I had the opportunity to meet the weirdest man in town. I was walking around and trying to learn about the city. A big and beautiful city, a city with many monuments, cultural sights and... churches. Over a hundred churches! But it's not the churches I want to talk about now.
Having just arrived in this city where I lived, totally unexpectedly, for almost a whole year, I started walking to learn the topography of the place.
At one point, I saw something with the periphery of my eye, something hanging over my head.
A man dressed in period clothes, with a cylinder hat on his head, hanging in one hand, above the trees! I got scared and tried to get closer, thinking he needed help...
Looking closely I understood what it was all about and was reassured. It was just a puppet, a character in a play. It was the only decoration of a theatre in town, called the Cube Theatre. In fact, the theatre is called Teatrul National Iasi and the hall of this theatre is called Cub hall. Because it's like an enormous cube.
The city is called Iasi and it is in the top three in terms of importance in Romania.
As it happens, I worked in a building close to this hall. I could see this doll through the window. Of course, it was a model often photographed by me with my common DSRL camera.
So far nothing special but for me, it was a revolution. An office mate had a telephoto lens that I couldn't even dream of. Luckily, the colleague lent me the telephoto lens and luckily it was compatible with my camera.
Now my telephoto adventure begins. To show you how clueless I am about photography and cameras, I don't even remember what the telephoto lens was called. I did some research and it turns out it was a CANON RF 100-500MM, I know for sure it was Canon, I remember it was white and looked like a bazooka pipe. It was also heavy, I would have needed a tripod but I had to manage without...
Well, with this gem in hand, I searched for subjects to photograph and, of course, the man in the cylinder hat, hanging by one hand near the roof of the Cub Room was the first!
Slowly, slowly, this strange character got closer and closer to my eyes, of course with the help of the telephoto lens. I didn't do any digital enlargement of the images, just optical zoom!
From where I was photographing I could see the doll beyond the branches of a tree. When I tried to bring the image even closer the lens focused on the branches and left my subject blurred.
I was forced to change location, and look for a direct view and, I found it. I resumed the approach process again.
This telephoto experience has been a joy and a sadness for me. A joy because I was able to see how it works and what can be done with such a lens. Of course, at first touch, I couldn't even see all it could offer.
The sadness was that I understood that I will not have such a lens that costs more than my old car!
I decided to look into buying something similar but less sophisticated, smaller, and easier to handle but which would allow me to shoot at a distance, to photograph the birds I like so much, or the flowers in places inaccessible to me to get close. A second-hand lens.
Then I forgot...
It's been three years since this happened. I found these photos and remembered!
I found on e-bay a lens recommended by many to be good for my camera. In Japan and costs about $100. I wonder if it's worth the risk? The way I know myself, unless there are obstacles I can't overcome, I'll take the risk!
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