Vietnam vs Thailand & Camera Settings

Another beautiful day here in Montreal. I love summer. Last night was the perfect night... probably around 23 or 24 degrees, a light wind. Sheila & I went to L'Escale du Saigon for Vietnamese on Laurier only to discover the restaurant is now a Thai restaurant called Phayathai. We were not really surprised. Each time we went to L'Escale du Saigon it was empty. Both of us a kinda scratching our heads as to why: it wasn't overly expensive, it's on a busy street with lots of sidewalk traffic, in an area of town where people would likely eat out, Vietnamese is a well known cuisine in Montreal, the owner had a similar and successful restaurant in Paris... yet it never caught on for some reason. Last night the food was excellent also. I had Paenang Curry Chicken and man was it ever full of flavor. I loved it. The place has an open wall in summer to form a pseudo-terasse. It's right on the sidewalk. Again though we watched all sorts of people come by, check the menu and walk on. This new restaurant had an enormous selection of even more resonably priced meals... weird. I don't quite get it. Thai too is a well known cuisine in Montreal. Perhaps it's just that neighbourhood that has a particular taste for certain types of foods and Asian just isn't one of them. I hope this place stays, I'd go back in an instant.

Anyhow, I was a lzy guy all day today. I did nothing but read, go on the Internet, clean up a small mess outside, read some more, slept outside on my lawn chain and finally got to my camera book instructions to try and resolve what should have been a simple problem I was having with my camera. The problem? Well.. I had the right side of the focus area defaulted instead of the centre. Even when changed to Single focal area mode it still stayed to the right. I tried everything in the settings to make it the centre but could not find a way to individually move the primary focus point around any of the five possible selections. It was driving me nuts. When I was plane spotting I always had to focus on the right side and hold my shutter button down to lock in the plane and take the shot. When the plane got very close it often refocused as I repressed the shutter and sure enough several good shots came out out of focus because the camera focus was defaulting to blue sky on the right of the aircraft and not the plane itself. It's been like this for over two trips through Europe and one to the USA. Anyways after about an hour of sifting through the Nikon booklet I finally figured it out. There's a lock on the focal settings I never knew of. Once it's unlocked I have a rotation button on the back of the camera to select what part of my viewing screen I want as the default primary focal area. I reset it to the centre then relock it. I must have played with the lock feature and button at some point an unknowingly reset the focus area.

Oh well, I tested out the camera some more.. high speed shots, strong contrasts etc.. again more boring flowers and ordinary stuff but the results are good. This camera never ceases to amaze me especially with the night shots... anyways.. out to supper again tonight.

My water sprinkler taken at high speed;


Some deep contrasts...


Just some colouring I like off my Canadian sugar maple tree..