Diary

Aka, another dose of musical genius from the artist known as Beck. His Albert Hall solo gig, back in April, was an intimate & restrained performance, drawing heavily on tracks from the melancholic "Sea Change". Things couldn't have been more contrasting at the Brixton Academy. Supporting act 'The Ravonettes' were nothing to write home about, but hey, we'd come to see Beck, the support act is just there to get the audience cranked up. And with their punishing guitar riffs, they certainly got things moving.

From the moment he appeared on stage, with a menacing grin, you could tell it was going to be a fun night. Starting things off were a pair of songs from Odelay (Novocane & The New Pollution), then closely followed by from my favorites from "Midnite Vultures" - Get Real Paid & Nicotine & Gravy. Ever the performer, at one point he was dashing around the stage with a roland keyboard. A brief slowing of tempo for a few songs from Sea Change was the only respite to more than 1+1/2 hours of music, which finished with a cover of White Stripes classic 'Black Math'.

For the record, here's the set list

So having decided it was time to get myself a 'serious' camera, so I spent much of the weekend visiting camera shops, reading camera books & leafing through magazine reviews. Deciding on which 'body' to go for was the simple part - just pick a price point & choose between the Canon & the Nikon. What's not nearly so clear cut is which lens to go for. One option is to pay the extra 70 quid & get the 'standard zoom', but when you're spending 400 on the body, is a 70 quid lens really doing the camera justice ? I rather think not.

A good rule of thumb seems to be to split the budget 50/50 between body & lens. Still, that doesn't help the decision process all that much. There is still the choice between a fixed and zoom lens. Most common advice on photo.net is to pick a 50mm fixed lens & add more as you need, but having used a compact with a 28-120mm zoom lens for a while, there is still the nagging thought that maybe a zoom would be more versatile. And there are soo many options with zooms too, a series of smalls with short ranges, but wide appertures, or go for convenience of a large range, sacrificing quality.

Oh well, looks like another busy weekend at the camera shops...