New Camera!

Yesterday was devoted to righting what felt like a massive imbalance in my life -- my lack of a good camera. Ever since I lost my camera in Italy I've felt incomplete, and although the phone camera has served me well, I'd had several moments when I wanted to take a picture and couldn't because I didn't have the right lenses or capabilities.

The eclipse was a prime example. I don't know anything about the mechanics of photographing an eclipse, but I felt that I missed an opportunity to learn.

So yesterday I took the tube into town and went to Park Cameras and got myself back on track.

I thought I knew where the camera shop was, but as it turns out I did not. I took the tube to the wrong stop and wound up walking a bit to get to where I needed to go. But in a way that wasn't so bad, since it gave me a chance to stretch my legs and take a few phone pictures in Soho...

...like this one of The George pub, with some building work going on behind it.

Eventually I got to Park, told the guys there my situation, and wound up buying a Canon EOS R6 Mark III, and replacing the three lenses that I lost (I got slightly different ones, but with similar capabilities). While the camera I lost was a DSLR, this camera is mirrorless, which means it doesn't have an internal mirror and is entirely digital in its viewfinding. That may not mean much to you, but it's a newer technology and manufacturers aren't really making DSLRs anymore, so it seemed like the way to go.

So basically, I've replaced my kit and I now have a lighter, smaller camera that does everything my old camera used to do. And I've ordered a camera bag identical to my old one (which should arrive in a few days).

I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I was practically in tears walking away from the camera shop.

I haven't had a chance to use it much, because I had to get it home and unboxed, and then I had to charge the battery which took a couple of hours. In this post, only the top photo came out of the new camera. I've also discovered that if I get down on the ground and try to take pictures, Bailey thinks it's playtime and leaps on me with great enthusiasm.

I took the picture above with my phone in the Oxford Street tube station on the way home. That tobacconist looks like it hasn't been open in ages. The Coca-Cola sign dates back to 2012, when we hosted the Olympics, if that's any indication. At first I was confused by "Auto Service," but I assume that means you can serve yourself -- not that they'll fix your car.

In other news, longtime readers might remember my enthusiasm for the book "The Martian Chronicles." Well, I realized the other day that it is now August 2026, and in "The Martian Chronicles," which was written in the 1950s, one of my favorite stories is set in this very month -- "There Will Come Soft Rains," which describes earth after it has been destroyed by atomic war. Specifically, it describes an automated house going on robotically in the absence of its dead owners, making breakfasts that are never eaten and reading poetry to empty rooms. I first heard that story in the seventh grade and I've never forgotten it. Back then, August 2026 seemed like the far-distant future, and yet here we are. We haven't destroyed ourselves with atomic war (yet) but we do have artificial intelligence and Alexa playing us music and helping us run our homes. We are living in a time of science fiction.