What annoyed you today?

[Oldboy]

A troll on PR site and their POTY competition.

Just ignore them. They are only jealous of your talent. 

[greypoint]

There is an inevitability about the annual DCMag POTY controversy that makes you assume they welcome it. I wonder which junior members of staff are given the job of wading through the 114,000 entries to come up with the finalists to go forward to the panel of distinguished judges. I remember watching a video of one of those judges last year commenting on the 'drink' aspect of most of the This is Britain finalists he'd been given to judge.   It remains a lottery where the whole point is to get the maximum entries - 10 per category is surely a bit excessive even if that's the aim. Surely when you look through the final selection each picture in the category should be worthy of being the winner, especially given the huge entry. Some don't even seem to fit the brief - some seem more like part of a series - a few,even I would'nt think worth entering a competition with - OK but nothing remotely special. Ah well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say....

[CML-1591]

Uni trying to narrow us down into one genre of photography...

[Oldboy]

Had a letter from 3 mobile today saying hello, and welcome. It detailed my new phone account and that I had choosen the £35 a month plan. Very interesting, except I hadn't ordered any phone or opened an account with them. 

Just spent half hour on the phone to them to cancelled this contract/bills. Tried to contact them via the internet but couldn't find any link to customer support/ contact details to raise this problem unless I had an account!  Only a number which charged 5p a minute from a BT landline, so called them on the free account number for sales. 

Just a update on this as I've received my telephone bill from BT and there is no charge for calling 3. 

So, if you need to contact a company and they don't show a freephone number, then check out their sales number and use that. 

[jinky]

Yeah spot on Oldboy - well done. I hate the whole 0870/ 0845 number thing as well and use this site to get landline numbers that come in free under my phone bill time:
http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php

Mind you more and more seem to have now given up landline numbers and offer no choice. My famed Go Ballooning company being one who now have only a couple of such o8 numbers available - one at a higher rate and the other infomation on flight details on a £1 per minute premium rate. I reckon all the money save from going with Virgin gets spent on their phone line. easier now I know the options as first time I had to listen to flight details for the whole of the UK before they got to Yorkshire on option 8

[Oldboy]

To be honest jinky, if I had been charged I would have sent them a bill, including the time I spent on the phone to them. 

What really annoys me is they have a jazzy website with a contact them button, but when you press that all you are given is a expensive phone number. No email address!  This makes it hard to prove you phoned them and you have no record of the conversation!

[spinner]

Went to the eye doctor today. Forgot they dilate the eyes for Glaucoma tests. That was around noon, only just getting my sight back now. What a waste of an afternoon.

[jinky]

Royal Mail!!!!
Current known estimate of 3 parcels missing for me (posted between 25th - 27th October) and one cheque (now cancelled) made out to my daughter missing for over a week. Not had one letter - not even junk mail- in 4 days.
Took myself to sorting office this morning  and whilst I waited one guy was telling a caller in the same street there were no issues and sent them off to tackle despatchers.Then my person told me there was a big backlog with parcels and it would "come through eventually". After having a go they went to check and found 2 of my parcels - not the one I really wanted of course I`d bought a Nikon cable cheap on Amazon to use flash off camera when CLS was struggling with my orbis ringflash. The company claim to have sent a 2nd out whilst they callenge RM ( on 5th Nov) and that has not come either! Unbelievable

[Mick]

Royal Mail!!!!

Really don't know what's going on with them to be honest.   I sent a xbox 360 game back to play.com valued at about £40. (1st class Recorded, signed for)  This went missing for three weeks.  Checked the tracking service yesterday, and still it was progressing through their system.    Was just looking up about making a claim, and read your post.  Checked the tracking service again, and it now shows it was delivered yesterday. 

[picsfor]

Finally, after some several weeks and a cancelled appointment, we have actual hard wired broadband.

How can 2 companies be so inept?

Had to get a BT based broadband as Horsham doesn't have cable. So signing up for sky and getting the broadband with them seemed the easiest option - except they need BT to actually do the work cos all copper wire is owned by BT.

BT man turned up unannounced a week before the appointed time and date, and because we were not in, cancelled the scheduled connection appointment. We made another appointment for tomorrow and guess what? Yep - BT man turned up unannounced this morning!!!

Thank god we had just got out of bed! And what did said BT man do? Plug in a special phone, type in a code and went!

Annoyed doesn't really cover it. A letter for compensation will be on its way to cover the £25 we've run up on the broad band dongle from the original appointment - and the need to have to stay in "just in case"...

Glad i'm off work for a week so i can now catch up with all the various sites i like to visit... And the missed posts off this site!

[Jonathan]

My 24-70 is broken again.

3 months ago it was soft focussing (soft for a 24-70) so it went to Nikon.  £275 later it was spot on.

A week or two ago I noticed I was getting odd results on studio flash.  Random frames were either under or over exposed.  I just did a long boring test which "proved" my D3S was faulty - different exposures on odd frames on the D3S, everything pretty good on the D3.

Before I sent the camera in I rang Nikon.  30 mins on the phone to the techs and they found out the aperture blades are sticking on the lens.  It's just a coincidence it shows on one camera (swapping lens over moves them - this also explains why it's worse for the first several frames but settles down after an hour).

Of course the camera's under warranty and the lens isn't......

[picsfor]

My 24-70 is broken again.

3 months ago it was soft focussing (soft for a 24-70) so it went to Nikon.  £275 later it was spot on.

A week or two ago I noticed I was getting odd results on studio flash.  Random frames were either under or over exposed.  I just did a long boring test which "proved" my D3S was faulty - different exposures on odd frames on the D3S, everything pretty good on the D3.

Before I sent the camera in I rang Nikon.  30 mins on the phone to the techs and they found out the aperture blades are sticking on the lens.  It's just a coincidence it shows on one camera (swapping lens over moves them - this also explains why it's worse for the first several frames but settles down after an hour).

Of course the camera's under warranty and the lens isn't......

Wouldn't it be cheaper to get another one. Sounds to me like it might actually be worn out, after all, from what i've seen and read it is your bread and butter lens. Be curious to know how many shots its taken...

[Jonathan]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to get another one. Sounds to me like it might actually be worn out, after all, from what i've seen and read it is your bread and butter lens. Be curious to know how many shots its taken...

New lens is £1,200.  With the bits it's had and the bits it's going to have it should be good as new.  I'm guessing somewhere around £150 for a strip down and lube which is probably what it needs.

Don't know how many frames it's done but my guess is somewhere round 100K.

[Oldboy]

My 24-70 is broken again.

3 months ago it was soft focussing (soft for a 24-70) so it went to Nikon.  £275 later it was spot on.

A week or two ago I noticed I was getting odd results on studio flash.  Random frames were either under or over exposed.  I just did a long boring test which "proved" my D3S was faulty - different exposures on odd frames on the D3S, everything pretty good on the D3.

Before I sent the camera in I rang Nikon.  30 mins on the phone to the techs and they found out the aperture blades are sticking on the lens.  It's just a coincidence it shows on one camera (swapping lens over moves them - this also explains why it's worse for the first several frames but settles down after an hour).

Of course the camera's under warranty and the lens isn't......

I used mine on Friday for Bonfire night at West Bromwich and it got completely soaked along with the D3, as it didn't stop raining all evening. The camera steamed up on the LCD screen and on the top control panel but the lens was fine.  

[Jonathan]

Um, great!  Mine's broken.

In other news....the weather sealing on the D3 ain't as good as on the D2X  Not got the D3S seriously wet yet.