Beginner lens choices

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Name
Kate
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Hi all.

I have been shooting with my nikon d3200 50mm lens for about a year or, maybe even 2 and I mostly use it for portraits of the kids and relatively close up shots, often indoors. My issue is that I want to step back to get more in the frame but I only have a small house. I have my kit lens to zoom out but it's abysmal in low light. Google is bombarding me with options and stuff about crop sensors and lens distortion when I'm still learning the basics. Any help appreciated!
 
Tamron and Sigma both do a very decent 17-50 mm f2.8 lens which is always worth considering. Both have versions with stabilisation (VC for tammy OS for siggy). Sigma also do an 18-35mm f1.8 zoom again with OS I think, but it is big, heavy and expensive (apparently very good though - never used it).

The nikon 35mm f1.8g DX lens is also worth looking at, cheap but very good, but may not be wide enough.
 
Yes everyone found a 50mm on a crop sensor is often not wide enough.

You can either buy a prime like 20mm or something which could be expensive to get a good one.

Or zoom like sigma 17-70 f 2.8 which is a good zoom lens in my experience.

I find 17-70 better than the 17-50 zooms because 70mm is good for tighter people shots
 
Thanks both. So, lets say I prefer the sound of the prime lenses, which would be best between the 20mm and the 35mm? Obviously the 35mm is cheaper so that's a bonus but will I see a big enough difference between that and my 50mm? Will the 20mm give distortion of faces close up? Am I likely to use it as an 'everyday' lens or will I need to keep switching it up? I'd love to see some examples of shots using the 20mm, particularly portraits if anyone has any they're willing to share? :p
 
....or start to learn to use flash?
 
....or start to learn to use flash?
He has a point there (and you might use the kit lens). You'd likely want to buy a gun though and think about a diffuser for it, or bouncing it off a white ceiling ...

A benefit of that route would be that by experience you'd find at what focal lengths you tended to use the kit lens, and that could be a guide to what prime might suit.

As you are, I'm guessing a 20mm would be a bit too wide (even on crop). And as you fear, a 35 wouldn't be that much different to your 50. So just to stir a bit more, I'd suggest a 24 or 28, with a bias towards the 28.
 
Thanks both. So, lets say I prefer the sound of the prime lenses,
fwiw I only use prime lenses these days ...

which would be best between the 20mm and the 35mm? Obviously the 35mm is cheaper so that's a bonus but will I see a big enough difference between that and my 50mm?
Only you would know which is best for you ... in terms of difference between the two (the 35 and 50mm), there is a significant field of view difference. On a crop body the 35mm is in effect a normal lens, i.e. it is not a wide angle lens. The 20mm is a moderately wide angle lens on a crop body.

Will the 20mm give distortion of faces close up?
Yes if used close up, noticeably so

Am I likely to use it as an 'everyday' lens or will I need to keep switching it up?
Dunno ;) depends on how you see things, for me I find 35mm on full frame (24mm on crop) to be my standard walk about or general purpose lens

I'd love to see some examples of shots using the 20mm, particularly portraits if anyone has any they're willing to share? :p
Although I did own a 20mm I never used it for portraits.
 
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35 does give quite a bit of difference compared to 50 - which you should be able to test with your kit lens...(I'm assuming it's an 18-55mm) even if the shots are underexposed/

I went through a similar process of getting a 50mm 1.8 because I kept reading about nifty fifties. And I had exactly the same problem. I ended up with a Sigma 1.4 30 mm lens. I really like it, but sometimes it's still not quite wide enough on a crop body.
 
I have zero idea about using flash. I just can't get my head around it with 3 kids on the go, I feel like it would be a bit obtrusive unless we're doing specific portraits. But like I said, I know zero about it. :D

I like the look of the 28mm actually, the street photography and landscape potential looks great from the few images I've quickly googled and I'm guessing it would teach me something new that the 35mm wouldn't. But it looks as though the price will rule that one out. :/
 
I'd say you're pushing it with a 35 indoors too. I agree with someone above a 24ish.
 
Suggestion - use your kit lens to figure out which focal length you prefer by taking a few test shots in the space you have available. Don’t worry if they are too dark this is simply a test to find out what focal length for the composition you want. Then you can narrow your search.
 
Oh-Kay... I am going to propose a completely alternatve 'solution'..... I really dont think you need another lens, here. What I think you need is to get out the house.

