What bemused you today?

[ABERS]

You must be joking
Just read that to renovate and move Roald Dahl's hut, which is apparently still in the bottom of his garden in Bucks,
will cost £500,000 and it will cost a further £500,000 to install it in some museum.

Why don't they just buy him a new one.

[Oldboy]

You must be joking
Just read that to renovate and move Roald Dahl's hut, which is apparently still in the bottom of his garden in Bucks,
will cost £500,000 and it will cost a further £500,000 to install it in some museum.

Why don't they just buy him a new one.

Not much use to him as he died in 1990. 

[ABERS]

Yes I know that Oldboy, but it would make a nice mausoleum.

[Jonathan]

The numbers look deeply suspicious.

I suggested on Twitter that a man with a van would probably do it for 60 quid cash.  I was told that due to the fragile nature of some of the objects it must be treated like an archaeological site.  Unless wages have gone up significantly, £500,000 would pay a team of 20 archaeologists for a year.  Plus student volunteers.  Despite what you see on that irritating program with Baldrick most archaeologists seem to get by with a small trowel and a wheelbarrow so materials costs won't be high.

Oh look, I'm starting to agree with the Telegraph.  Which is worrying.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8760530/Do-it-yourself-outcry-over-Roald-Dahls-shed.html

Mind you, I never knew Sophie Dahl was married to Jamie Cullum.  I can quite see why the family needs handouts.

[Oldboy]

Yes I know that Oldboy, but it would make a nice mausoleum.

[Oldboy]

Oh look, I'm starting to agree with the Telegraph.  Which is worrying.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8760530/Do-it-yourself-outcry-over-Roald-Dahls-shed.html

It's an age thing. 

[hevans]

You must be joking
Just read that to renovate and move Roald Dahl's hut, which is apparently still in the bottom of his garden in Bucks,
will cost £500,000 and it will cost a further £500,000 to install it in some museum.

I won't be shedding any tears over this.

H.

[Graham]

Mind you, I never knew Sophie Dahl was married to Jamie Cullum. 

    Now look Jonathan, we've been on this site a good few years now, and I like like to think  that we've all got to know each other a little.
    And then you come here, trying to make out that you don't subscribe to "OK" magazine!?
                     Words fail me.

      Graham.

[ABERS]

Mind you, I never knew Sophie Dahl was married to Jamie Cullum. 

Is that the bloke who tries to be a cross between Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and fails miserably

[Oldboy]

You must be joking
Just read that to renovate and move Roald Dahl's hut, which is apparently still in the bottom of his garden in Bucks,
will cost £500,000 and it will cost a further £500,000 to install it in some museum.

I won't be shedding any tears over this.

H.

Too subtle H. 

[greypoint]

The camera 'fanboy' thingy    Last autumn I bought a Pentax K-5 and it has been the best camera body I've used. But the body is only half the story and the lack of a fast focusing quiet 300mm zoom - in fact the lack of any long fast focusing zoom that did'nt weigh a ton finally made me regretfully decide to move back to Nikon before the K-5 became valueless. So I bought a D7000 with Tamron 70-300 vc usd and a used 28-75 f2.8 for low light. To cut a long story short - after three weeks of general frustration, I found the 70-300 needed to be set at -15 on the af fine tune to get in focus results and the 28-75 was still a bit iffy at -20. An old 28-105 f2.8 proved to need similar attention. Now, to me, that's a camera issue. It also had times when it refused to lock focus at all - on easy subjects, good light, single point, single shot af. So it's gone back. This sort of thing makes you search the internet for those with the same issues - wow - what a can of worms  On dpreview there is so much vitriol aimed at those who dare to say there are some faulty D7000s out there it's come down to people quoting the bible and actual threats! There are lots who claim there are no af issues with some cameras but it's simply user error and being too thick to realise this camera has a superior advanced af system. Now, to me, any camera that has af should af - in the simplest modes it should be point, focus, shoot. There are those who say it's perfectly acceptable to have to fine tune all your lenses to such a great degree - live with it. Hmm - having spent £850 on a camera I sort of expect it to work properly from the start - fine tuning should be just that - fine tuning.  Why do some people have this strange affliction whereby they seem to have this undying loyalty to a camera brand and can stand no criticism of it?!
Oh well - waiting for them to refund the money for my D7000 - unless they too swear there's nothing wrong with it    Took delivery of a D90 - and guess what....it focuses like you'd expect...as did all my previous Nikons. 

[Jonathan]

Yeah but to be fair, most people on DPR are quite quite mad.

I remember the guy who bought 8 cameras none of which would focus properly....

[greypoint]

Yeah but to be fair, most people on DPR are quite quite mad.

I remember the guy who bought 8 cameras none of which would focus properly....

Yes - I'd never actually post anything on there [although I did join in the Fuji SLR forum which was pretty civilised] - it can make interesting reading though. 

[Hinfrance]

Sorry to hear you ditched the K5. I'm blissfully happy with mine, but then I don't ever find the need for a long lens. I haven't noticed any slow to focus issues either; if something is moving too fast for the K5 to focus on it's usually moving too fast for me to keep it in the frame anyway.

Also sorry to hear that you've had issues with the new Nikon.

That said, my neighbour the wildlife photographer is always complaining about how rubbish the autofocus is on his Canons with long lenses (400mm+) - he focuses manually most of the time.

[greypoint]

I think the K-5 was the best camera I've used - that and the D300s. The af was certainly better than the K20D and with something like the Tamron 70-300 would no doubt have remained my camera of choice. I've had the opportunity to shoot the local flyball teams as well as agility, and those collies really fly! Trying to capture them with the Pentax 55-300 was a bit difficult and trying to get candid shots with that noisy af was even more difficult! It was'nt too bad with the 70-200 Tamron which is quite nippy in Pentax compared with Nikon fit - but 200mm was a bit limiting and the lens a bit heavy as a walkaround. It's the combination of a lightweight fast focusing 300mm zoom on a camera with good continuous af that I find most useful. Other than that the K-5 itself is brilliant and I'd recommend it to anyone - unless they mainly photograph action possibly! Leaving aside the af problems, the D7000 did'nt knock me out as a major improvement to the excellent D90, which is a camera that just seems to work [might need a touch of -3/-7 on the exp.compensation button].