I recently bought a Kodak V705. It is actually small enough to slip into a pocket. It is also unusual in that it has two lenses- a regular zoom one (giving 39mm to 117mm) and an ultra-wide angle 23mm one. As I enjoy taking pictures of interesting buildings (particularly Theatres andCinemas), I thought I’d nip into town and try it out. I have to say that I’m very impressed, here are the results.

Our proudest civic asset is the Town Hall, opened in 1895 and now used by Morley Town Council.It is a Grade One listed building and the clock tower stands proudly 160 feet above the Town. This is ultra-wide angle mode (23mm equivalent)from directly opposite at street level.

This is widest on the normal lens, 39mm. This imposing Colonnade leads to the ceremonial entrance.

I’ve zoomed in to about 50mm. The pediment is graced by an entablature of Morley life from the 19th Century. It apparently includes Morley Train tunnel, although it is difficult to spot. let us examine it closer.

This is now at about 100mm. The individual figures can now be made out although we would get much finer detail with a monopod as it is a rather overcast day so the exposure time is overly long. Let us go to the full zoom range, 117mm.

Wow, that is impressive, detail I’ve never really noticed before. The carvings are an unexpected juxtaposition of nature amongst the man-made trades of mining, weaving and Engineering. (Allegorical, perhaps?). Well, from the road test I’m happy with it, although automatic settings result in some graininess and digital artifacts at lower light levels. I’ve now realised that exposure correction can be useful where lighting conditions have particular high light/shade contrast.A cautious but satisfied 7.5 out of 10 from me.

There is an interesting idea for raising money to Comic relief by contributing a funny blogpost towards a rapidly published book. This might be an opportunity for Blogpowerers to dig up something witty from their own archives.

The book will be called Shaggy Blog Stories: a collection of amusing tales from the UK blogosphere.

I’m a bit too (non-im)partial to pick one of my own posts as I feel that enjoyment of Shades requires a certain familiarity with my style, opinions and whackiness to pick up the humour. I’m also snowed under with work this week…

However, if anyone wants to suggest a post of mine that they regard as funny in its own right, I’d be delighted (and rather chuffed) to submit it for possible inclusion.

You can find out more about it here.

Posts will be light this week, I’m busy with work and Morleygate Matters.

…is now appearing in Google searches pointing to the Leedstoday.net site, home of the Yorkshire Evening Post. It wasn’t showing up last week though.

I don’t read the YEP, Karen thinks it is rubbish, at least compared to the Manchester Evening News. Perhaps Google agree with her!

Anyhow, I now know what the pledge actually says (or at least how it is reported) and it seems that the participants get a nice certificate as well.

I’ll get round to reading it all in due course. Interestingly, another article has comments and not everyone thinks it is a good idea.

Working in both IT and Telecommunications, the sight of an article entitled Call goes out for open source Teledildonics work caught my eye.

My first rather flippant thought was that this must be harnessing technology for the rather lonely hobby of onanism.

Surprisingly, I was right.

Hat tip: The Register, home of my weekly chuckle, The Bastard Operator from Hell