The photograph on the right was taken on the evening of the Kings birthday celebrations. The still was snapped during a firework display in Wang Pho Village, Kanchanaburi and was photographed by Malcolm Burgess.
I was immediately taken in by its black hole space like appearance and rate it one of the best photos I have seen on the many blog sites I visit. At the time I commented on Malcolm’s site that he should get a framed blown up print as it would look fantastic on a living room wall. Malcolm kindly emailed me the image for my personal usage.
I would like to publicly issue my thanks to Malcolm with the following message - you son of a b*tch why the hell can’t I take pictures as beautiful as that – or put another way – thanks Malcolm.
I recently bought myself a Vivitar Vivicam 8010 8.0 mega pixels camera. Not the most expensive camera on display at £68 (3500 baht) but in this digital enhanced world one that should take a quality photo. The Vivicam 8010 will not be taking up residence in Quality Street, it’s downtown shanty town for this pocket size camera, which so far is turning out to be a big disappointment.
The slightest hand movement when taking shots leaves the image blurry, then it’s back to the menu and another click on the already overused delete button. Pictures taken indoors in decent daylight, show up looking more like a night time scene that has been shot without a flash. I checked the Vivitar 8010 reviews on the Internet and the few that were there also listed similar grumbles and voiced their disappointment at the poor quality camera.
With my trip to Thailand now only days away I am forced to stick with it and hope that a further look at the manual may bring better results. My advice would be that if you are thinking about buying a new camera then zoom out of focus of this one.
Carrying on the theme of disappointing things brings me nicely to the currently inadequate and limp British Pound. With my holiday less than one week away, my pound is worth a mere 52.47 baht at my last look earlier today, compared to the 64 baht it traded at during my September trip. I am now considering cutting my 19 day car rental down to 15 to partly offset the devalued pound and for the first time ever adding sensible to my holiday itinerary.
With the current political situation in Thailand still very unstable and the possibility of your stay being extended by another airport siege, holding back on the baht could be the course to steer these coming months for visitors to the Land Of Smiles.
© 2008 – 2010, Martyn. All rights reserved.
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HD Sorry to hear about the camera, personally I have never been a fan of pocket sized cameras for anything other than taking family snaps. Camera shake can be an issue unless you pay mega bucks.
My own Fujifinpix S5000 is a bit weighty by todays standard (3 yrs old) but it has a X22 digital zoom and produces half decent photos.
As for the Baht, well I’m no FE expert but it looks to have settled at around 52 which is an issue for me, not for day to day living but it could be effect my next visa extension in June if its still the same. Mind you as FB reminded me the other day mai pen rai!
Have a safe journey.
Have a good trip!
(Transported back onto the bridge of the Enterprise). Ahead warp factor 4, Scotty…
One of the secrets of ‘good’ photography is a memory card of as many megabytes as you can afford. My technique is to take a thousand or so shots of subject matter, and trust that the results will contain a few acceptable ones – always by complete accident of course. Celluloid photographers of old will be turning in their graves.
Reading the manual – now there’s a thought. Glanced at mine once, but you need an electron microscope to read the tiny script, a degree in physics to be able to understand anything beyond the title, and of course, a photographic memory to be able to recall some of the 469 pages for more than thirty seconds. For some reason the only page I can remember a year on is the one demonstrating over-exposure, which happened to have been of a stunning, almost naked lady, on a beach in the Seychelles.
My last better photography aid is a VR (vibration reduction) zoom lens. But whenever I get it out of the bag there are always a few clever comments.
My favourite video camera was an old Canon in the early 90s. Hundreds of reports all over the web of how Canon’s innovative night vision setting when used in daytime had a X-ray effect. I spent months filming in the high street, but couldn’t get the hang of it. Probably a hoax, but I’ve kept the camera in case I should meet someone one day who can give me a demo…
Mike, I am starting to think that I should of invested a little more in my blog camera. Luckily Wilai has a better quality Samsung camera that I can use if need be. Take a look at the latest Lost Boy top 100, you are approaching nose bleed territory.
Lynne thank you and welcome aboard the good ship Mango, FB set warp factor 6 please.
Pete like you I have always thought manuals make good coffee mats and table leg wedges but I may be forced to take this one out of the polythene. Looking at my recent visitors widget there doesn’t seem to be many Cling-ons about.
I’m starting to get an idea of how this SEO promotion thingummy works, when I’m back in frogland I’ll give it a blast and pass on anything that looks promising…
More people should be following your blog, so tough if they miss out on this link!!
http://www.seobook.com/bloggers#whyblog
Cheers Pete, I am starting to get quite a few hits a day but not that many from the Blog Catalog community. Very pleased with how the site is coming on as it’s only 3 months old and I have just sneaked into the Lost Boy top 100. Seem to get a lot of hits from Singapore. Thanks.
Just picking up on the comments theme about hits. It took me a long time to get too 4-6000 hits a month that MTF currently gets, EC helped as did/does blog explosion.
However I have tinkered with the template (meta thingies) and also worked hard at getting links to other blogs, the easiest way to start is by commenting on high page rank blogs etc.
I also think you deserve more readers, I would be interested to know how many click on the link on MTF too you.
Mike sorry to keep you waiting but I had to pop out for a holiday haircut, thought about red and yellow streaks to enable a safe passage up to Udon Thani but gave it a miss. Tough question to answer but I will give it a go.
Since your plug in your recent post I have to now reset my statcounter weekly making analysis more difficult but a most welcome minor problem.Discounting your regular hits I would put the figure at 8-10 per week(guesstimate includes your recent visitor widget hits on Hoo Don)which I am very pleased with. My current 450-600 hits per month will however include off shoots from your links who have now bookmarked my site and go through their own url.
The url to my site is actually under 2 months old but my blogs date back further, let me explain. I uploaded my earlier blogs from a cheap template website I set up in August and so to be reaching my current hit count is very pleasing. Thanks once again for your support.
As far as leaving comments on the top sites, yes you are right but I tend to visit the sites I like reading rather than ones just for comment feed back. Perhaps this is an area I need to address. Your 4-6000 hits per month is really amazing and well deserved, well done and enjoy your weekend.
The picture you posted above is great! And I’m sorry to hear about your Vivitar Vivicam, hope you’ll get a better camera soon.