Family, Photography and other misc news
This weekend was Discover Lincolnshire Day, if your after a weekends break then Lincolnshire has everything to offer, from antique fairs, castles and historic cathedrals, to motorcycle and car racing at the iconic Cadwell Park.
For a photographer like me then the views of the Lincolnshire Wolds to the fantastic architecture of the buildings, there is always something to photograph, and as we head into spring the parks and nature reserves have much to offer.
I am not a brilliant musician, whilst I used to be in the choir as a child, I am now limited to poor banjo and piano playing.
Not enough people play an instrument in the UK, which is a shame. To help encourage people this weekend is learntoplayday. As with many of these things its just not advertised enough.
Mirrorless cameras are gradually gaining traction amongst professional and semi professional users.
The advantage of a smaller, lighter body appeals to many. We now have full frame mirrorless cameras such as the Sony A7 and the Leica SL. When Leica released the SL they also released a huge no compromise zoom lens for which they got a lot of criticism, but now we have the Sony G range of lens coming out.
The point people keep missing, is that for 35mm full frame, high quality fast lens are large and heavy.
I have to admit, I like having the choice. As a Leica user who also uses a Nikon SLR, when the focus system gets as good as pro DSLR’s I can see me having the latest Leica SL and a few large pro lens for when I need them, and for times when I do not, either a small M prime lens or a DX crop Leica TL lens on the body.
This weekend I made one of my monthly visits to Lincoln Cathedral. I generally wonder round the uphill area of the Bailgate taking photographs and then go into the cathedral for a while.
Generally I take black and white photographs. A job that the Leica M8 excels at. This time I took two cameras, my Leica M4 loaded with Kodak Tri-X and my digital M8.
My outdoors street photography was all done with the M4, and as I have not quite finished the film yet, you will have to wait a while longer before seeing the results.
In the Cathedral itself, I switched to the Leica M8 so I could crank up the ISO some more. I was shooting the 24mm lens which on the M8 is an effective field of view of about 35mm. My 24mm is only f/3.8, so shooting film was not really an option, unless I was willing to push the film, but the rest of the roll had already been exposed at 400 ISO. One of the many advantages of digital is the ability to change the ISO from shot to shot.
For a change I have decided to post a colour shot. Despite it still being winter, we still had the odd moment of sun breaking through the clouds and the light through the stain glassed windows is always remarkable.
Below is a snap from a couple of years ago.
Over the last few years, I have really gotten into high-quality coffee. During my free time, I have even started to experiment with the coffee I drink to get the best taste and have even got a milk frother from this link after reading through the various frothers reviews available on it. For home and office use, I generally drink brewed coffee. At home I make it in a Chemex.
While when at the office I use an Aeropress.
I have a cheap basic expresso machine at home but tend not to use it much, getting much better results with my brewing methods.
But I enjoy a good espresso, and espresso based milk drinks, and I would like to make that at home, so this past few weeks I have been practicing my technique using my basic espresso machine.
The internet is a wonderful tool for learning, I have fixed my plumbing from watching YouTube videos, so I have been researching and learning how to make reasonable espresso using basic equipment.
I have mastered the milk and can now make wonderfully sweet creamy steamed milk with lots of microfoam. So now I have been experimenting with the espresso itself.
While changing the grind and dose has improved things, I was getting too much expansion blocking the flow of water so it was time to buy a real tamper.
Tonight it arrived so I have been experimenting with different pressures, grind and dosing, so far its looking good and it will be interesting to see how far I go with this.
This week there have been a few interesting Leica M rumours flying around.
Leica used to have a M called the M-D many years ago and this week the name started to make the rounds again on the rumour sites. The rumours are contradictory. Some say it will be a Leica like the Leica M60 limited edition which is an M 240 but is missing the rear LCD.
That will appeal to some but I prefer the Panasonic GX8 and Epson RD solution to those who do not want a rear screen. They both have reversible and foldable rear screen, so you can either have the LCD or fold it over and have a plain leather back.
But there is a second rumour going around that is much more interesting, and that is that this Leica M-D is going to be a Leica that has no rangefinder but takes M glass, instead of the optical viewfinder it will have an EVF. Now that would appeal to many photographers.
Whats the best camera? The camera you have with you.
Is that the big heavy SLR hung round your neck, the latest mirrorless, the biggest baddest sensor with the most megapixels.
Well if you look at Flicker its the smartphone. Most phones now have cameras and we nearly always have our phones with us.
Well we now have a press release from Leica and Huawei. Huawei are the third largest smartphone manufacture and they have teamed up with Leica to produce the best smartphone camera.
On Monday we visited the Gainsborough Kennels belonging to the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust to see some of their dogs available for adoption.
A local photographer has also kindly lent his time to take portraits for many of the dogs for the Trusts website. Pet photography can be tricky and like when working with young children requires lots of patience.
Currently Sox and Timmy are our two favourites, its just such a shame we cannot adopt them all.
All photography on this post copyright Field of Dreams – http://www.fieldofdreamsphotography.net