Friday, May 9, 2008

any advice - bathroom art and compacts?

He isn't a knitted balloon, but that gives me an idea...
He is waiting to be sewn to his body and appendages. The suspense is killing him, hence the furrowed brow.

Anyone still reading the blog after the hiatus, thank you.

I wanted to ask for some advice if I may.
We are in the market for a digital compact camera. I have two film SLRs, which I will continue to play with, but having borrowed a little digi for a while we have discovered the joy of a camera that can be carried around, not lugged. I had illusions of getting a compact with a range of manual adjust-ability, but they hardly seem to exist? Would anyone recommend a particular compact, with quality shots and adaptability. (For example it would be used to photograph crafty objects so macro is important, slung in our jackets at the snow, for happy snaps, or capturing anything that takes my passing fancy).

Second question is about framing prints in the bathroom. Any neat tricks so the damp won't get to the paper? The house came with a hideous print in there, I am talking geese with bonnets, but it became a good excuse to search for something new.

Hope I haven't been too demanding.

8 comments:

Krissy | Paper Schmaper said...

I'm still here! I love your blog...

On the camera note, all I can say is that I have a Cannon Powershot, which has some nice manual features for a small handy camera. I really like the one I have, it's probably old and outdated now, I'm sure the new ones are even better :)

I can't help you much with the bathroom frames. I just used Blik wall decals which go on and come off nice and easy.

http://whatisblik.com/walldecals.html

Esti said...

For the past few years my husband has become a camera freak. To carry around we used to have a Sony Cybershot, but after a few years it broke down, so he researched and thought a Cannon Ixus 800 was the solution. It's pretty good but has awful awful vigneting, although good video and macro. We also have a Sony TH3 (I believe that's the name) that I like a lot. Good optical zoom, not too big, good video sound... It fits perfectly between our Cannon Eos and our Ixus.

.girl ferment. said...

thanks for the advice, gives me some direction to research.

xx

flossy-p said...

ello! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, and for your kind comment :)

I think I can help you out with the bathroom framing question. I did a framing course and was taught to do the following:
- mount your print in the mat window, or without mat as you normally would.

- make sure you have a good backing board (we used foamcore, but the masonite-wood your frame comes with would be fine)

- sandwich your mounted print inbetween your backing board and the glass.

- carefully tape around the edges of this sandwich so that the tape starts on the glass side, wraps over the edge, and around onto the backing board. Continue to do this around all sides, overlapping the corners slightly.

- This gives you a dust and damp-proof sandwich (so long as the tape you use is good stuff that won't come unstuck in the condensation - you can get "brown tape" from the frame-co website http://www.frameco-online.com/shopaust/category32_1.htm
it's great stuff)

- When you place your sandwich into the frame you will see the brown tape coming out from under the edges. Therefore you need to trim this off.

- Take the sandwich back out, use a ruler to measure and mark where you'll need to trim the tape on the glass side (it's usually about 3 mm from the outer edge, but check your frame)

- Then very carefully use a stanley knife or scalpel with a ruler to slice the brown tape. It won't cut the glass, don't worry. Peel the unwanted slice of tape off the glass.

- Give the tape a good press to make sure non has lifted. Pop it all back in the frame and you're done.

Hope that made sense. It sounds long and difficult, but it's not at all, it's just my long-winded explanation.

Good luck! :)

flossy-p said...

Oh, forgot to mention that you then use the same brown tape to seal the back of the frame to the backing board, around the join. Helps to keep it all in place too.

Reenie said...

Well, I'm no camera expert. All I know is that I've only EVER purchased Pentax cameras (my olde worlde film SLR, another olde worlde film point and shoot and my new digital point and shoot). I'm a loyal buyer so until I hate one of their cameras that's what I'll always buy.

But having said that, a good friend of mine has a camera that has some ace features, so I'd suggest you also check out the Canon IXUS70. It's 7.1 megapixels and has two great features, (1) you can choose a colour (eg green) and only the green colour shows, everything else is black and white. And (2) you can choose a colour (eg green (of course)) and take a picture of something else which turns it into that colour. Eg he's taken a picture of me and turned my skin into blue skin.. Hilarous !!

andrea said...

heehee this guy is so cute. can't wait to see him finished!

I am borrowing my dad's Canon Rebel and I love it. Admittedly it's not the easiest camera to lug around but it takes a good picture.

famapa said...

I've got the Canon Ixus 70 and you can check out the results on my blog, it's ok in bright light but really grainy in low-light which I find frustrating. It is tiny though which is great. All the pictures that are slightly squarer on the blog are all Ixus pix. However... there are now two newer models, the Ixus 85 and the 90 and they're 10 megapixels so they should be better.

I have my eye on the Canon G9 which is bigger than the ixus but much smaller than the SLR's. It shoots RAW as well and has 10 megapixels and you can control the shutter speed and I think you can also control the f-stops.

It's so annoying that with digtial cameras you have to get a new one every few years whereas with the old film cameras you could keep going with for pretty much for ever without having to upgrade it...

you look like you've been having a lot of nice days recently... and it's so strange to see winter heading your way when summer's around the corner for us!