This is not cheauvanism, I was a house-husband, and then a single parent. Kids aint easy... juggling kids, housework and a camera is a mamoth task.... BUT, seperate the variables, do one thing well, rather than half a dozen badly, if at all!

Take childlings to the park, take photo's there.. or some-where.. ball-pit, wacky-ware-house, the woods, or whatever.

The issue of framing with the 50 is significantly that in the confined space of a house you just dont have the room to back up enough to get the all in frame.. so take them some-where you do. Take them out-doors, you hopefully should also have a heck of a lot of extra light, so the matter of the fast aperture and debate over shutter speeds and ISO levels, should become less pertinant, too.

BUT... you get out the house. You dont have laundry to do whilst you peel the potatoes, and a microwave yelling you the chops have defrosted, and dish-washer incessantly bleeping for attension and its salt dish filling, while childling one is screaming childling two has turned over pokemarble-teenage-pregnant-pigs, (or whatever the must watch kids show is right now!), and you can hear the destruction of preciouse artifiacts occurig (if they are still young enough there are any left!!!) or childling three, is going through the kitchen cupbards insisting teacher said they had to bring a packet of raisins to school tomorrow.. etc etc etc... and unabated chaos to deal with similtenousely.. while you really want to get a photo!

Go OUT!

That all goes away. Kids let off steam, so they are more likely to eat thier cabbage than chuck it at the walls, when they get back, and they do stuff they wouldn't in the house, that is usually more photogenic, A-N-D you have all the space you need, and scenary you dont have to hoover when you have done!

When you get them home.. it will almost inevitably NOT be as late as you had feared, but, having had some let-of-steam time, kids will almost certainly settle more readily and do home-work, or whatever, in a far more relxed and responsive frame of mind, and leave you alone to get on and do those jobs you have to, like cook dinner!

You may, in an incredibly unlikely fluke, feeling like they have had a treat, utterly unprompted, let alone nagged for half a week, say "I brought the washing down from the bedroom Mum*.. all of it! Yes every-ones! Shall I put it in the washer for you?"

My advice is say "Yes", but dont let them add soap or put the machine 'on'! You can take it all out and sort reds from lights, and soap and settings later, like when they are in bed; just be greatful not to have to hunt! (Though there will inevitably be a pair of underpants hidden in a crevice some-where, they missed!)

* I know... I'm a bloke... AND I 'think' kids did... b-u-t...easy mistake to make, especially by kids.. but not as bad as when they start to say one and finsh saying the other, when my name would be 'Mad' which is only slightly better than 'Mud'... which I am probably more used to TBH! Lol! Bit of advice shared by generals and parents.... pick only the battles you need, and can possibly win! The rest? Let it slide!

Point is, that a new lens wont make your house any bigger; nor will it make it any better lit. Nor will it make your kids any more co-operative.

Change of venue can.

And it wont just have possitive effect on your photo's!

B-U-T this is where you start taking 'control' of photography, not looking for f-stops, or focus schemes, or ISO levels.... Plain and simple setting the scene.

If you had warehouse sized studio to shoot in, same deal would be at the start, long before you looked at the camera or what lens to strap to it. Setting up the scene you are going to photograph your subject in; what furnature, what back-ground, what props, and the be-all and end all, what LIGHT.

First, last and half the intermediete questions that one. Indoors, outdoors, in my ladies chamber, LIGHT is all.

Outdoors, its the sun! Big, bright and free! During the day. Often not all that co-operative, and its a bit hard to move around... but not uncontroleable! You can use shades to reduce it in some places, reflectors to boost it in others; and this needn't be complicated and expensve either.

On the spot, improvisation, I have used my trench-coat to shade one of my kids from direct sun in a photo, or I have placed a white T-shirt or light beach towel over a car door, or window or hung from a tree as a reflector, to put light where I want and not where I dont, to help light my subject as I preffer.

This has been on beach, or at the country park, or wherever, out-and-about, not lugging a bag of e-bay studio accessories around with me on the off-chance along with the havasack of drinks and crisps and elasto-plast, spare jumpers and wot-not necessary for a day out with the darlings!

Its emnantly feasible to take control of lighting your scene like that, with a little imagination and improvsation, and just a little know-how.

If you are working in your own home; even more oportunty to control the light, whether turning on and off ceiling lamps, or hunting out a bedside light, or desk light, to chuck a bit more where you want it, or simply opening or closing a curtain!

