Quandrary!

Oh Fuji, what have you done???

Thrown a spanner in my works, that’s for sure *sigh*

I was almost settled on the S5600 over the S5700 when I found that there was a brand new S5XXX camera just released – the Fujifilm Finepix S5800 which is SOOOO tempting! It’s supposed to be available from October 2007 but the first ones are now appearing on Ebay and a seller has it for sale on Amazon as well.

It’s around the £150 mark at the moment but I’m waiting to see what price it will be from Amazon itself a/. because it will be post free and b/. I do value Amazon’s customer service. I bought an Archos Gmini MP3 player last year and it went wrong within a week – I was able to print out a personalised returns label from the Amazon site, send the faulty player back and subsequently received a brand new one in less than ten days.

So, not surprisingly, I’ve put my new camera plans on hold for a little while so I can save up the extra cash to get the S5800

Not feeling QUITE so down :-)

My disappointment at my T189 marks is now mellowing and it’s certainly NOT going to stop me taking photographs! *lol*

Having a Fuji camera, I signed up with the MyFuji website and registered my camera. They send monthly emails and stuff, run competitions and forums, have useful Photography tips etc. Recently I received an email offering a 15% discount on Fuji refurbished cameras It’s valid to the end of the month and I have some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket so what to buy? I think a bridge camera would be the best option and, hopefully, nothing too bulky or heavy that would make it difficult to carry around. So …

Fuji Finepix S5600 Zoom

OR

Fuji Finepix S5700 Zoom

(Sorry Georgy, I really can’t afford a proper DSLR – in fact, I think it would be wasted on me to be honest!)

Decisions …. decisions …. decisions ….

Feeling a bit down …

I’ve had to think very long and hard about writing this blog post because I definitely have some conflicting feelings about my T189 results.

The OES (Overall Examinable Component) mark I received for the ECA was 70/100 which was rather disappointing because I was really hoping to get a mark between 75 and 85. From feedback received on OpenStudio and on Flickr, I got the impression that my images were good and some were very good so only to get ‘Achieved’ for the visual and technical marks on my ECA panel was a bit of a let-down

I know I didn’t master some of the more involved techniques in Elements 5 and that seems to have impacted on my Technical Awareness mark but I simply didn’t have the extra hours required to invest in such a complex program on top of the course work and the time for photo assignments. I also use a trackball due to RSI which is hardly an ideal tool for delicate image editing and I didn’t have spare cash to buy a graphics tablet

So here are my marks:

Part 1a – Visual Awareness – Achieved
Your images showed a satisfactory level of visual awareness. Your panel of images had one or two images with good visual impact and showed some evidence of imagination and creativity. Some of your images communicated their intention clearly and made use of ideas taught in the course about framing, lighting, and decisive moments. About half of the images in your panel could be improved upon and the best way to develop your visual awareness is to keep taking pictures and looking at them critically.

Part 1b – Technical Awareness – Achieved
Your panel of images demonstrates a reasonable level of technical skill. Several of your images are appropriately exposed and sharp, and demonstrate your control of the camera. If you have edited your images then your mark may reflect problems with the colour, pixelation, or other digital artefacts. A common problem for beginners to photography is the over-saturation and over-sharpening of images. The technical standard that you have reached is satisfactory and with practice your technical skill will improve. You may find it helpful to review the course and think about how your images could be improved from a technical point of view.

Part 2 – Written Component – Well Achieved
Your answers to the written component of the ECA show a sound understanding of photographic techniques and aesthetic considerations. You have written appropriately about your images and used some of the terms introduced in the course, and demonstrated a developing understanding.

Since my next course is about to start and my course materials will probably be arriving tomorrow, I’m going to put T189 away for now and just continue snapping away with my little compact camera. I’m not even sure if it’s worth investing in a new camera so I may put that idea on the back burner for a while. I did enjoy T189 and I did enjoy taking photographs for the assignments and ECA, I did get a pass after all and it’s not a bad one, but somehow I feel rather flat and disillusioned today … sorry, but that is honestly how I feel right now. Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow – it is my birthday after all

Goodnight folks.

Moving onwards and upwards

Today, we got up at the unearthly hour of 5.15am on the final leg of our journey home, having delivered daughter safely to college up in Leicestershire over the weekend, and arrived back safely just before lunch. Hubby fired up the computer to do some printing and then I downloaded all the (mostly) junk emails before checking in on my OU First Class desktop. I have to admit that it came as a bit of a shock when I double clicked on T189 Feedback which sported a red flag only to be told that I’m not allowed to perform that function

So I dashed over to my StudentHome page to see if any results were there … it appeared not. I’m not exactly sure when the T189 results will be released but it’s possible that the OU is being extra-scrupulous with the marking since it is the first presentation of the course and they want to set an effective benchmark for future presentations. However, on checking a little later, I found the following announcement on my T189 course details page:

Your course result should be available by Thursday 13 September 2007

So it’s not long to wait now for students of the first presentation of T189!

I confess I’ve not taken that many photographs this summer, apart from ones of our daughter, so I really need to get going again now that autumn is here. There’s that faint bonfire-smoky tang to the air that heralds the ’season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ and the spiders are out in force, spinning their webs across anything available. It also heralds the fast approaching excitement of my next course – A215: Creative Writing, a sixty point Level Two course, and a fascinating challenge.

So good luck to all T189-ers for fantastic results