Tree Pruning and Gardening

Leica M10 50mm Summilux

Summer seems a long time a go now, but there is still work to be done in the garden.  When we moved in a number of the boards and feature bushes were badly over grown.  Over the last couple of years we have slowly gotten the eastern boarder under control and so this winter we care concentrating on the western boarder.  It needs to be heavily cut and about every second overgrown bush taken out.

Eventually the bottom corner opposite out hens will be the bee corner, where we will have one or two hives to provide us with fresh honey.

First week back at work

Thats the first week of 2018 finished but for me its going to be a long week as I am working Friday night and Saturday night on some IT projects.

The month is looking busy and I just hope I can get out and do some photography and not just sit at a computer all the time.

Apple 10.13.2 Installed and so far looking good

OS X – Ten Years Old

Well I have my desktop upgraded to the latest OS.  It was seamless and I had no issues.  My biggest worry my tablet works fine with the new drivers, as I had a lot of photographs to edit I was a little concerned.

We have Caroline’s MacBook Pro to upgrade, but my old laptop is officially stuck on 10.11.6 El Capitan.

MacOS 10.13

The new MacOS desktop OS has been out for a few months now and I have been waiting for my last two drivers to get updated so I can upgrade.  Well Wacom and x-rite finally missed there updates just before Christmas so finally I can upgrade.  I am running some final backups now and will let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year 2018 is upon us

2017 was again a light year for photography.  Some years I have hit as many as 12000 images in a year but I have been slowing down over the last few years, switching to using the Leica M8 and then the Leica M10 has helped.  In 2017 I shot 3295 images similar to 2016 were I shot 3281, significantly less then the machine gunning technique used when shooting with a modern SLR.

Another major impact on the rate of shots is the like of wildlife photography.  You can easily take a few hundred images trying to get the one killer shot.

I hope to do some more wildlife this year as well as more landscape and studio.

 

Camera of the Year 2017

My D800 I rate as one of the most accomplished all round cameras of recent years.  I D810 was a minor update and I did not think it was worth upgrading.

At the recent Lincoln Photography Show, I got the chance to use the new Nikon D850, at it is a very different beast.  Its the best bits of the D800, together with the professional D5 and a new 45.7 MP sensor.

A number of magazines and photographic organisations are now starting to vote for camera of the year for 2017.  The top candidates are likely to be Sony, Olympus and Nikon.  I think Nikon will will, the D850 is hard to beat, high resolution rivalling medium format, as fast and responsive as the professional Nikon D5 but in a smaller and lighter body.

Boxing Day – The Family Visit

Today is Boxing Day here in the UK.

Its similar to America’s Black Friday in that the sales start.  I have heard a few reasons why it got its name; one that workers kept a box, and any tips got put into it and on the day after Christmas they would break open the box and spend the money.  The other is that it was the day servants would get they Christmas box present and sent home to have the day off with their family.

Here in the brown household we have about a dozen family members paying a visit and will have three dogs and a snake in the house today.  It will be great to see then all again and its the last day of our holiday; we are back to work tomorrow for the remainder of the week.

Merry Christmas 2017

Leica Summicron 35mm

Merry Christmas everyone.  Its likely to be a light blog week this week, we are at home for today and tomorrow with guests visiting both days but for the rest of the week we are working.

The Night Before Christmas

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”.

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

 

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!”