This is all very very do-able, wherever you set up; it doesn't take any new gear or a shopping trip, and likely very little faffing about...

BUT this is where you really start to 'go manual' and genuinely take control of your photos, rather than play cameras, prodding buttons... and a log long time before even looking at the camera, let alone, choosng what lens, less still what 'settings'!

And, when it comes to artifcial lghting, D3200 has an inbuilt flash, you alrady have ONE, IF you choose to use it.

Personally I am not a big fan of flash, and the uflattering direct lighting of on-camera flash that's so often critised, but it is there, you do have it, you may use it.

And again, a little imagination, know how and improvisation can go a long way. I have used hankerchiefs or tissue paper as flash diffusers before now; I have folded a piece of paper as a 'snoot'. I have bounced flash off the cieling or off a sheet... its light, and just like the sun, you can effect control where it goes, with improvisation and available materials as easily as with a big box of studio equipment.

All this sort of thing is possible with a little know-how, a little imagnation and a bit of improvsation. NOT a fancy camera, or amazing lens or other wonder-widget.

Heck, taking pictures of my own kids, an alwful lot of the time I used this sort of stuff, to get 'better' photo's with nothing more than a cheap compact, usually fixed and fixed focal length lens, on either film or widgetal!

I can feel a lot of stammered excuses and half rasons why you think, that you 'have' to find the perfect les to do what you think it should, the way you would preffer, backing up, wanting to be chucked in here... BUT no buts!

So much is in your aproach and expectation.. and the point is its better photographers that make better photo's not better cameras or better lenses, or greater gadgets.

I have the exact same camera, a Nikon D3200 as you, and I am certain that you wont actually solve many if any of the problems you suggest your suffering with ANY other lens.

I have used the Nikon Auto-Focus 'prime' 50, I bought my daughter on that camera. I can well apreciate the brighter view-finder it offers, from its f1.8 max aperture.

But for low-light photography, meh! The extra couple of stops it offers is no real big deal, Its the difference between setting ISO3200 rather than Hi1 ISO boost, or being able to use a shutter of 1/30th instead of 1/8th...

And if you have to go that high on ISO and or that low on the shutter, you are hard up on the buffers, before you begin, and the issue isn't lack of f-numbers but fundementally, simply the lack of light!

High ISO noise, if it's an issue isn't going to be combated much if at all, by the faster lens, that high up the ISO amp-ramp.

Motion blur, whether from camera shake, or subject movement, similarly, isn't going to be resolved, by being able to use what would still be a petty slow shutter, especially with quick-kids darting about the frame!

The Kit 18-55, also has image stablsation as some aid for hand-holding, that the prime 50 doesn't; not that I believe it it actually helps any if you have decent hand-holding technique to start with.

SO!, main advantage of that lens, if there is one, is shallow focus effects. Which, is a pet gripe of mine about fast prime auto-focus lenses. So often used to get razor thin DoF, very shallow focus. When a bit of know-how could be applied, and more strategically, using much more moderate apertures, and a bit of manual focus used to put the DoF where you really want it in a scene to get an in focus subject and out-of-focus back-ground and probably avoid the problem of getting blury noses and ears, puting the red-dot on the eye, and leavg the rest to the electrickery! So even THAT one-trick dog is no huge or real 'advantage' very often.

Big dissadvantage is that on a crop-sensor body, it does give a narrow angle of view. Its focal length fixed, and at the top, telephoto end of that zoom's range.

This will mean that you have to back up a fair bit to get a subject in the frame and not chop half thier head off, compared to a wider angle, shorter focal length lens.

Closest focus distance, for the Nikon AF-S 50 is qoted as just 45cm or 18".. basically arms length. I really dont think that should be a very big problem.. I suspect the main one is simply that the angle of view means you have to back away so much further than that to get all your subject in the shot.

For note the Kit 18-55's closest focus distance is 30cm/ a foot, you could probably focus from closer range with that lens than you can with the prime! But you'd still be over flowing the frame at longer zoom settings!

The logical suggeston based on your apreciation of the 50, is the wider angle f1.8 AF-S 35 prime, I think has been mentioned. This has a closest focus disatance of just under 30cm/ 1foot, it doesn't actally focus much closer than the kit lens. But does frame wider.

Essentally, the only advantage of this lens, or any other wide angle, is merely the wider framing it offers.

