Here where the lens is wide

I did go to the zoo today, but don't right now have pictures to share. That's not because my camera wasn't working, although it seemed close for a few moments. It was humid and near enough to raining all day (in fact, at the raccoons, it did thunderstorm) that I got condensation between the camera lens and the polarizing filter and the wide-angle lens, so I could either take a basic picture like I was happy with up to November or I could accept a bit of white-out. For a couple pictures, like the mousedeer, I think this works and it gives things a lovely soft focus, like they gave the female guest star on the original Star Trek, but it's not so good when I just want a clear shot of the whole new kangaroo exhibit. Plus when I changed my batteries late in the day, it turned out I hadn't charged my old batteries.

I set out with my tripod too, (incredibly) the first time I've gone to the zoo with it. While it is a lightweight tripod and rather easy to carry when it's deployed, I've got to figure out a better means of carrying it on the bus and MRT. Folded up it's awkward, too big for my bookbag and unsuitable to hang on it. I must have looked quite like somebody who knew what exactly changing an f-stop affects, since quite a few people deferred to my camera line of sight, and one group asked me to take their picture (on their camera), which hasn't happened to me since my last houseguest was over. I don't wish to encourage gender-related stereotyping here, but a modest fraction of people were gave my tripod good, long looks. All of the people doing this that I noticed were male, though it was a female wallaby who actually hopped up to and rubbed two of the legs.

Anyway, the password for the FTP site I like to keep these pictures on isn't working, so I have to track down the problem. That's just as well. I thought I wasn't taking so many pictures as normal -- quite a few enclosures were blocked off for renovations, including new exhibits for the tapir, the komodo dragon, and all the small mammals -- I got home with 170 pictures, and I need to select and process the right ones. Some of these are going to be mighty good Livejournal Icon fodder.

Trivia: The unit of power was named after James Watt in 1882. Source: Watt's Perfect Engine, Ben Marsden.

Currently Reading: Engineering in History, Richard Shelton Kirby, Sidney Withington, Arthur Burr Darling, Frederic Gridley Kilgour. I'm still waiting on the upstate returns before supposing that list of names is complete, by the way.