Last night was a bit rough.

I've been looking into new equipment purchases, a 13" printer and a 35mm f2 lens. I know I can't afford either right now, but I can look and try to figure out where what I want when I finally have the cash. The lens that I really want is a Carl Zeiss, now the Canadian Zeiss distributor doesn't mention the 35mm on their site, but they do mention the 50mm f1.4 and by comparing the the European prices of the two lenses I can deduce that the Zeiss 35mm would cost me roughly $1200CN before taxes. Suddenly the Nikon AF 35mm f/2D at $400 doesn't sound too bad, despite mediocre performance and construction. As an added bonus, the Nikon lens won't disable the TTL metering on my overly computerised F55 (I will get Zeiss glass, it'll just be later than I'd hoped).

As for the printer, I'm looking at an HP B9180. Unfortunately I live in the interior of British Columbia, so the boxstores that the Canadian HP website directs me to and tells me to "call for availability" not only won't have the printer, but (based upon visits to their respective websites) don't even stock the ink cartridges. Looks like I'm going to be forced to buy online. (oh and the HP Canada site is a byzantine mess, at least as bad as Nikon Canada's was the last time I entered that hell)

The photo is Grand Forks, last July, shot near the Station House Pub. There had been a couple of deer down that I had wanted to shoot in the long grass using the other end of my 28-80mm zoom, but by the time I'd set up the ol' tripod to deal with the low light and long-ish shutter times they'd buggered right off, so I reset and took this.