BUT the trade off, is that reducing the focus range, you will, inherently reduce whatever DoF is avalable at selected aperture setting, working that close up, and with a wide aperture, you will run into the issue of focusing on eyes ad having noses and ears drop out of focus, but probably more significantly the perspective shift you can get, where near objects are rendered larger in the frame than far ones.

This gets more pronounced as focus distance gets shorter, and the ratio of the front-to-back distance between objects in the scene, becomes much larger in relaton to the subect to camera distance. Now with the wider angle lens, noses risk looking huge and out of proportion to the face, as well as out of focus!

If you must buy another lens, then the Nikon AF-S 35 is a cracking bit of kit, and very very good value for money.. BUT...

I would suggest that the wider framing it offers, will likely give you the 'idea' that its 'solved' all the problems you grumbled about, BUT, I also think that failing to get the best you could from the Kit 18-55 you already have, in reality, it would do little or nothing useful for you.other than entrench ideas of looking to the camera shop for an off the shelf solution to any problem you encounter, rather than craft.

As the 50, you would likely apreciate shallow focus effects it offers, but, using the lens in Auto-Focus, and achieving them purely from wacking the aperture wide open, its a one trick dog, you wont get the most from, and will as the fuzzy nose and ears example, make as many problems as it seems to solve.

Wider angle lenses still? Well, I have the estate agent's favourite, the Sigma 8-16 ultra-wide-angle, with its pretty fast, f2.8 max aperture.

This lens, s incredible for opening up and packing in everything in a small space. It is also pretty fast on aperture for a UWA lens.

But again, you are still up against copetig forces. With such a short focal length, the minimum focus distance is very close, but soo too is the hyperfocal distance, even with a wide aperture the scope for shallow or selective focus effects with a lens this short is pretty negligible.

It is a lens, unlikely to solve ay of the problems you suggest, other than backing into walls, and a heck of a lot of money, to make more problems than you had to start with. UWA's are icredibly tricky to make work well, with the perspective so dramatically effected by the short subject ranges, and very small changes of camera angle having huge effect.

I have to say SAVE YOUR MONEY.

My reccomend would be to put the 18-55 back on the front.

It is my most used lens on my own D3200 despite the alternatves available to me.

With that you have a heck of a lot more wide, if you need it, to avoid subjects overflowing the edges of the frame.

If the light levels are so low, that you are hard up against the ISO stops at ISO6400 or Hi1 boost settings, at f5.6, and you cant set a shutter speed higher than 1/15th... you are sat in the dark! I just turned the lights off and tried!

So your issue is simply lack of light, not lack of settings! You NEED flash, you NEED articical light! A different lens wont find that for you!

Change your aproach, not your lens!

With the 18-55, you have plenty of scope to get wider framing. The slower max apaetures are NOT a significant impediment in low light... the LOW LIGHT is the impediment! Tackle that.

Use craft. Open a curtain; use a table lamp! Use the ruddy flash thats on the camera!

On a wider angle lens the shallow focus you can get from the 50, wont be available, even if the same fast aperture is, as on the AFS35.

For 'situational' photography.... rather than calling it snap-shots (though there's a lecture there, I so oft say venerate, dont denegrate, the snap-shot!).. going wider, includng more in the frame, may reduce the impact of a frame filling face, but the inclusion of context, setting, etc, usually makes up far more, giving the picture meaning and relevence, and simple 'interest', here less zoom is so often more photo, and more detail begs more of it in focus.. if its oofed, it has as little meaning as if it wasn't there to start with.

Which is back to setting the scene. IF there is something in your scene you dont want in your picture... first course should be to see if you can simply move it! Not try and exclude it with tighter framing!

If you cant move 'it', then what about moving you? Change the camera angle! Again, costs nothing, and care and attension to whats outside the camera will make more dfference than to whats on the camera and looking for buttons to prod!

Back to aproach, and expectation, and using craft not kit to get what you want.

BUT... the biggest 'thing' is to change your aspirations and expectations. You want studio quality photos, get a studio to take them, or go to a studio, but expect them to be as perfectly boring as they are perfectly executed.

This sort of photography, call it situational, call it candis, all it sap shot, 'un-posed'... you are trading the formal and the contrived of a studio set up, for natural and sponteniouse, but you HAVE to expect the trade off, you cant have the natural and sponteniouse without the 'formal' set-up... you can get a lot.. with some craft and know how, tidyng the scene, placing lights or openng curtains, making the ost you can of that before shootng, but only so much, and if you do manage to do a really good job, the pendulum will often swing back, and you will loose a lot of natural and spontaniouse, for that apparent 'staged' level of excelence.

