On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 18:30:34 +0100, Yitzhak Isaac Goldstein
wrote:

NY wrote:
"Yitzhak Isaac Goldstein" wrote in message
...
rbowman wrote:

My wife held advanced degrees and was quite competent in her field. She
volunteered to prepare our tax return one year. Fortunately I checked
her work before it was submitted.

My wife is brilliant at maths, and has a household budget spreadsheet
that if printed, would probably be three metres wide. Every single
shekel is accounted for, which is a good thing. If I were in charge of
the household spending, I'd blow it all on a Bianchi Intenso Disc
Ultegra and a new lens for my camera - I have my eye on a Nikkor f/1.4
105 mm... and on other 'toys'.

Yes, my wife, who works for a financial institution though on the
software test management rather than financial side, has got our finances
on Microsoft Money and has records of her earnings and spendings going
back years, from which she can predict what future bills will be (based
on bill for same time last year). It's good that she does it, because
although I can see how useful it is, that never manages to outweigh the
fact that I find the whole subject bores me rigid.

I suggested something like MS Money. 'Don't need it', she says. I can't
fault her, as we get three or four international holidays a year, and if I
were in charge, we'd be lucky to afford a falafel on Jaffa Street.

If I had money to spare I might blow it on a new lens too. When I bought
my Nikon D90 it came with an 18-200 f5.6 which is convenient in terms of
only needing one lens, but a wider lens would allow faster shutter speeds
and a prime (or shorter zoom) may be sharper. At least this lens has less
distortion than the two shorter-range zooms 28-70 and 70-210 IIRC that I
bought for my 35mm film camera years ago.

Kit lenses are ****. I bought my D810 without lenses, and went from there.
My favourite is a 35 mm - it's an older model with aperture ring on the
barrel, but I just lock that at f/22 and the camera takes care of setting
aperture in the normal way

how the blazes does it do that when f22 is probably the smallest
aperture on your lens, more of your math education?

(well, strictly speaking, I shoot aperture
priority almost all the time, so I set the aperture, but you know what I
mean). Bought second hand, the clarity is ****ing mind-boggling. There's
also a 'nifty fifty' f/1.8 (which I bought in Bangkok, amusingly enough...
since I didn't go there for the lady boys ;-) ) and a Tamron 70-300 mm in
my camera bag. But all that **** is heavy, so I treated myself to a
Panasonic Lumix GX8 and 'pancake' 20 mm. Brilliant little lens, great
camera - especially in low light. And much lighter to carry.


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