Action at Westport Lake

 Westport Lake is ideal for a short flat walk in pleasant surroundings amidst the industrial landscape of Stoke-on-Trent.  Today, the local model boat club was having a sailing day.  I am always impressed by the amount of work and energy the enthusiasts lavish on their suprbe model boats.

There are ample examples of well rigged sailing boats today, but I was intrigued by this unusual wake in the background. Far too precise for wildlife.  With 4 enthusiasts using radio control and only 3 boats visible, the conclusion dawned on me!

 It was not long before the Submarine surfaced and returned to the bank side.

Other observations of the day were: Grey Heron, Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe, Rabbit and Brown Rat.

On our return home, the Post arrived with a new toy.  My old and well lover Nikon D3200 with its shutter count of 196608 has been wearing out over the last months and I had sent for a replacement.

I was delighted to have a second hand D3200 arrive by next day delivery.  It has an earlier serial number than my old camera and it is in red....but its shutter count is only 3916 and it was sold at a very low price for this type of camera.  What a find.

Unusually, most camera shops are not taking in new stock at present, so most types of equipment are unavailable, except on a 40 day pre-order.  The used market is very variable and quite expensive at the moment.

This is the old D3200 taken with the new one. The camera still works, but it produced intermittent thumbnail images and the metadata on the photo images in often incomplete. It also has a missing card slot door and a worn lens mount ring. Minor programming failures may eventually result in critical failure, so this camera will be used much less after today.

P.S.

Having compared the two cameras, I now know that there is an issue on the black one with the frame-ware driver.  Having downloaded the latest version and installed it, the camera seems to have restored to normal function.  Testing begins.  Good job I had an appropriately rigged Windows computer to hand.