I don't shoot as many photos as I used to. I still kinda sorta maintain a Flickr upload rate of once a day, but some days nothing. I mean for one, 2020 hasn't exactly provided an abundance of travel opportunity, and secondly my photography muse took a holiday. Something akin to photographer's writer's block I suppose.

A couple things happened recently that I hope will ignite the flame once again.

Firstly my old trusty DSLR workhouse of yore the Canon T2i started to literally fall apart at a shutter count of 28,947. Not necessarily the fault of the camera of course. Over the many years of ownership, she's survived being dropped, lost, found, dropped again, scraped, and dropped. The old girl deserves a happy retirement.

Secondly, I'm now the proud owner of a Canon 7D MkII. The best camera I've ever owned in my life. I already feel the enthusiasm to take her everywhere and shoot everything. I think this might be the start of something. Time will tell.

As a self confessed music nut, I've owned more headphones in my lifetime than I can possibly recall. I can think of no other gadget I've used more in every day life. I've likely spent a wee bit of money on them if I'm honest, the cats…they chew. What are you gonna do?

I've been partial to in ear monitor headphones for years. When you get them fit just right, there's nothing better. I had a not really that cheap pair of Shure sound isolating chaps for years until they gave up the ghost. Um, someone decided to leave them on the floor and tread on them.

These days, Apple Airpods Pro are in my ears every day.

The Good:

Sound quality is excellent. Not Shure excellent, but they're really good. Noise cancellation just works, but flipping to what Apple calls 'Transparency' mode allows outside noise in. Super handy for when you need to hear your own voice on conference calls. Auto connect as you put them in your ears nice. Pulling either air pod out of your ear pauses the music like magic. No cable means nothing cats can chew on.

Take Some Getting Used To:

My first foray into the world of bluetooth headphonery. There's still some room for improvement for the switching between devices. I find I play a game of "no I want to connect them to my Mac, not my phone" more often than I'd like. Remembering to charge them.

Overall I'm very impressed. I suspect it will all be fun & games until one of the cats decide to bat an airpod under the fridge.

Kids and their gadgets these days. I swear she knows her way around an iPad better than I do.

Little man, you've had a busy day.

You'll find that my Kindle Paperwhite can be pried from my cold dead hands. Love it.

My wife bought me this cool little camera. It's a Fisheye No. 2 from Lomography. Old school analog shooting at it's finest.

I haven't loaded actual film in a camera in forever. Kinda fun having to wind on the film to take the next shot. I love it. Now have to go even further old school and go get the rolls developed.

The passing of the torch. My wife got her new iPhone 5s and our little one got the hand me down.