Author: Richard

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On the road again

Well, really starting to feel much better now.

Last Saturday we took the big GS out for a spin, just a quick hour long trip to get some quilting fabric for Caroline.

It really exhausted me but there was no problems.

Wednesday I was feeling really good, nearly normal in fact so we commuted into work on the bike.

Boy did that feel good. A lovely day, passing all the cage (car) drivers stuck in traffic.

Today was back in the car. Very tired and not up to riding the bike.

Still the doctor did say 6-12 weeks to get over this, we are half way now and I am so much better.

Might just have to plan a weekend motorcycle trip for the summer, that will be something to look forward to.

To all you motorcyclists out there:

Keep it sticky side down.

 

Posted using iOS WordPress from my Apple iPhone

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English Heritage – iOS app

We are members of both the National Trust and of English Heritage.

Now the National Trust have for some time had an excellent free iOS app for finding places to visit nearby and getting information about them.

Finally English Heritage are also joining the 21st Century (that’s nearly funny) and are releasing their own app, due in April.

Hope it’s free like the National Trust App.

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WordPress for iOS

Just a quick note to let you know an update for WordPress for iOS has been released

Using it now to post this. Interface is improved and I look forward to trying it out in anger.  The previous version did crash fairly often and once even lost me a post that I had previously posted.

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Standards – a quick rant

When it comes to standards and companies not following them, I could have a good old rant about many top companies, computer and software companies being the worse.

The other day a photographer friend of mine was demonstrating his new photo editing software.

While key wording and adding other important metadata, we wondered where it was writing this data.

As I suspected, it was using a sidecar file to accompany the jpg’s and raw’s.

What really rilled me was instead of using an xmp sidecar file (an open standard developed by Adobe) which many other software programs can read, not just Adobe Lightroom or Camera Raw, it uses it’s own proprietary format.

Why!  Lock in, thats why, but the worry is, will the companies own future software support their own proprietary formats, past history suggests not.

From Wikipedia:
XMP sidecar files. For file formats that have no internal support for XMP data, the data is stored in separate .xmp files with the same base file name. Many photo cataloging applications have support for this file format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Metadata_Platform

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AeroPress – a new way of coffee making

For the last few days I have been trying out my Aeropress coffee maker.  Not exactly an expresso but not a french press either.

I have been using the reverse method to make coffee, and I have to admit, it does make wonderful coffee, and it is ideal for an office environment.  Easy and quick to use and very easy to clean afterwards.

I can definitely recommend it. I think I like the coffee from it better then from my home filter coffee machine!

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The Fine things in Life

As anyone who knows me will testify I love the finer things in Life.

  • Particularly good quality red wine
  • Fine Whiskey
  • Chocolate
  • And of course coffee

We had to pop into the nearest big city today, as I had another hospital appointment to check on how I am doing, and we took the opportunity to indulge. Two large Lattes and two Cinnamon rolls from Starbucks.

Back to the diet soon I think!

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Lightroom – Importing Presets

Installing Lightroom presets can be a little tricky but as Mat from Lightroom Killer Tips has recently found out, there is a far easy way;  Just Drag and drop the preset file on to your Lightroom icon. Thanks Matt.  Another great reason for having a Apple Mac, it just makes things so easy for you.

If you’re a Windows user then double click the preset file. It will most likely say it does not understand the file type. Associate the file type with Lightroom and then double click will install it.

Have not tried it in Windows, as I do not have a Windows machine handy to test it on, only Apple Mac’s, Linux, and Solaris at present. Must rebuild that Windows 7 test machine of mine.

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Coffee

Coffee is much, much more then just your standard hot caffeinated drink.

I gave up on instant over ten years ago. Now I mainly drink filter at home and french press at work. I buy freshly roasted beans from our local roaster and we are luckily in having two top coffee sellers in Lincoln to choose from.

At weekends I often make myself and Caroline an expresso at home, but I am also not too much a coffee snob to enjoy a trip down to the local Starbucks or Costa.

But apart from a french press how to enjoy a good cup at work. Something a little closer to an expresso perhaps.

Now hauling my expresso machine to work and using that would not be allowed, but after a bit of research I came across a device called an Aeropress, while not strictly an expresso maker an interesting device that looked ideal for a work environment.

Well I have placed an order, but what coffee to try it out with. Something that not only makes a good filter coffee but also a good expresso, it had to be ‘Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira Pure Yellow Bourbon from the Minas Gerais’ a fine single estate coffee, freshly roasted.

My mouth is watering at the very thought.

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Corporate Portraits

Its a long day, today.

The day started with some corporate photography.

Not always the easiest subject. It was an award presentation. As usual the room was less then idea, the presentation took place with a glass wall behind, so I had to ask them to move slightly to make the best of it.

I have yet to back up the photos, complete the editing and photoshop the final selects which are due to the customer on Monday.

Not only that, I have a wildlife and landscape shoot tomorrow at Dawn. Oh hard is the life of a photographer.

Looking forward to getting home and at least getting a little sleep. I love landscape photography but my downfall is always the early starts.

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Photo Tip: Sharpness 1

Sharpness

Something all photographers worry about.

Most photographer’s solution to this perceived problem is to spend lots of money.

  • Always upgrade the camera, every year new models come out, I’ll get better results that way.
  • NO!
  • Better glass, my lens is not the latest, it is consumer glass not ‘Pro’ glass.
  • NO! (well at least not yet, this is a far better investment then in a digital body that will be worthless in 5 years).

Lets get back to the basics.

Camera Technique

First Hand Holding.
Support the camera with your left hand, cradle it and take the weight. Hold the grip with you right hand.

Firing the Shutter.
Don’t just jab at it, press gently, both the depress and the release should be gentle. Camera movement can be introduced at this point.
If necessary use your motor drive. Shoot a batch of three pictures using it. Your first shot might be blurred but the second is likely to be sharp. Release after the third shot.

What is your shutter speed? It should be at least the reciprocal of the focal length.

If your focal length is 50mm shoot at 1/60 of a second at least. If shooting with a 200mm lens use 1/250 etc.

If your hand holding technique is particularly bad double up, for a 50mm lens use 1/125.

Understand VR.
Use it at slow shutter speeds but once your speed climbs above 1/500 – 1/1000 of a second turn it off, above 1/1000 it can actually make your pictures worse.

Subject movement.

Don’t forget subject movement, use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze any movement in the scene.

Tripod’s.

Well i’ll mention those next month, but check out www.cbphotoblog.com and www.bythom.com

Lastly something that I am particularly bad at.  When you use a large aperture then focus is critical. I hate to think how many killer shots I have just missed because my model is out of focus, when using the f/1.4 – f/2.8 range.