Just when I felt I was gaining traction again, my meds decided to do a number on me. Or two, actually.
As I wrote in January, I was put on a regime of Rituximab (2 drips, one on Dec. 16 and the followup on Dec. 30), in addition to the Prednisone and the Mycophenol acid. The fact that the surgeon said “now that you’re retired, we can give this a shot” should’ve been a warning flag.
Two out of those three apparently can cause energy loss, fatigue and loss of muscle strength, and it hit me hard. On top of that, one of the side effects of Rituximab is shortness of breath and a productive cough — check. A dry mouth and undefined body aches (mostly joint pain) — check.
And to top it off, the list says discouragement, feeling sad or empty, irritability and loss of interest or pleasure. Which is what you get just from reading the list of side effects anyway.
Part of me being seriously under the weather was probably caused by myself. I was told to gradually decrease the dosage of prednisone, which I did — but on too steep a gradient. I was supposed to change to a lower dose every month, but somehow I misremembered that and decreased the dosage every two weeks.
Then, April turned to May, and I found out what can happen if your immune system is shut down by medication: the first virus or bacterial infection that shows up means it’s your turn. I went from “a cycle ride around the Reeuwijkse Plassen” to “I can’t even make it to the local supermarket 300 metres from here” in less than a week.
In hindsight, this may have been something I picked up at the concert I went to with my grandson on May 4. Which was an excellent experience for the both of us, by the way.
It got so bad that I called my surgeon, who quickly scheduled a lab test and a lung photo. Which showed nothing out of the ordinary (for someone who has smoked for decades), and in fact, there was a steep improvement in how I felt in the last week of May. I had gotten back on the bicycle as well as on the motorbike, and I felt a lot more motivated to pick things up than I had in months. The lab results also indicated that the Rituximab, as much as I’ve come to hate it, did its work with a vengeance — despite being off the Prednisone for a month, the auto-immune reaction was on a complete standstill, and I’m now only on mycophenol acid just to make sure.
So, what else is new?
Not too much, really. Not as much as you’d expect in four months, that is.
I told you about the 50-500mm Sigma that didn’t want to autofocus anymore, right?
Well, during a brief good spell in March I went out to do some bird photography, and I decided that it was a bit boring to only photograph birds who will wait patiently as you focus manually. They tend to not do that, especially when they’re flying around. So I set my sights for a replacement lens. I briefly considered a Tamron 150-600, until I found out that this lens has a higher-than-average autofocus failure rate. Now, the Sony G 200-600mm SSM lens is made out of unaffordium, so I decided to save up for the 70-400mm SSM Sony G, which has an excellent reputation.
As I was saving up (I have a separate account for photo gear), I stumbled over an ad from a well-known Dutch camera chain, which had the latest version of this lens (with improved autofocus speed and weather protection) for sale for a price that, even for the first version, would be considered quite competitive. I did some more research, and found out that this was, in fact, something like at least 500 euros off in my advantage. And they offered it with a full year warranty… so what could possibly go wrong?
So I looked at Janny, she allowed me to exceed my budget, and I hit the buy button, paid for it online, and rode to Apeldoorn to collect it.
Once I had it in my hands, I asked them “why is this so cheap?”
The guy looked at me sheepishly and said “yes, I wondered about that when I picked it up from storage. That must have been a mistake. But hey… you paid for it, so it’s yours now!”
Kamera Express, another Dutch photog retail chain, is currently offering a secondhand copy of this same lens for €1.399, just to give you an idea.
I took it home, put the Sigma 1.4x APO converter on the back, and made some photos of the moon.
This lens isn’t going anywhere. Look at this 1:1 crop from a 42 megapixel camera.
And not only is it better at detail resolution than anything else I’ve owned over 200mm, its contrast rendition is right up there with the best Sony G lenses… and the autofocus is blindingly fast.
Photographing birds in flight takes on a whole new dimension. If you can get — and keep — them in your viewfinder, it’s almost like cheating.
And apparently, the Alpha 99-II (which works wonderfully well with SSM lenses) knows what you want to have in focus, even against a very busy background).
I’m really on a roll with this one.
Now, of course, with this setup, you’re not going to sit at home and set up still life shots.
Yes, I can put it all in my Lowepro back pack, but once you arrive at a good location, you’re not getting the back pack off and getting the gear out to make that photo. I would prefer to have the camera ready, with the lens I expect to need, around my neck, ready to grab.
Unfortunately, this camera with this lens, or even the Zeiss f2.8 24-70 lens, is too heavy to have dangling on a strap around your neck if you’re in good health. Which I am not quite yet.
Enter …
The PGYTech Beetle V2
… wait, what?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a brilliant accessory. I fell in love with it when I saw it, and now that I own one, I love it dearly.
Here is what it does:
… it holds your camera on the strap of your backpack, ready for you to take it off with one swift unlocking movement!
But what if it comes off by itself and falls down?
First of all, PGYTech says it won’t. The mechanism is said to be tested up to a camera weight of 30 kilos. I haven’t tried that, but I am absolutely confident that it will easily hold my Dynax 9 with the 70-400 lens attached (which is a little over 3 kilos). And the unlocking feature is designed in such a way that it is… I would say impossible to accidentally deploy it.
So, go ahead, and swear that you are going to use it to carry thousands of euros worth of your own equipment. 😈
I will. In fact, I have already done so.
Of course, I was nervous about that. So, I added one last safety measure: I attached the neck strap and, after clipping the camera in the holder, I put the strap around my neck. So if the system fails, I will feel a mighty, very painful jerk on my neck, and swear profusely. But having saved my camera from tumbling to its end will have been worth it.
But the Beetle hasn’t failed on me yet.
I’ll proably do a separate, more detailed writeup on how it works.
…
And then, to top it all off, I lost a second brother-in-law on July 1st.
But wait… there’s a new photo gallery!
It contains many more pictures, they’re neatly organised, and they include comments which you can read if you open a photo!
