Family, Photography and other misc news
One of the huge advantages with digital is that we can leave most of our filters at home and when we are safely back at home or at the office we can apply the effects we want in post processing.
Put there are a number of filters we should consider as still essential for digital work.
Don’t leave home without them.
I having been playing with beta of Adobe Photoshop CS6 for a while now, but today it was officially announced and can be downloaded from them on the 7th May.
Kelby Training will be releasing a number of videos to help you get up to speed and there are a number of free webcasts showing what it can do. Check some of them out here at Scott Kelby’s blog.
I have always been more of a Moto Guzzi then a Ducati fan, but most of the guys (and some women) ride Ducati’s at work.
There were rumours flying last week that Ducati was about to be bought and this week it came true when Volkswagen announced they had purchased the iconic motorcycle brand.
They said that it would be a subsidiary of their Audi brand.
If I had to have any Ducati it would either be a Monster or an air cooled 900SS. So many bikes so little garage space!
It was not long ago when if you wanted a 24MP camera you had to go medium format. Then along came the D3X a seriously high resolution full frame digital SLR.
Well today Nikon brought that kind of resolution to the masses, with the new D3200.
Have to admit, not sure about 24MP for most casual users. 6MP is the most thats needed for most people but the megapixel race continues. The D700 and D3(s) models showed you can get amazing results with lower pixel counts, but technology continues forward.
They also announced a new lens, the 28mm f/1.8, and its full frame. Now to me wide angle for 35mm photography starts at 24mm, so Nikon if your listening can I have a D800 with your 24mm f/1.4 to test, pretty please?
On Sunday I had a trip to Hartsholme Park, the main reason was a couple of Landscape shots I wanted to get (report to come once I have developed the film)!
When I arrive I was surprised to see lots of Austin 7’s arriving. After I took my landscape shots I headed over to the cars to take a few shots.
I took one on my Ebony 5×4 Large Format Camera, possibly not the best choice! Also a few with my old trust Nikon FM2 which had some Black & White film loaded. I also took the shot above with my trust Nikon V1, shot in RAW and then processed in Lightroom V3 and converted to Black & White. I really seem to be in a Black & White mood at the moment.
It turned out they were all having a drive out and meet up to celebrate the Austin 7’s 90th Birthday. A lovely old car and very photogenic.
Being a small group of islands with the Atlantic on one side and the North Sea on the other, the weather is hard to predict and often very varied. Recently we had record temperatures for the time of year, then last week it was cold and wet.
This morning looking out the window we saw some light snow coming down! On with the thermals under the biker gear before jumping onto the bike for our morning commute. Then tonight on the way home, lovely warm sunshine illuminating the fields of bright yellow oil sea rape filling the fields.
Its it difficult to know what to wear on the bike. Luckily my Rallye Motorcycle suite more then copes with whatever we encounter.
After the ill health of last year, both of us are trying hard to get fit again this year. Tonight marked a small milestone in that we managed a good long run and a personal best for Caroline. Not very impressive for any real runners but for none runners like us getting started again a good and well achieved milestone.
After the run to celebrate we dropped into the fish and chip shop for a treat. Well a little now again does you no harm. Once home we had a shower and a cold beer.
Yes I know we probably added back all the calories we had just run off, but for now we are still in training to get to the level where we can seriously run some distance, three times a week and really get the calories burnt off.
For film users it’s been a lean few years on the film and print developing front. High street shops that develop and print film are becoming few and far between, and those that still exist only process 35mm print film.
A few specialist mail order companies still offer E6, and Black & White for 35mm, Medium Format and Large Format, but these are cutting there services. The local one I use has just stopped processing Black & White for Large Format 10 x 8.
I like many old film users have the equipment for manual processing of 35mm Black & White film, but I do not have the means for Colour or Medium and Large Format.
It’s been over twenty years since a new home processing unit was release and in 2010 the last unit available was discontinued.
I would like to shoot more Black & White film for Medium and Large Format but good quality processing is getting harder and harder to find, so in the last two weeks I have been researching my options.
Manual processing is still an option and you can still pick up Patterson, Jobo processing tanks as well as solutions like BTZS but I would prefer a temperature controlled semi automatic system that can handle colour too.
There have been rumours recently that Jobo may be about to go into production with a new model this year. The prices of old second hand units has been climbing in the last twelve months, and they now cost more then they did new. Checking out their website, I looked up their UK distributed and dropped them an email. Their reply was prompt and promising; I was please to find out that Jobo are currently gauging interest and are looking at putting a new model into production this summer for an autumn release. Its unlikely to be cheap but it should mean that secondhand prices should drop and new spares are also soon to be coming.
Its interesting that Fuji has been releasing new films and new film medium format cameras yet companies like Kodak have been cutting back. Let’s hope films revival continues and more film related products get released.
I spent some of this bank holiday weekend planning a few future photo shoots, nothing definite yet but starting to get a few things lined up.
I definitely want to get a few large format landscape shots completed; mainly for the practice; ready for a big photo trip next month. As I have not owed a large format camera until recently, and have only hired, borrowed or gone on large format landscape courses I am terribly out of practice. Its going to be good shooting some film again, I have shot barely four frames of film this year and over 1700 digital.
I might even dig out my old Nikon FM2 possibly one of the greatest manual film SLR’s ever, and shoot a few rolls of Ilford HP5, now where did I put my old developing tank!
A quiet bank holiday for us, over the course of the last couple of weeks and the next couple we have a number of family birthdays so we all had a family get-together at Angela’s (Caroline’s big sister) house.
Cake and trifle was the order of the day; a good job we had both managed plenty of running this week!