I got some new toys in the mail the other day, and I’ve been having a ton of fun familiarizing myself with them:

I want to do some star trails when we go on vacation, and once upon a time, I knew how to do it.  But that was a good ten years and three cameras ago, back when I still used film.  I finally found the part of my camera manual that gave directions on how to do long time exposures, and it said that in order to do exposures of longer than thirty minutes, I’d need a cable release.

Hello, Amazon?  Can you help a girl out?

Settled on a Nikon cord to make sure it would actually work with my camera, and then started looking at filters.  I’ve wanted a polarizing filter and a neutral density filter for so long that I can’t remember why I wanted the ND filter in the first place – I just remember that I do.  I managed to find a three-pack that also included a UV filter, and it was very reasonably priced (i.e., it cost less than the stupid cable release).

Add to cart!  Yay! 🙂

At that point, I was about seven cents away from the free shipping threshold, so I decided to see what else I could find.  I stumbled across a lens set for my cell phone.  It contained a fish eye lens, a wide angle lens, and a macro lens, which I’ve been wanting for a while because my phone doesn’t like doing macro shots very well.

Add to cart!  Shipping threshold reached!  Woo! 🙂

They finally arrived the other night, and the cable release works great.  I haven’t had a chance to play with the filters yet, but maybe I can find a few minutes later this afternoon to have at it.  The lenses for my phone could be better, but they’re not terrible, and I’m having a lot of fun with them.  I can’t wait to see how my star trails will turn out!

What kind of toys do you have on your wish list?

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