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A Lazy Sunday Morning

A very lazy Sunday morning was in store for us today.  We had no intention of going out, so first job was to ground some fresh Italian style roasted coffee beans.  I always keep a few whole beans in the freezer, in a plastic airtight container.

We are very lucky here, as Lincoln is blessed, not only with the usual array of Starbucks and Costa Coffee houses, but some very good top rated independent coffee shops, and two top coffee bean retailers, one of which roasts the beans themselves twice a week.

With the beans ground and the expresso on its way, I turned my attention to a very indulgent porridge.  Organic  rolled oats from Lincoln market and milk; with fresh cream and unrefined brown sugar to top it all off.  Yum Yum.

So the morning had us settling down in front of the TV to enjoy Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, one of Caroline’s favourite musicals.

And if you have some beans left you can even practice your photography on them or if your feeling daring, go out into the garden and make Snow Angels.

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Snow Teddy – More Snow and More Pictures

Today saw us making a major shopping trip for the more elderly relatives. The shops were hell, very busy, but the main roads were all clear and safe. Some of the back roads and villages were more challenging, but conditions are definitely improving.  I hope we will be back on the motorcycle by Tuesday or Wednesday, if things continue to improve like today.

As the snowy weather continues, and thus so do the snow themed pictures. As you can see some people are getting quite artistic with their creation!  I decided not to publish the snow family I saw, lets just say that father snowman and mother snow-woman were anatomically correct. Interesting use of a banana there!  There were built by the IT department of a company who have offices in the centre of Lincoln.  One of the female project managers was heard to exclaim, ‘you can tell the snow woman was made by IT geeks, they have no idea how a real woman looks’.  LOL.

Our favourite was the lovely snow teddy bear, which we spotted as we drove through some northern Lincolnshire villages.

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Big sensor – Small Camera: the Panasonic GF-2

Well in my continued search for a small camera that gives SLR results, I was eagerly looking forward to the Panasonic GF-2, the upgraded version of the GF-1.  Well it was announced last month, and I have been reading the reviews and following the forums closely.  Like many photographers its proven to be a bit of a disapointment to me, not a GF-1 update at all but a camera aimed at people moving up from a compact.  Thats not to say its a bad camera its not, in fact its a very good camera and in some areas better then a GF-1 but its not for me.

You can read more here at Chris Bennett’s Photo Blog and at The Luminous Landscape.

Next week I hope to get my hands on a Sony Nex-5 and give that a test.  Currently of all the cameras I have managed to get my hands on the Panasonic GF-1 is currently winning the race to lay claim to a space in my motorcycle tank bag, and make my bank account lighter.

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More Snow – a commute by car

More snow greeted us this morning, so we first spent a while clearing the car and driveway.    This would be the second day in a row we would be commuting by car.  Warm clothing, a flask of hot drink and a shovel in the boot and of course a camera and off we set.

It was not far before we got stuck in the deep snow, a bit of shovelling and we got going again.  Eventually we made it to the main road, and from there, quickly made it into work.

With the weather so bad (well for the UK anyway), it was decided that anyone who had made it in by car should leave at 13:00 to guarantee they got home safe, so we headed home in the afternoon, only stopping for a few photographs in Lincoln.

Once home I dug out the laptop and proceeded to finish up some paperwork.  Lets hope tomorrow is less interesting.

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Snowy Bike Commute

With winter well and truly arrived, this morning saw us pulling on our winter thermals & fleeces to go under our biking outfits.

I took pity on Caroline, and allowed her to wear my BMW heated waistcoat. The full winter gloves and boots also came out for today.

One we had negotiated the first half mile of ice and snow covered back roads to the village centre, it was an easy ride in on clear roads.

That first stretch was the hard part. Not the weather but other road users. One car driver pulled out on us in a situation they could clearly see was not conductive to using the brakes. I was not travelling very fast, less then 10 mph so was able to roll to a halt without risking the brakes on the ice. Less then a minute later they decided to just stop in the middle of the road with no warning, I gently overtook them. The worse the weather the worse some people drive!

Unlike yesterday today was relatively warm, the temperature reached -0.5C. We felt warm and it was an enjoyable commute into work.

Photo taken and blog posted from my iPhone.

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Sony NEX-5 Winter Test Drive

In the lookout for a small camera, my friend Andrew, bass player of Plagues Fire took the plunge and purchased the new Sony NEX-5.  A camera similar in design to the Olympus Pen and new Panasonic GF-2.

If your after small then the Sony NEX-5 is the camera for you, with a great APS-C sized sensor the same size as Nikon DX SLR’s it has the potential for great image quality.

The cold wintery weather was the ideal time to take a wonder along the Lincolnshire Viking Way long distance footpath, getting some great shots along the way.  Heres a selection of Andrew’s latest work with his new camera.

www.plaguesfire.co.uk/

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Sunday Morning House sitting

For a 40th Birthday present, Declan had whisked Alison away for a long weekend in Venice. That left myself, Caroline and Angela with house sitting duties and looking after Ethan and Sofia. Angela took the bulk of the duties on the weekend, with Caroline taking the Friday off work to help until Angela arrived for the weekend duties.

Sunday morning was French Horn practice for Ethan, a quick practice at home then Caroline drove him to his Sunday morning lesson.

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The First Snow of the Year

Today in Lincolnshire (UK) we had the first snowfall of the year.   Just the opportunity I was waiting for to try some more macro work.

There were two shots I was particularly after.

First the old favourite, the red berry half covered in snow.
Second some winter flowering Jasmine.

After that whatever caught my fancy.

The equipment needed was fairly straight forward.   A Digital SLR, a macro lens and my macro flash kit. Once setup I was ready to go.

I set the camera to manual and a relatively slow shutter speed 1/80, this together with an aperture of f/22 to give at least some depth of field, always an issue with macro photography. This would also dramatically underexpose the background, giving me nice black none distracting backgrounds. The two flash heads attached to the lens to give illumination to my subject matter and I was ready to get some snowy, wintery images.

Hope you enjoy and please try yourself.  If you do not have a macro lens try an old 50mm standard lens, most will focus pretty closely, use your tripod and a slow shutter speed to get your exposure, use a piece of card to shelter what your shooting from the wind to stop movement.

If your a Canon or Nikon shooter, their respective macro lens are excelent but if the budget cannot stretch that far try the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Di, a great lens and much cheaper.

Personally if your a Nikon shooter then the combination of the Nikor 105mm f/2.8 and the Nikon R1 Close-Up Speedlight Remote Kit is hard to beat if you have the funds.