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Coffee accessories – Tamper

Tamper

Over the last few years, I have really gotten into high-quality coffee. During my free time, I have even started to experiment with the coffee I drink to get the best taste and have even got a milk frother from this link after reading through the various frothers reviews available on it. For home and office use, I generally drink brewed coffee.  At home I make it in a Chemex.

Chemex

While when at the office I use an Aeropress.

Aeropress

I have a cheap basic expresso machine at home but tend not to use it much, getting much better results with my brewing methods.

But I enjoy a good espresso, and espresso based milk drinks, and I would like to make that at home, so this past few weeks I have been practicing my technique using my basic espresso machine.

The internet is a wonderful tool for learning, I have fixed my plumbing from watching YouTube videos, so I have been researching and learning how to make reasonable espresso using basic equipment.

Tamper-2

I have mastered the milk and can now make wonderfully sweet creamy steamed milk with lots of microfoam.  So now I have been experimenting with the espresso itself.

While changing the grind and dose has improved things, I was getting too much expansion blocking the flow of water so it was time to buy a real tamper.

Tamper-3

Tonight it arrived so I have been experimenting with different pressures, grind and dosing, so far its looking good and it will be interesting to see how far I go with this.

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More Rumours of a new M but not the M 240 replacement

Leica M 60This week there have been a few interesting Leica M rumours flying around.

Leica used to have a M called the M-D many years ago and this week the name started to make the rounds again on the rumour sites.  The rumours are contradictory.  Some say it will be a Leica like the Leica M60 limited edition which is an M 240 but is missing the rear LCD.

That will appeal to some but I prefer the Panasonic GX8 and Epson RD solution to those who do not want a rear screen.  They both have reversible and foldable rear screen, so you can either have the LCD or fold it over and have a plain leather back.

Epson Range Finder Rear Screen

But there is a second rumour going around that is much more interesting, and that is that this Leica M-D is going to be a Leica that has no rangefinder but takes M glass, instead of the optical viewfinder it will have an EVF.  Now that would appeal to many photographers.

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The worlds Best Camera – The Smart Phone

Whats the best camera?  The camera you have with you.

Is that the big heavy SLR hung round your neck, the latest mirrorless, the biggest baddest sensor with the most megapixels.

Well if you look at Flicker its the smartphone.  Most phones now have cameras and we nearly always have our phones with us.

Well we now have a press release from Leica and Huawei.  Huawei are the third largest smartphone manufacture and they have teamed up with Leica to produce the best smartphone camera.

https://en.leica-camera.com/Company/Press-Centre/Press-Releases/Press-Releases-2016/Press-Release-HUAWEI-and-Leica-Camera-announce-long-term-technology-partnership-for-the-reinvention-of-smartphone-photography

 

 

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Pet Photography

Sox - by Field of Dreams Photography

On Monday we visited the Gainsborough Kennels belonging to the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust to see some of their dogs available for adoption.

A local photographer has also kindly lent his time to take portraits for many of the dogs for the Trusts website.  Pet photography can be tricky and like when working with young children requires lots of patience.

Timmy

Currently Sox and Timmy are our two favourites, its just such a shame we cannot adopt them all.

 

All photography on this post copyright Field of Dreams – http://www.fieldofdreamsphotography.net

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Updating CC and Comparing Panoramas in v2015.3 vs v2015.4

Adobe Upgrade

Well nothing has gone wrong on my laptop so its time to update my main machine.

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 08.33.57

The feature that I have wanted to play with the most is the new Boundary Warp, when creating panoramas.

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 08.34.12

When shooting handheld you always get a lot of white space.  This means cropping and loosing some of the shot.  Now with the boundary warp you can get some of that back.  There will be a lose of quality and its up to you to decide if its worthwhile for a particular shot, but its nice to have the option.

Pano v2015.3
Pano v2015.3
Pano Test v2015.4 with boundary warp at 100%
Pano Test v2015.4 with boundary warp at 100%
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Re-visiting a scene

Placard

I have a large selection of shots like above.  I usually pass by here most lunchtimes.  Each time I take a few snaps if the sun is giving a nice amount of contrast.

I keep a lookout for the man with the placard and a reasonable selection of interesting people at key points in the frame.  I have a few shots that I am happy with but no knockouts yet.

This shot was taken today while I headed to the best coffee shot in Lincoln.

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Adobe CC Updates

Lightroom PanoramicWe had another set of Adobe updates recently and I have been holding off from updating.  It seems it was a good idea as the update seems to have been deleting other application folders not related to Adobe.

Come on Adobe I used to trust you and update straight away, now its worry, I have to hold off, test on a spare laptop before risking my main machine.

The latest Adobe Lightroom has added an interesting new feature to those of us who create panoramic images by stitching photographs.  Generally you will end up with white space resulting in having to crop tighter, but now you can use boundary warp to fill in the white space.

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Visiting the Greyhounds

This Sunday the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust was at the Lincoln Carlton Pets at Home Store.

We paid them a visit and asked lots of questions, as well as spending a good deal of time petting the Greyhounds.

I think we are both set now on getting a Greyhound, its just a question of when.

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Shooting Film

The old Hive, Ilford HP5 Plus, Leica M4, 35mm Summlicron
The old Hive, Ilford HP5 Plus, Leica M4, 35mm Summlicron

Now we are well past the winter solstice the days are getting brighter so its time to get some film loaded into the Leica M4 and shoot some film.

I’ll be developing the film myself and then scanning it.

So good light depending, we will have a few more film Fridays coming up.