Family, Photography and other misc news
I get to visit Lincoln, Lincolnshire in England nearly every day. They say familiarity breeds contempt, and I sometimes forget what a beautiful city Lincoln is.
Today I went up steep hill and went round the more touristy areas of Lincoln. With a mix of lovely independent shops and the Castle and nearly one thousand year old Cathedral it has some wonderful photogenic areas.
Try going round your own neighbourhood with fresh eyes you may find a picture or two worthwhile.
There are two shoots I am thinking of doing this month. One an outdoor shoot at dawn, and a second an indoor studio shoot with a cheesy Halloween theme.
So if your a local Lincolnshire Model and fancy either of these let me know.
With the Launch of iOS5 we now also have iCloud.
Having syncing between my Mac Laptop, iPad and iPhone is very useful. The key features are the Photo Stream for Photographers. I tested this out this afternoon, where I took a photo with my iPhone, then checked the iPad and there was the photo I had just taken. Not only that but because I have Lion OS X (10.7.2) on the laptop and the latest version of iPhoto (Aperture also supported), when I got home and fired up iPhoto, there was the photographs I had taken on the phone. No syncing or any effort from myself.
I also tried updating a spreadsheet on the iPad then accessed iWork.com from my work Windows Laptop and was able to continue to work on it.
Only down side so far has been the time its taken to update to iCloud. As can be expected, Apple’s servers are under a lot of stress at the moment as the worlds iPhone 3GS and 4 users update, but with a bit of patience it gets there and it can only get better.
As Apple improve there integration between there devices and the web, there making it very difficult for a user to want to move away.
Today iOS 5 is released, and with it the iPhone truly becomes a Smart Phone.
As a bit of a geek and working in IT, I have used PDA’s and Smart Phones since the Psion3.
Smart Phone’s and PDA’s have come and gone. The great Sony P series running Symbian OS and various Palm devices over the years.
These phones & PDA’s were punctuated by different Windows devices, these often had the most potential and the most ability, but were always handicapped by reliability and a frustrating OS that hindered rather then helped.
I always seemed to come back to Palm.
Then I saw Steve Job’s present the iPhone in 2007 and I thought this had great potential. A colleague of mine could be described as an Apple fan boy and within a matter of days of the original iPhone launch had one shipped over to the UK. This gave me the chance to try one out.
As a Smart Phone it was a joy to use, the terms delightful and magical, often used to describe the iPad is was came to mind.
As a Smart Phone it was ‘smart’ in a limited fashion. As a phone it was basic. No third party apps, no cut and paste, no multitasking (not quite true), no integration with Microsoft Exchange (essential for me).
But, and it’s a big but. What it did, it did better then any other mobile device.
Plus things like google maps, YouTube, stocks and shares app, notes, contacts etc.
Still even with its limitations I left my frustrating Windows Mobile Phone in the car to act as my GPS SatNav and bought a iPhone one day one of there release in the UK.
Gradually each new version of iOS has counted these points, added apps, more multitasking, Exchange Synchronisation and cut and paste.
Now with iOS5 the iPhone becomes a true Smart Phone. Better alerts, over the syncing and upgrading.
I have always been a bit slow to upgrade my hardware. I kept my iPhone1 until iPhone4, and now instead of getting the iPhone 4s (Siri May tempt me) I’ll just be upgrading my OS.
Have to admit really enjoying iOS5. Little things like Landscape calendars, and finally a ToDo App, do not sound like much, but the geo fence features of the ToDo list are very cool. Having a reminder go off when I arrive or leave a destination is genuinely useful. Photo lovers will like the fact they can now create Photo Albums direct on the device.
I had an issue with the ToDo’s at first, as I had Exchange sync switched on, it had my Exchange ToDo list, which of course does not understand GPS information, once I created a new ToDo list on my phone the GPS option appeared.
My favourite is the notifications, finally we have caught up with the old Windows Mobile and with Android.
A nice touch is being able to swipe between apps on the iPad, just like Alt-Tab (Command-Tab on OS X) in Windows.
Also a four fingered swipe brings up your running apps, together with the five finger close, means you can use the iPad now just with gestures and not have to touch the home button.
All together loving it. Simple, easy to use, whether your are a geek like me, or a Pensioner like my mother. And now a truly powerful iOS.
Many people comment on the quality of my landscapes.
My Post Processing general is limited to either HDR or a bit of Negative Clarity from Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom.
Recently looking at some of the people shots taken by Frank Doorhof and some of the sports shots by Scott Kelby, I have been very impressed. There a certain dynamic feel to the shoots, that comes from the post processing.
It’s given me a number of ideas to try.
We are now getting really into the autumnal feel of the season.
Riding into work today the low sun shining though the red leaves of the trees gave me a number of ideas for some photographs.
It was also quite a windy day so I hope the leaves will last long enough for me to get the shots that are currently in my head.
Always tricky riding a bike in high wind, even more for a motorcycling photographer. There is only so much I can squeeze into the tank bag and top box. That really limits what you can take, makes you think what is really necessary.
Last Saturday was the World Photowalk, and today I have been finishing my editing, these are a couple of shots that came close but no cigar.
Have to admit, I do have a soft spot for the stone column which is illuminated in coloured light from the ancient stain glass windows.
If you have the chance to visit Lincoln Cathedral and please try as its one of the finest Gothic Cathedral’s in the world. Some of the more impressing and colourful stain glass is actually Victorian, as during the civil war, those damn Puritans shot out some of the more impressive windows. Far to ungodly and Catholic for them. Luckily the Victorians restored a number of them.
A sad day today.
One of the driving figures of modern computing has left us, but his influence will remain with us for a long time.
The vision to take ideas and develop them, from Xerox’s initial ideas of a GUI which he developed into the modern Bit Mapped Screen driven by Mouse, to produce the Macintosh.
Creating Next Computers, a computer that was instrumental in the development of the world wide web and the Next Operating system which became OS X.
Taking Pixar to the pinnacle of modern animated film making.
Making MP3 players simple to use and popular throughout the world.
Creating a Smart Phone that could be used by Grandmothers as well as geeks.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-has-passed-away/
Pentax Q:
How many of you remember Pentax’s film 110 interchange lens camera system. Fun, but the quality was never there with 110 film.
Now we have the Pentax Q, a interchangeable lens compact with a small compact sensor. With a selection of nice prime lens including a fish eye, and some zooms this looks like one fun camera.
Saturday was the Lincoln World PhotoWalk.
We were also very lucky in that it was Lincolnshire Day. That was good news for Photographers. The Cathedral, Castle and a number of other great sites were all free to enter.
I’ll post a few pictures later in the week but until then here is a quick snap I took of an event that was going on in the Cathedral.
