Learning after a Stroke: Learning a new camera

One of the less comfortable aspects of my stroke is the impairment of both balance and binocular vision. In fact, this is also applies to stereophonic hearing. The reason I crunched my old camera was by falling down a couple of steps with camera in hand. The up side is that I get to buy and learn about a new camera and the grandchildren get a new toy (the old camera, of course).

I took snaps along one of my regular routes described in The Lurch – Getting into the country. Knowing that Meredith and the grandchildren were to descend on us next week, I started with the playground and exercise area.

This first photos tested the telephoto function. The Recreation Ground sign was easy to make readable when it was only just readable to my naked eye.

The second was even more impressive. I was 60-70 yards away from that car parked in the car park.

There was no chance of me reading the car number plate. As you can see the number plate is perfectly clear in the photo. It’s easy to see how speed cameras work with that level of clarity.

Next I look at the exercise and play area.Here the sets of apparatus were taken from at least 50 yards away using the telephoto between two trees which limited the breadth of vision. Once again the telephoto allowed an unexpected clarity in the shot.

For the two pics of the BMX style track, I used about 30% telephoto which provided adequate magnification and breadth of scene.

The BMX track

London Plane Tree

Changing the orientation for this London Plane Tree, really didn’t work. Lopping off the top of the tree was not what I intended, but it is still impressively tall in comparison to the houses in the background.

Small flowers and plants

The species identification for all these photos is down to my youngest son Guthrie (who has just completed his Ecology degree at UEA). The exercise here was to use the telephoto facility to get close into hedgerow plants and photograph them in situ.

Red Campion (coloured white?)

Nipplewort (yellow flowers)

Dog Rose

Dog Rose - leaf

Hedgerow Cranesbill

The open meadows with their wide variety of flowering grasses are unusually beautiful at the moment. I suspect helped by the very abundant rain we’ve had this spring.

Flowering Grasses

I noticed this curiosity while walking beside a crop of maize. These look like mole hills, but each one was associated with the root ball of a specific plant. If anyone has ideas?

Mole hills round the maize roots

The village of Starston is truly picturesque. A summer’s day after plentiful rain shows it off to full advantage. This is an old community. Look at the size of the Old Rectory, it’s even larger than the Beck House (originally the home farm of the manor).