a large legacy would be no more.
Olympus made photographic history often getting to them before Nikon and Canon and today I'll touch on a couple of notable cameras of theirs and why they mattered.
The Olympus OM1 in differing forms was one of longest running cameras in production from its introduction in 1972 until being phased out in 1987, beginning a whole new line of cameras.
Prior to its launch, system cameras that used separate lenses and had a single lens reflex system with a mirror so you could see the image focusing it before the picture was taken were very heavy being designed more for photo journalists.
It was a manual exposure only camera with just the suggested meter reading powered by a battery of if that failed you could continue to film so long as you had some means or figuring what the exposure 'should' be as you set that by hand.
Everything on this camera bar the metering is mechanical, made of cogs and metal, a feat of miniaturized engineering.
Other small systems lacked the full range of extras such as attachments for taking pictures from microscopes, lenses that covered every focal length you could want and even winders with film packs to take masses of film for industrial use without having to wind the film on by hand that Olympus offered.
It had everything a photographer wanted in a small, sleek design.
The OM1 was massively popular with explorers and travel writers because they now had a lightweight full system camera that could go more or less anywhere with them in jungles and up mountains not having to rely on pocket cameras with limited control when in confined spaces.
This in its 1983 version is one I know and loved first hand because by this point, the camera's in the OM system had gained Aperture Priority auto exposure when for any given setting it set a suitable shutter speed, making quick picture taking easy, especially when it metered it at the moment of actually taking it rather than just before which when also matched to a specially designed shutter blind resulted in some of the most even automatic exposure systems ever.
This had also been carried over to the flash system that could take multiple in series flash guns for advanced work and had macro flash units to fit around lenses for extreme close ups evenly illuminated.
It added two wonderful things for serious photographers, an auto exposure lock so if you needed to get an exposure reading from one part of scene only to ensure it all came out well (as all reflected light systems can and do fail), you could hold it for up to 60 minutes and at the same time balance that Exposure Value in the camera to any combination of aperture and shutter speed.
It also had a extremely good up to eight position spot metering system which with the exposure lock enabled meant you had the means at hand to deal the trickiest of exposures getting perfectly exposed slides no matter what.
It was also blessed with a very easy to use set of controls on the top plate with everything you needed to hand so you for all that sophistication just get on with taking pictures and not hunting menus and hidden buttons.
That in its last form remained on sale until about 2002 and was wonderful.
Introduced in 1968 and only discontinued in the late 80's, this was a fully programmed compact camera fitted with an exceptional 40mm lens which was powered by solar power no less, taking some of the best pictures possible on such a small compact camera
The Olympus XA from around early 1980 was a unique compact camera that used a superimposed image that when aligned with the main one in the viewfinder allowed easy accurate manual focusing on mirrorless camera.
It was backed up with a Aperture Priority auto exposure system making it possible to use a bit of creativity in a small compact camera which again was fitted with a top quality lens, this time a 35mm moderate wide-angle.
This was a popular model for photographers who had a system camera but wanted something very good to literally put in their pocket and use anywhere.
It came with a detachable automatic exposure flash gun which could be used for "fill in flash", helping with outdoor portraits.
That is just four reasons why I miss Olympus as a owner of several bodies and numerous lenses.
