Weight off my shoulders...

Okay, so after a couple of weeks of very frugal living, my ebay escapades are beginning to provide me with much much needed mon-aay. Admittedly I've made a loss on everything I've sold, because the odd quirk of ebay is that when you buy, you pay more than it's worth, when you sell, they pay less than it's worth.
I'd suck as a stock market trader.
But who cares. I shifted some crap I wasn't gonna use, and it made me enough cash to not have to hold up pizza delivery guys in the street or whatever. "Stand and deliver, your pizza or your life" doesn't have the same ring to it, especially since when I worked pizza delivery, I used to give that stuff away for free anyway.
But yes, my money woes are not exactly over, but they are fading, and with more money on the way I should be good to go right up until payday, at which point I'm not going to blast all my money away at stuff this time.

Well work's been its usual mediocre stuff. I've had my usual arguments with the managers, they've been handing round discipliniaries like sweets as usual (not me this time), and I actually followed my manager's advice and decided to be more objective about my job. I wrote a list of fors and againsts to decide whether this place is right for me. You can view it here if you've got the time to waste. Me? Well being my non-motivated self, I just kept putting the more annoying callers on hold and writing a little bit each time until I'd got it finished.

It's not all been bad though. I've decided to get another bike. And after the disastrously high figures quoted by my ex-current insurer for anything larger than a pushbike, I've gone to one of those price comparison places, which gave me a quote some 75% cheaper. Which means something like this, or if I'm lucky, something like this, are actually in reach, moneywise. I'd rather have the VFR (second bike), because at the weekend you can take the panniers off and go out to play. But it is more expensive, to buy, run, repair and insure.

Photography wise, I've had a busy week. Went back up to Manchester Airport with a mate, and set all my stuff and gubbins up. Yes, that is the camera connected to the laptop. The software I have means that the camera dumps the images straight to the hard drive, which gives me up to 20 gig of storage space before I need to start shooting to the CF card inside the camera. I've got 2 CF cards just to be on the safe side.

Pretty Woman (G-VROY - Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400) made a return to the airport, not only giving me some shots of her landing, but taxiing right past us some hours later before heading off into the sky again. It seems she visits manchester at least twice a week, so I should see more of her in the future. She's a magnificent aircraft, huge too, like an office building on wheels!

It was a very very productive day with me shooting over 750 photos! It took 5 hours to shoot them and another 8 hours to develop them. Meh. Still, I got some great pictures, so there you go :).

And now I'm off to sit about and do nothing for a bit. I like doing nothing, it doesn't require energy, or qualifications or thoughts.

Still, my nephew's coming round shortly so I suspect that period of idleness will be shortlived.
Have fun!

(Here's some pics from monday for ya)

Summer Partay!

Well, after eating a fantastically awesome meal of mum's best pasta cooking, I had a little nap.
I woke up bout 8:30 to the regular thump thump thump of someone having a party. Lots of happy excited voices etc, someone was having a fun time nearby.
After a little bit I decided I fancied a little wander about, and it'd be interesting enough to see where the party was. So sure enough after a little wander about, I find a garden full of happy cheery people, plenty of flowing beer about, happy kids and loud music. Cool, so people are getting into the swing of things.

Including me it seems, summer looks like it's gonna be a nice one. Having been conscripted to do the front garden, I spent all day yesterday out in the fantastically fantastic sunshine while listening to the radio - was a nice day's work actually. The fact that I got rather badly sunburned doesn't detract from it at all, maybe it's a sign of the weather to come :).

Other than this, I have been mostly broke, I spent the available money, right enough, I'm usually pretty good with budgeting.
What I didn't budget for though, was an unexpected import duty bill for £45. Basically that has really messed my finances up, and now I'm living on literally £3.50 a day. Oh well, when I get paid I should be okay :).

And now I'm off to enjoy the summer :).

