a Sunset over the Menai Straights

Thursday saw us exploring North Wales and visiting Castles. We had rain in the morning but the afternoon was sunny so we had a blast riding round the Snowdonia National Park.

In the evening we found a lovely Greek restaurant and had a wonderful meal. Later we walked back to our hotel along the harbour. Typically the Sunset was rather nice as I had left my camera back at the hotel.

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At least I managed to get a snapshot using my Phone.

and the River Flowed

This summer so far has been particularly British. We had very little rainfall up to mid Spring, once the drought was official it’s been heavy rain since.

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Today we spent our day riding the twisty valley roads, and mountain passes of North Wales. The heavy rain has meant that the rivers and waterfalls have been in full flow. With great scenery like this, it’s easy to find great locations for photography, but one can keep visiting for years before you get the weather and the light you need to get a truly stunning shot.

Even with the rain it’s been a great days motorcycling, if not photography.

Seeing the Olympic Torch on the way to Work

The commute to work this morning was a little more challenging due to more closed roads as the Olympic Torch headed out of Lincoln.

As the main road I needed to use was to be closed it made sense to park up by the next village the Torch was due to visit, join in the crowd and experience the event until the road was open, then head into the office.

Once again I took a few shots with my Nikon V1.

I have to admit its not as good or as easy to get a good shot with fast moving subjects, even a runner with an Olympic Torch as an SLR, but for its size it beats just about every other small compact camera.

Its lovely to see the community spirit that has been around over the last few weeks, starting with the Queen’s Jubilee and now with the crowds supporting the Olympic Torch as it travels through our communities, its been great to see the British Spirit pulling together.

Equipment Choice

A lot of amateurs only have one camera, often believing its ‘The Best’.

For those of us luckily enough to have more then one body, we get to choose the best camera for the job at hand.

Tomorrow the Olympic Torch arrives in Lincoln, I have other work to do but I hope to be able to get a shot of the Olympic Torch coming past.

With commuting by Bike, my camera choice is somewhat limited, but also the choice of camera should be driven by the subject and what suits it best.

More Positive Fuji X-Pro1 Reviews starting to appear

The Fuji X-Pro1 certainly made an impact when it was announced, but many of the reviews have been less then stellar.  Two major concerns; processing the RAW files has proved difficult, lets hope Fuji engages with companies like Adobe and other software companies that produce RAW developers.  The second concern has been the autofocus speed.

I am more hopeful for the latter, the Fuji X100 was also very poor at focusing, but regular firmware updates has since improved this and many other areas where the camera initially fell short.

One thing that many people wanted with the Fuji was for it to act as a cheap Leica M body.  Well unfortunately focusing manual lens is difficult, if your after a cheaper body for your Leica M class then for now look at other cameras.

For two different views of the Fuji, check out:

If your after a body for your Leica Glass and cannot afford an M9, then the current top contenders are the Ricoh GXR, the Sony NEX-7 and do not discount the Leica M8 or the even better M8.2.  While there are issues with the colour; Auto white balance is poor, and the over sensitivity to infrared can be a problem for colour shooters, unless you use filters, but this can be an advantage for Black & White fans.

Lincolnshire Show 2012

This week has been the annual Lincolnshire Show.

The county show lasts two days.  Yesterday we had fantastic weather and the show events in the main and secondary arenas could be enjoyed to the full.

We had show jumping, heavy horses, Knights in Armour, jousting; as well as many other things to see.

Today the weather was not so good.  In fact we had heavy rain showers through the day, but it was still very enjoyable.  We’re British!  Stout boots, heavy rain jackets, and a good hat was the order of the day.

It did mean I did not manage a lot of photography, but we did have fun going round many of the indoor stands.  Many things to see as well as the usual farm animals, we visited the local Bee Association tent, and met many familiar faces.  The honey and lemonade was quite a food highlight.

As well as Bees we are also interested in keeping Chickens, so a visit to the Chicken tent was a must.  A spectacular mix of breeds, who knew you could get so many different breeds of chickens!

Of course with it being the County Show we also visited the tent of the WI (Women’s Institute), I am not sure I got all the competitions but the floral displays were very impressive.

We finished the day on a high, with the falconry display, the highlight being the Peregrine Falcon.

Memories in Light

Some of my most precious memories have been of summer evenings, either enjoying the stars come out in the sky or a memorable sunset.

Tonight as we rode home across the flat land of Northern Lincolnshire we had low dark clouds filling the sky, but in the distance we had a band of bright red as the sun sank below the clouds illuminating them from below.

As the sun set the industrial water cooling towers along the banks of the river Trent were shown in bright contrast against the brilliant red and orange of the sky, it was quite a sight and one with lots of potential for a stunning sunset.

As we continued to ride home a flash of white to the side of us revealed itself to be a Barn Owl, and as we continued our twisting ride down the country lanes, sudden busts of bright orange light would break across the clocks on the motorcycle we were riding into the growing gloom.

A memorable ride.

Nikon Reaches 70 Million Nikkors

The big news this week was that Nikon reached the 70 million mark in there lens production history.

To mark this they also released two new lens, one DX for those of us who have DX Cropped sensors and one 35mm full frame lens.

For the DX users we have the new 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR.  A travel and all in one lens.  Interesting but not for me.

For the full frame users, a new 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR.  A useful midrange small zoom for full frame users, not sure of this is going to appeal to the D4, D800 users, it does not look to have the image quality required for these bodies, maybe this means a budget FX body is on the way?