This week I started back at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am officially a second year! With that means that my student loan has come through.
Do you know what that means boys and girls?? Shopping time! I’ve bought myself two new lenses – Canon 85mm f1.8 USM and the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6. I also bought a new camera body, Canon EOS 50E, one beautiful film body! Yes, a automagic film body, but it works nicely along side the digital body. Sadly, I haven’t been able to get the lithium batteries that the 50E requires, but I do have the battery pack to go with it which takes AA batteries instead! Not to forget about the ordered things that have still to come though the mail – sensor cleaner, filters for the lenses (don’t forget to get your UV filters to protect the front element!) and a few other odds and sods for the camera bag.
This does, however, mean that my dear Epson R340 printer is being dicky. The yellow printing head is clogged and has been quite rapidly not printing things right for a couple of weeks. Kian is working his technical genius on it to help me out (I really don’t want to buy another printer for another 6months or so – when this one hits 3years old I was planning on replacing it…). Annoyingly, Epson feel that it is time to replace my printer and offer no way of repairing it – only replacing with an all-in-one unit (further down the scale then the R340, but *slightly* cheaper!).
Things that are happening at uni – part of our education this term is that we must enter 2 photographic awards/competitions/contests, one of them being the Nikon Discovery Awards. There are a few people that don’t like the idea, but I’m not too sure that their reasons are that logical – the work, if chosen by our tutors, *might* have a chance of winning a place at an exhibition and having their work printed and publicised by Nikon and the British Journal of Photography. As it is, the brief for it is so broad that I don’t feel restricted by it in anyway! Its getting us ready for next term where we *must* put on a public exhibition. So, on top of the Nikon Discovery Awards I need to choose another photographic competition to enter before Christmas. Got a couple in mind.
Still debating going to the fencing competition this weekend – its the Manchester Cadet. I’ve not been around the fencing scene since last December – got the next lenses and camera I want to try out. We Shall See.