7. Watching the birdie

Quint spent Saturday researching digital cameras on the net. He constructed a spreadsheet cross-listing models, features and prices, read a slew of reviews containing acronyms and arcane terms, aiming for something that he thought he could afford, would be easy to operate, and have the features he wanted. He was mainly looking for good zoom capacity, large in-camera storage and as much sharp detail as he could get in a picture. He hated fuzzy.

What would do the job best of all would be a digital SLR with a telephoto lens. These ran to thousands of dollars. Quint added spreadsheet columns showing the price per megapixel, per zoom ratio, per gram weight. These calculations made digital SLRs unattractive. This was good, because he didn’t want to spend too much on a camera.

This had the effect of making the cameras at the bottom of the price range seem ridiculously excellent value. However, once he had sorted out the exact difference between optical zoom and digital zoom and focal length, he was able to rule these out as well, setting bottom ranges for zoom and sharpness, as rated by the reviewers.

The remaining mid-range cameras were ranked in order, Quint hit the print button, and armed with a detailed list, he went into Civic on Sunday. Work on the ASIO site had ceased for the weekend, and he crossed Constitution Avenue, walking citywards between the lines of oaks, remnant acorns amongst the drear fallen leaves under his feet.

Sometimes people collected the autumn acorns, gathering them up into buckets. He had heard that they were good pig food. Oak trees were imported into Australia early in the European colonisation, but the animals that fed on acorns, like squirrels, were not. Native animals didn’t eat them, so the acorns from the oaks lining both sides of Constitution Avenue lay where they fell until swept up on the road, were cracked beneath heels of pedestrians on the footpath, or rotted under the trees.

Urban Services would hunt down any saplings in spring, when they revealed themselves in fresh green for destruction. The double avenue of oak trees remained pristine, a grand sight in the summer. And in winter, well, they added to the cold feel of Canberra, so many bare limbs against the clear sky.

Quint swung his arms briskly. He soon crossed Anzac Parade, an admiring glance up and down the grand symmetrical ceremonial avenue. The two huge office buildings on either side – mirror images of each other – were vacant and had been for years. If ASIO wanted a new building, why not simply move into these?

Quint strode on, past Canberra Institute of Technology, past the Convention Centre, and into Civic. It might be Sunday, but the shops were open and besides the dedicated camera outlets, there were photography departments in many of the larger stores.

He picked the first, for convenience, and after some difficulty, secured a salesman, giving him the name and model of the number one camera on his list.

“We sold out of those a week ago,” the salesman said. “We’ve got the new model coming in soon. About the same price, but more megapixels.”

Quint studied his list in dismay. More megapixels and a different price would throw out the calculations. Nor did he want to wait.

He named the next camera.

“No problems. Plenty in stock. Here they are.”

He pulled one from a display. Quint looked at it with interest, It was black and chunky, had a big lens that somehow unfurled itself when powered up, and an impressive selection of buttons and knobs.

“How much?”

The salesman named a price, and Quint consulted his list, which showed one far lower. He showed the salesman the price, printed on the list in black and white.

“Where’d you get that? Off the net?”

Quint nodded.

“Sorry. This model’s very popular, and we can’t match that. I can knock fifty dollars off for you.”

At this point Quint made the decision to look for another retailer. He couldn’t abandon hours of detailed work.

By ten to four, his head was swimming. Some camera models had been superseded, some were unavailable in some stores, some new models had been introduced, the prices were far higher than those he’d found on the web, and the details of megapixels, zoom ratios, weights, sizes, features and options were blurring in his mind.

It would take a week to sort it all out. And by then everything would have changed. He could feel it.

“We’re closing in ten minutes, sir.”

Quint numbly indicated the camera in his hands. It wasn’t his first selection, but it seemed to do everything he wanted. “I’ll take this one.”

“Certainly, sir. Anything else?”

“I need a big memory card, four gigabytes at least. Oh, and a tripod.”

“I’ll throw in an eight gig card for fifty dollars extra. That okay? And what sort of tripod would you like? Collapsible, pocket-sized, detachable head?”

Quint was beginning to wish his own head was detachable. He indicated a tripod that looked like every other tripod in the shop. “That one there.”

The sun was setting behind him as Quint hurried home, his purchases in a yellow carrier bag, his clothing inadequate against the wind in his face. Canberra might have all the glory of four distinct seasons, but midwinter could be pretty bleak.

He unpacked everything in his bedroom. The tripod was erected by the window, the camera screwed on top, and he drew the curtains back to aim his camera at the building site opposite.

Quite dark by now. Quint pressed the shutter button, but nothing happened. He sighed, reached into the box for the camera manual and began reading at the section titled “Setting up your camera”.

By morning he had everything straight in his head. He had explored every menu option and set date, time, time zone, language, alert sounds, personalisation. He could zoom, he could make a video, he could delete images, he could do a white balance, he could attach the camera to his television and run a slideshow, and he had read every page of the manual. Especially the part about charging the batteries.

And he was fast asleep. The sun rose, work began on the site, and he slumbered on. Eventually a louder crash than usual roused him, and he recalled his duty, to make a detailed photographic record of the construction of the monster on Constitution Avenue.

Chaos it might become, but if he had a handle on the happenings and a record of progress, it might be bearable.

His first photographs showed the remaining trees felled, branches fed into a machine that reduced them to chips, the trunks loaded onto trucks. After another day, the parkland was bare.

Then the surveyors moved in, holding poles, squinting through instruments, knocking in pegs and doing a thousand things that fascinated Quint. At the same time, demountable buildings were erected on a corner of the site. A truck would bring in two at once, they would be lifted off, and before he knew it, there was a small village of blocky little offices, and a community of clerks and engineers and managers in yellow plastic hats.

It was when they began erecting a tall fence around the site that Quint really felt the pain.

Copyright © 2009 Peter Mackay