You can almost certaily get better pictures one way or another, we ALL could!... Question is how?

And here, I really, really dont think that you will get them from ANYTHING you can buy in the camera shop. I really dont.

You have more than enough gear already. That 18-55, is it. You use the know how to get better results from it. THAT is all... and if you struggle to follow on-lne tutorials.. meh.. yeah, they possible aren't the best tutorial, probably are jargon laden, BUT... answer is still in the know-how. Differet tutorials. Maybe a book. Maybe read the manual that came with the camera, or use the 'in camera' handy hints function!... its a bit terse and would you like fries with that, for my liking, but it IS there, and it is aother way to get know-how. Enrolling in a photo class may be another. Joning a photo-club aother still.

There are, as they say, many ways to skin a cat, you just need to find the one that best suits you. BUT, the here and now is to make sure you have hold of the right cat! Not the neighbors dog, or anything!!! And I think looking for another lens, is like trying to grab a chicken, in that analogy!
 
Mike, using my secret powers, I'm putting you in the pipeline for an OBE. You know that you deserve it!

But if that's not appealing, there could be other options. Knight of the Thistle, for instance - you'd be up there with the Duke of Edinburgh.

We all know your on speed, by the way ...
 
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Mike, using my secret powers, I'm putting you in the pipeline for an OBE. You know that you deserve it!

But if that's not appealing, there could be other options. Knight of the Thistle, for instance - you'd be up there with the Duke of Edinburgh.

We all know your on speed, by the way ...
I suspect @Teflon-Mike uses a speech to text device. Leading to verbose posts which no one would actually sit and type.

Unfortunately without the realisation that most people also haven’t time or desire to read so many words.
 
Mike, using my secret powers, I'm putting you in the pipeline for an OBE. You know that you deserve it!

But if that's not appealing, there could be other options. Knight of the Thistle, for instance - you'd be up there with the Duke of Edinburgh.

We all know your on speed, by the way ...

Speed? That's a Triumph isn't it :D

If only we could have a summary paragraph (3 lines max!).
 
Kate, do you have a kit zoom 18-55 or similar? If not, go to your local dealer and ask to try one, then mock up a situation with similar distances to home, and read off the focal length on the lens that best suits. The longer you can get away with, the better - if the lens is too wide, when you go for a solo head and shoulders you'll be too close with unpleasant perspective effects, there'll be too much background in the shot and it'll be less out of focus and more distracting. Have a go with this lens angle-of-view simulator, select DX format, and see how much things change at different focal length settings http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/lens/simulator/#DX

Just a guess, but I think you may get away with 35mm and that'd be good if you can because the Nikon 35/.18 DX is a great little lens, very well priced, and runs to f1.8 that you won't get with any affordable zoom. Then push the ISO to keep shutter speeds up and reduce movement blur, hone your focusing technique and concentrate on the eyes with centre-point AF, and shoot plenty. There's safety in numbers when you're marginal on shutter speed and the zone of sharp focus is shallow while subjects won't stay still (I'd use continuous drive mode, shooting two or three frames each time).

ps Flash is actually a very good suggestion, but maybe something for later.
 
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just a point that someone may have already made although i didn't see it. Your camera has a crop factor of 1.5x. This means that the fcal length you see on the lens is multiplied by 1.5x. So a 35 mm lens as mentioned above has an effective focal length of 52mm. This is basically a standard lens; for working in a small house you need something MUCH wider.

Your kit lens widest is 18mm = 27mm; quite wide but probably still not wide enough.

And with respect it's probably not the lens which is appalling in low light - more likely the quality of the sensor, or possibly the ISO you find yourself using indoors due to low light levels. Or it may be camera shake if your shutter speed is too long.

Basically I think you are asking too much of the equipment that you own. As Te3lon-mike says in the first line of his post......try going outdoors. It will solve most of your problems.
 
Some decades ago I started my first office job. My secretary showed me my desk, pointed at a computer, and said "You can use this".. unsure whether that was a question, or statement foolishly said "Yes"

After four years of uni, studying cave-man engineering... mechanical... you know, bashing rocks together, heat'em up, find metal, make a hammer, kind of stuff... After a week or three, I eventually realised that these computator things were a bit like Greek philosophy... everything working on varying proportions of earth, wind, fire and water... sorry, resistance, inductance, capacitance and volts! And whilst suggested that consulting the oracle... sorry, Data-Base, offered the answer to anything.... what you got was usually so ambiguous and unintelligible, you would have been wiser to have not bothered.... Which I later discovered was what most of my colleges had already concluded, so asked ME as the most junior member of the team, and newly out of uni, where I MUST have been taught 'something' about these strange boxes appearing on the furniture, no one could tune in to the cricket.

