In the tunnel viewpoint parking area there was a gent. We shall call him 64. Because he was espousing the virtues of good old Ansel Adams. small. The aperture has to be small!
I pretended not to overhear. But he was shooting an SLR with a prime Lglass lens. I might be mistaken but I doubt it goes past f/22 but perhaps not even f/16. But wait he'd solved that problem with a dark filter! Effective aperture!
Now any decent photog knows Adams was not after a magic f-stop. He was after purity. But like I said I was trying to ignore 64. I'd been having trouble with my old 1DS2 since the late afternoon. It was sticking the shutters and freezing up. Err01! It continually shouted. Grr. I am eyeing the new 5D. It sure would have been sweet today. Oh well. Debt first then save up money like an adult and buy it cash.
As 64 droned on to anyone who'd listen. I managed to cajole a few shots out of the 1DS. I got it working enough to shoot the valley @300mm. I am still using a mediocre 70-300USM. So I racked it out to 300mm and for Adams sake I dialed the aperture to f/40. Great so I'm still 24 away from the f/64 club? Oh well don't really care to join at the moment because the last battery gave up and my SLR is now just a very expensive necklace. So I pulled out my iphone(maybe mostly for 64's sake and snapped a few more. As I headed to the car I heard an anguished yelp as 64's camera popped off his tripod and smashed on to the unforgiving asphalt. Ouch! Very serious hurt! I've dropped gear before and it's emotionally traumatic.
As I watched 64's precious neutral density filter roll a wobbly path down the parking lot it struck me that 5k worth of gear doesn't mean a thing if it's smashed. Profound no?
