Author: Richard

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RIP Marco Simoncelli

Today is another sad day in the world of motor sport.  Last week we had the death of Dan Wheldon the two times Indy 500 winner at Las Vegas.

Today in MotoGP, the motorcycling premier class we lost Marco Simoncelli.  A great young up and coming rider who was a real threat for next years championship.

The thrill of Motorcycling and the adrenaline rush, like most motor sports is partly due to the risk.  No matter what safety features you add to cars and bikes or changes to tracks, there is always going to be risk.  That risk is why many take part, the thrill of pushing yourself to the limit.

Ours thoughts are with the families of those who have lost loved ones.

Take care out there on the road, and keep it sticky side up.

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Exposure – What is right

I blogged a little while ago about Metering and Exposure.  In the Studio with Studio Flash Strobes a Light Meter is critical.

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When shooting outdoors I do tend to use the expose to the right rule, but this is dependent on the contrast and dynamic range of the scene.

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Whether you use the expose to the right technique, follow your histogram, or clipping warning, what matters is what works for you.  An exposure that is technically correct may not give you the image you want, there is a degree of subjectiveness.

In the studio I follow the light meter, outdoors, well, auto bracketing is my great friend.  The histogram and clipping warning advise, but if you tweak the jpeg settings you can find your histogram and clipping warning change.

Develop a technique that works for yourself.

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Canon’s X Marks the Spot

I am sure all you keen photographers heard about the Canon announcement today of the new EOS 1D X.

As a Nikon SLR user I am as pleased as Canon users to see this camera come out, and I hope it drives 35mm digital photography to new heights, especial with full frame cameras.

Nikon and Canon are in a great race, aways leap frogging each other, depending where you buy in the cycle sometimes Nikon are on top and other times its Canon on top.  Personally, when people ask me for advice, I ways say go for the camera that feels best in your hand.  For some people thats Canon for others thats Nikon.  If you after a killer full frame camera, I doubt you will get much better then this.

As a Nikon user I look forward to the D700’s replacement for my full frame needs.

Panasonic and Olympus are in a simular fight and to a degree are also influenced by Sony with their NEX series.  Currently on paper I have to admit, I feel that Sony have the lead, and as someone who currently has no investment in any small camera system anyone of these three could get my business.  Just produce a camera with great image quality, built in EVA and great fast prime lens.

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Problems with Blackberry and iPhone

There has been a lot of complaints this last week about RIM’s Blackberry outage and people unable to access their email or use BB Messaging.

We have also had a lot of gloating from Android user, as Apple’s Update to iOS5 caused major problems with service providers (thenextweb.com demand-for-ios-5-and-icloud-was-so-high-apple-almost-broke-the-internet).

My update went fairly seamless, only the update to iCloud took some time due to the load on Apple’s servers.

We now rely on technology more and more and as the world moves ever faster it seems we have less patience. I think i’ll logoff the internet for a while and read a book instead.

Now where did I put the iPad/Kindle, LOL.

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A Trip into the Historic Heart of Lincoln

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.

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Model shoots for this month

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.

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iCloud

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.

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iOS comes of age: A True Smart Phone Arrives

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.

  • Email – True HTML email
  • Web Browser – real web, not WAP, and do not even try and compare it with that sorry excused for a browser that was on Windows Mobile
  • The Best iPod Experience

    • 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.

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    Post Processing – that extra oomph

    Many people comment on the quality of my landscapes.

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    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.

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    Heading towards Winter Light and Wind

    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.