Richard & Caroline's Blog

September 8, 2015September 13, 2015

Shooting details

Even when on holiday to beautiful places like Orkney, I still look out for details and more unusual shots. The above shot of the cobbled slip way needed more dramatic light and then should have made a dramatic Black & White, unfortunately this day in Kirkwall it was bight sunshine.

Looking out for objects to photography, with it being a harbour then this lifebuoy just had to be photographed.

The last shot is the one that I think actually works from this set. After parking up near the harbour and walking into town this old petrol pump took my eye as we walked up an old street towards the centre of Kirkwall.

September 7, 2015April 12, 2020

The End room starts to get furnished

Just to quick snaps of the end room, now with three large book cases at one end. This means we can finally unbox our books that have been in storage or blocking up the wing hallway for the last two years.

Not only that but I have unboxed my hi fi so we now have music in there. Currently only two sources set up, CD and a wired input from my iPhone. I am thinking about moving the main Apple Wireless Extreme from the living room into hear and getting a newer model for the living room.

September 4, 2015September 10, 2015

Crazy but cool camera accessories.

There are a lot of crazy camera accessories you can buy, some are just crazy others are way cool.

I’ll let you be the judge of this one but I think its very cool on the right camera. These are wooden camera grips from JB Camera Designs. On small mirrorless cameras I think they can look very good.

September 3, 2015September 10, 2015

Well its Home coming Thursday

Well thats it.The holiday is over and we are back home and back to the routine of work. While I took my wildlife kit I did not manage to get any great shots this time unlike my week on the Shetlands in 2013 but it was a great holiday nevertheless with some fantastic live archaeology being done in front of our very eyes and new discoveries being made.

September 1, 2015September 6, 2015

Leica’s CCD M series Sensor update

A while ago, Leica published some details about potential issues with the CCD sensors in their M series cameras. https://brown-family.org.uk/m9-ir-cover-glass-corrosion/

Until now if you had the issue Leica would replace the sensor with one from stock that potentially could have the same issue.

Well good news from Leica, they have announced they have developed a new generation CCD sensor for the M series and from now its these that will be fitted to Leica CCD rangefinders.

We are very pleased to inform you that we have successfully completed development on our new generation of CCD sensors and conducted subsequent quality assurance testing under practical conditions. As a result, Leica Camera AG can now begin replacing the sensors in the M9, M9-P and M-E models that were affected by corrosion with sensors from the new generation.

Sensor replacement for M Monochrom models will also begin shortly. We will inform you of the precise date of this as soon as possible.

On this note, we would like to remind our customers that we can only offer replacements for CCD sensors for cameras affected by this particular problem; prophylactic replacement is not possible.

We thank you for your patience and for your loyalty to the Leica brand.

August 31, 2015October 4, 2015

Photo of the Month – August

Leica M8.2
Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH
24mm, 1/2000 Sec at f/4, ISO160
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom CC2015.1 V6
On a MacPro, OS-X 10.10.5

August 28, 2015September 2, 2015

Holiday Highlights – Ness of Brodgar

If your into archaeology, wildlife or even scuba diving, the Islands of Orkney are one of the best places in the world to visit.

For this this visit we concentrated on the archaeology and while we visited and entered the tombs of Maeshowe which was as spectacular as we remembered once I had managed to climb inside, and also the site of Skara Brae were the stone age (neolithic) homes are remarkably preserved.

But for us the highlight of the trip was the Ness of Brodgar, this site was discovered just after our last visit ten years ago when the local land owner went to plough this field for the first time. Immediately he hit stone and after the geo-physics had been done it was revealed that the whole site was covered with the remains of stone buildings.

For the last then years for the the eight weeks of summer they did at this site and discover more, its one of the great finds of prehistory in the world, a temple complex over five thousand years old.

August 27, 2015August 28, 2015

Orkney – Land of Rugged Coastlines & Neolithic Tombs

Orkney is a fantastic place to explore, if your into walking, wildlife, arts or crafts and especially history then there is something to see.

The coastal scenery is just stunning, this shot is just a quick snapshot from my iPhone as we walked around one of the tiny uninhabited islands to visit an old viking settlement.

Everywhere you have everything from stunning beaches to stark cliff’s, while we did not see any puffins this time there were plenty of cormorants and other sea birds.

In the first few days we visited the main towns and then went off and found the famous tombs of pre-history that Orkney is famous for.

Some of them like the Tomb of the Eagles had a entrance only three feet high, lucky there a trolley which you could lie on and a rope to pull yourself along.

These early trips gave me lots of ideas for photographs and i’ll be revisiting them later on in the holiday with something a little better then an iPhone to photograph them better.

August 25, 2015August 27, 2015

Travelling to the Orkney Islands

Every two to three years we visit some of the smaller islands that make up the British Isles. The term Great Britain is just the name used for the largest of the islands that make up the British Isles, but all the habitable islands and some of the uninhabited islands are well worth a visit.

We took a couple of days to get up here but finally arrived at the top northern coast of Scotland. From here we took the car ferry to the main and largest Orkney Island. Its here where we will be stopping for about a week, using it as a base to visit three or four of the other main islands including at least one uninhabited island.

As you can see from my snapshots the dogs and people had a good crossing over to the islands and so far the weather has been unusually fine for the Orkneys.

August 24, 2015August 23, 2015

Brora – Scarecrows

We are on our travels at the moment, our home, pets and chickens are being looked after by Caroline’s sister who is treating that as a holiday herself and from the sound of the chickens are keeping her entertained!

Are first major stop was Brora, a small village on the North East coast of Scotland, high-up above Inverness.

The village where we are stopping is having a Scarecrow festival and it seems the whole village has gotten involved. I had a quick walk up and down the high street and snapped a few photographs with my iPhone.