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a Bikers – Night before Christmas

I have posted this before but as it is Christmas Eve I thought I was worth posting again.

On the Biking Blog “Ride it like you stole it!” which is sadly no more by Dave Dragon, there was a poem “The Biker’s Night Before Christmas”.

Biker Days

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the pad,

There was nada happenin’, now that’s pretty bad.

The woodstove was hung up in that stocking routine,

In hopes that the Fat Boy would soon make the scene.

With our stomachs packed with tacos and beer,

My girl and I crashed on the couch for some cheer.

When out in the yard there arose such a racket,

I ran for the door and pulled on my jacket.

I saw a large bro’ on a ’56 Pan

Wearin’ black leathers, a cap, and boots (cool biker, man).

He hauled up the bars on that bikeful of sacks,

And that Pan hit the roof like it was running on tracks.

I couldn’t help gawking, the old guy had class.

But I had to go in — I was freezing my ass.

Down through the stovepipe he fell with a crash,

And out of the stove he came dragging his stash.

With a smile and some glee he passed out the loot,

A new jacket for her and some parts for my scoot.

He patted her fanny and shook my right hand,

Spun on his heel and up the stovepipe he ran.

From up on the roof came a great deal of thunder,

As that massive V-twin ripped the silence asunder.

With beard in the wind, he roared off in the night,

Shouting, “Have a cool Yule, and to all a good ride!”

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HiFi – Serious or casual listening

My thirty year old amplifier has been having a few issues over this last year, so I have been looking at replacements.

An Audiolab or Music Fidelity was top of my list. Long term I would love a pair of class A mono block power amps, but for now an integrated amplifier was on the list.sea moss pills

At first the Audiolab was top of my list, but they discontinued the model I wanted before I could place an order, the offers were very good. So I was looking at Music Fidelity; the M3 was available at a good price but I wanted better, The M6 was fantastic but I could not find any offers. The M5 is a good solid class D amp that would drive anything and got good reviews. So I waited and the deal came, so I pulled the trigger. Yep a stunning amp, and the build in DAC is not too bad as well.

So that was my Hifi purchases for the year, or so I thought.

I was on holiday in Walberswick talking photographs of the Suffolk when the Black Friday deals started come through. I have been looking at the Cambridge Audio Streamer for a couple of years. I can plug in the TV, it can act as a Roon end point and it has internet radio, so lots of options. Guess what, a great offer came up. Up to now I have been either using an old iPhone 6 or my iPad as the streamer solution, now I had this option.

I was in the Walkerswick local bar having a meal with Caroline and Ted when the email came through. It was a no brainer. So I now have, a record deck, CD player also thirty years old and starting to fail and a brand new streamer.

So what’s for the future. Well in the main listening room, a new record deck, a new CD player and new speakers, but my amplifier and streamer are now sorted.

So back to the title of this post: Serious or casual listening; well casual its streaming either from my own server with Flac rips of my cd’s or on line streaming services, to either my main system, the Sonos in the kitchen or my system on in my office.

For serious listening I either put on a CD or a record, sit back with a nice whiskey and relax.

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End of Summer – soon to be winter

We had a nice summer, and I managed to get a few summer shoots in.

My last outdoor shoot which was to be last month, had to be cancelled due to the training bringing my model got cancelled as did its replacement.

We have had some lovely days, and I took the opportunity to get out and shoot some film medium format.

Generally though the weather is heading colder and we have been having a little mist in the mornings and some fog at night.

This has led to a few photographic opportunities and a few nice moody pictures.

The final bursts of colour are now coming to the end as we reach mid autumn.

Here’s hoping for some nice days, and of course moody weather to produce worthwhile images.

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Can you trust what you see?

Since before digital, in the dark room, photographers have been producing composite images, from multiple negatives, a landscape image with a sky from a different negative.

In my wedding images I shoot multiple shots of groups, and occasionally have to combine them to get a single image of everyone looking good at camera.

Model images, a tweak here and there to soften skin, remove a pimple.

Leica M10

But now with modern AI, we can create what ever kind of image we want. So how can we trust what we see?

Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and the C2PA standard hopes to address this. Big players in the software world have signed up, like Microsoft and Adobe. Nikon and Leica are the first camera manufactures to sign up, but its Leica, working with their partners, the German government and Adobe that are the first to release a camera that supports this with a built in image authentication chip.

If you’re interested in Leica’s new M11-P I would suggest heading over to https://www.slack.co.uk/articles/the-leica-m11-p.html where Jonathan Slack will soon have a good overview of the camera.

https://contentauthenticity.org

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Busy two weeks for Nikon – Zf and now Plena

A new named lens from Nikon, the Z mount 135mm f/1.8 Plena. We are promised no vignette and beautiful rendition and transition to the the out of focus areas.

From what I have seen from the preproduction models, that is what we have gotten. A stunning lens, not to big, about the same as the 85mm f/1.2 and yes if your asking, f/1.8 at 135mm is more then fast enough to blow away the background and get impressive subject separation.

That now leaves me with a dilemma; the 85mm or the 135mm first?

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The Nikon Zf is here

So its arrived, the retro full frame Zf. Was it a Z5 or Z6 in a different shell as many were expecting? Certainly not.

This is an all new camera, it has a sensor from a Z6 but reworked, more auto focus points and it has the power from the Z8 and Z9 new Expeed 7 processor. So video and focus that can only be bettered by the Z8/Z9, better stabilisation at a claimed eight stops.

This is a real powerhouse.

I love the quick black and white selector, and the ability to use face and eye detect with manual focus lens is brilliant really making this a great camera with manual lens.

The question to ask is this what the Z6III will be or will that add anything else.

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Building the light

When shooting film it took a lot of experience and skill with a light meter, to understand what the reading meant and how it would look in the in the final image.

Now with digital we get instant feed back. We can get it close with a light meter and then tweak by eye.

Slowly building the image light by light and seeing the results instantly.

Here we have me building the scene starting with the separation lights, first the stage left, then right and then both together. Finally bringing it all together to create the stunning image at the top.

With all modern cameras now being so good, having instant feed back, we can hone are skills quickly and easily and produce lovely photographs so much easier then in the past.