Visit to the Father in Law: or Have a play with his new Sony A55

Tuesday as usual we visited the father in law, Alan.

Normally its a motorcycle ride straight from work to the village where he lives, but tonight we headed home first to get the car.  It was a cold day and neither of us were packing our thermal undies; it was likely to be late night so rather then face a cold trip home on the Bike, the car sounded a better bet.  It would also give me a chance to grab my laptop, I wanted to have a play with the default blog options my hosting company provides.

The reason for our visit,  just the usual Tuesday night visit, to inflict my cooking on him.  Today, cauliflower and home made cheese sauce.  At least thats what I made for Caroline and Alan, for myself a burger.  I cannot stand cauliflower.

There was another reason for making the visit.  Alan had purchased a new Sony A55, a fun little camera which I can well recommend for a beginner or someone wanting a small body SLR.  Rather a unique camera with its fixed mirror, kind of a hybrid between a EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens Camera) and a normal SLR.

Sony EVIL Hybrid SLR

Photo of the Month – September

http://www.brown-family.org.uk/photo/

Hassleblad 503CW
Carl Zeiss 80mm F/2.8 Planar CFi T*
1/250 Sec at f/11, Fujifilm Fujichrome Velvia 50 Professional [RVP50] ISO50
Processed in Adobe Lightroom V3.2
On a Mac MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.6.4

Wow yes Film, I enjoy shooting landscape and find that often I work better using the larger formats. Medium and Large format digital backs are far to expensive currently so its back to film. Only a quick low quality scan but the slides look out of this world.

Photo of the Month – August

Phone Snap Shots – Sky through the Car Window – August

Phone
This month, I did not shoot any personal work but did shoot a commission for a local company, so instead I am posting a shot I took through the car window of a particular nice sky I liked the look of. Not a brilliant shot but a fun little snap I took with my phone.

Photo of the Month – July

Photowalk – University in HDR – July

Nikon D200 SLR
Nikor 24-70mm F/2.8
38mm, 1/180 Sec at f/8, ISO100
Processed in Adobe Lightroom V3.0 & HDR in Photomatix
On a Mac MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.6.4

I am not huge fan of over the top HDR (High Dynamic Range), much prefer the subtle approach, but for once the bright colours of the front of the University building seemed to suit an over the top approach. This was taken as part of the World Photowalk. This was the second year I had entered. For our City walk last year, I was awarded a third place. This year I was very pleased to here I had won. Note, not with this image I would like to add.

that fitness kick

Colds recovered from, we both decided we needed to get fitter, so this month we have hit the gym every week, we also started Pilates (unfortunately theres no Yoga at our gym currently), and Richard has started running three times a week. Only two miles and a very gentle walk/run until he gets back into it.

The 7th July was Barton Upon Humber’s bike night. This was our first ever visit, lots of entertainment, thousands of bikers and all the local pubs had live bands on. We parked up in the grounds of the Catholic Church, and for a Pound we could not only park but they also stored our Crash Helmets, safely in the Church.

 

It was a fun night, not as many visitors as usual, the forecast of rain but a few people off, but luckily it stayed away. We indulged in some junk food, burgers, hotdogs etc, and once we got home treated ourselves to a cold beer.

Mid month and we took a day off, it was likely that I would have to work all weekend, and we both had plenty of hours owed us, so we took a flexi day and visited Gibraltar Point nature reserve.

 

The weather was variable, alternating between hot bright sunshine and shoot periods of extremely heavy rain and high winds. Still a fun day out.

Back to Work & more Photography

After our amazing holiday, visiting all round England, a bit of Wales and round the coast of Scotland it was time to go back to work, but my body had other days.

Bank holiday monday saw me come down with a terrible cold, and Tuesday our first day back at work I was no better. After that I managed to drag myself in, but we had to travel by car, I was not up to riding the motorcycle.

 

In the middle of the month I also did a studio photo shoot, as you can see above, not bad results.

The big thing was the release of iPhone4. Richard has the original iPhone, and has been very pleased with it, now that its three years old it was time for the updated model.

I am sure in the news you have all heard of its problems, but I have found it to be the best phone I have every had. The display, camera and gps are excellent. The reception is certainly better then the previous phone, and I have had no problems with it. If the phone is gripped tightly the signal strength does drop but this causes no issues in actual use.

Holidays and Photography

First of it was the start of the cricket season. Now I have no interest in Cricket but for the local league it was my work team against my village team. Now who to support, a difficult one.

We went along and took the camera’s. Neither of us have done any sports photography for a long time. Its an expensive field of photography needing expensive long lens. The pros tend to use 400 to 600mm lens. We have a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 180mm f/2.8, so equipped with these we gave it ago.

Both teams played well but the village won through in the end. I have to admit it was a cool May evening and we did leave before the end, taking shelter in the local pub and enjoying a couple of pints beer. Our local always has a good round of guest beers and tonight was no different.

To finish off the evening it was then a walk over the road to the fish and chip shop. Fish and Chips all round, and then a slow walk home.

For the last two weeks of May we had our big holiday. This year it was a motorcycle trip round the whole of the British Isles taking in the furthest East, South, West and Northernly points.

Before we went we had a one quick day out on the bike, a day trip to Whitby.

The weather was, how shall we say; dramatic.