Hey me mechie! YES I had used a computer at Uni! Or at least a very proprietorial tutor into these things had shown us the 'on-off' switch, told us never to touch it, and then shown us how to draw a circle on a screen... that wasn't quite round, more sort of octagonal, with three thousand lines of code, in the length of a two hour lecture.... in which I learned... Hmmm.. I don't think my compasses and scale rule are 'quite' redundant YET!

But a few months in the real, National-Insurance contrbuting, world of being expected to find the answer to why stuff broke... Geoff, the gorilla technician on night-shift, usually the logical, completely un-electrically-aided answer, but only if I supplied it with a ream of tractor paper with numbers on, no one would ever read, but looked impressive in a conference room.. lead me to the conclusion I REALLY ought to find out how these things worked.... So I signed up for night-school.

Three successive Tuesday evenings, saw me, first, in the electronic engineering department, curiousely wondering what I needed a soldering iron for to get a sensible answer from a beige box.... so sent, the second week, to the Maths department, to learn how to spend two hours, writing two thousand lines of code to draw a wonky circle on a scree again..... and so, on the third week, to the Secretarial School.

Aparently, before I was allowed near a computer, I had to learn to use a type-writer! I still can't TBH, and with hands the size of diner plates, sending crisp-boxes over the keys flying around the room, supposedly learning to touch-type, I infuriated the teacher... but she gave me credit for perseverance! Oh BOY at 23, did I have so much perseverance!!.... To be locked in a room with thirty teenage girls in knitwear..... who all wanted to 'help' the clumsy galloot launching crisp-boxes at the ceiling tiles!

So I learned neither, anything about these fangled computator wotsits, nor how to touch-type! I did however, eventually learn its a bit like Lenny Henry's joke about the wild-life film makers, when the Lion turns to charge, and the camera-man looking at the sound-man strapping on a pair of Nike Trainers, saying "Heh! They wont help you out-run a lion!" and getting the reply, "I don't need to ut-ru the lion, only you!" Lol My 30WPM achievement consistently failed to reach the 120WPM requirement to progress to an electric type-writer... (ad thence to a word-processor, and thence to other industry standard administrative packages!) but it was plenty fast enough to stay ahead of my colleges, managing about one key-stroke a minute!

Speech recognition software? Luke, Yaw, Eyez Kum Frum Buhr-min-ham! Oiy got awskud, wunce, in a ba-ar in meriku, wot lang-widge I wuz talkin' to mi mayte, and towuld, moi Ingleesh, wuz amayzin, weyah dihd oiy lernz eet, and woht cootree dihd oiy cumz frum? Totally true, but the bizare bit was the American who asked, seemed to struggle with the concept that I was English, I came from England and so learned to speak English in England?!?!? Because he asked, "Oh! So, did you have to do a course how to talk, English, I mean, like we do in America, then?....?....?.....?..... !!!!!!!!

However, a couple of years later, having gone to work for Lucas' 'Advance Technology Center', and rather lost, the lone mechie in a factry of leccies, and working on 'smart mssile guidance' systems, I was on another course, doing computery stuff, learning all about patern-recognition software and 'artificial intelligence'... WHY when there seems to be so little natural intelligence anywhere, they hoped to synthasise it, I DON'T know, but still. But as part of the course, I had to evaluate an early bit of voice recognition software.... I am sure it emanated from America... it was like talking to that chap in the bar who asked me where I learned English! Only the computer didn't buy me a beer!

But even before my nervous disorder rendered my faulty of speech somewhat impaired, I discovered it was quicker, even with my abysmal WPM typing speed, to do it the old fashioned way that shout myself hoarse, arguing with the computer, who seemed more obtuse than an American McDonalds burger pusher!

Speed? Err... no. I contemplated LSD once, but I decided a viscose coupling was probably better.... Coke I have sampled, but I preffer Tizer, I think ;-)
 
@Teflon-Mike sorry to hear you have a nervous disorder, hope you are getting good treatment and still able to enjoy taking photos.
 
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