Tripods and Tepees

This was written on the 3rd of May roundabout 2pm. I'm kinda falling behind in my blogging for a couple of reasons, hope to be on track soon.

Right now, I am sat in probably the most uncomfortable typing position in the world, inside a 3x6’ tent. I’ve got carpet burn on both elbows and I’m sweating like I’m in an oven. The temperature in here must be 30c. My nephew’s here accompanying me.

We’re sat inside a little makeshift tent, made out of one camera tripod, and about 8 or 9 sheets, quilt covers, quilts and towels, and I’ve got to admit I’m pretty happy with it. Sure we don’t actually need protection from the elements because we’ve set it up in the back bedroom (which is why it’s so damn hot!) but my nephew loves playing dens, so here we are, surrounded by little battery powered LED lamps, children’s storybooks, star-shaped pillows, little flags, and of course, camera equipment.

It’s a nice little setup.

This is the second day in a row that the den’s been put up to keep the little guy happy and while I’ve got to admit that if I hear “twit-twoo-thatmeansitsbedtime!” (usually at the rate of once every thirty seconds) one more time I’m gonna scream, he seems to be having a good ol’ time of keeping himself amused with his nice den.

Yesterday we went to the park to feed the ducks. Looks like we caught them a little late, that evening though, as they were all down the far end of the lake/pond/whatever, and were completely disinterested in both my camera, and the bread which my nephew threw at them in almost full slices.

It was a nice walk in the park though, the sun was shining, the birds were singing etc, and after last year’s floods and this year’s mediocre weather, it’s really, really nice to walk in your stereotypical green meadow type area.

So what have I been up to other than being dragged around by my nephew for the last two days (He’s fantastic in small doses, but constant exposure quickly leads to high stress etc etc.)? Well, I’ve been mostly receiving things from ebay, including my new flash unit for my camera.

And a very sparkly thing it is as well, the manual’s some 120+ pages long, so I went online and looked for a tutorial to learn how to do the things I wanna do. Looks like I’m probably gonna end up getting another flash unit sometime soon.

I shipped my old lens, and my new 50mm lens arrived, so I’ve been itching to go out and get some use out of it, but we’ve not really had the weather for it.

One other thing I would like to add.

You may remember from my previous blogs, my mentioning of an artist called “Phil” who I used to see regularly up at the pub.

Well a couple of weeks ago, he was taken into hospital for some kind of operation or something, and he didn’t come out again. Thursday was the day of his funeral, and it was very well attended by dozens of bikers. The world has lost a very talented artist, and a genuine guy.

Well, time to go; we’ll prolly take my nephew out round the park again or something. That’ll be cool.

Spring Rain...

Well, okay, it's not exactly "tomorrow" but I'm lazy like that.

I'm sat here in my warm comfy house, while the first of what is supposed to be many squalls pelts down outside.

So what is going on with all the spending then?

Well, when I went up to my bro's and had a look at his autofocus 50mm lens, I never realised that you can actually pick them up pretty cheaply. So I ordered one, for £52, and it arrived today from Hong Kong, only 3 days after ordering it - that's fast. The reviews rave about it, it's apparently a VERY good lens for the money. And it looks good too - it's the most modern lens I own.

My old 50mm lens is sat in a box, well wrapped, ready to be shipped down to Middlesex. I had hoped to ship it today but it seems I have to wait in for a bed to be delivered (I didn't order it). The guy finally paid for it, and a bloody good price he got for it too. Yeah, I made a loss on that one. Still.

I've ordered a few other goodies too. An SB800 flash, 1gb of memory for my laptop, and a USB 2 card for my laptop. I've also ordered a memory card for my cam, a USB cable to replace my annoyingly short one, and a little spirit level thing so I can get my camera straight when I'm shooting things. I've put a couple of things up for sale too, and if I can sell them I might get another new lens.

So that's it really. I had a load of beer on saturday night, but to be honest, I didn't really enjoy it. I think I'm losing interest in beer now.

Still, life goes on :).

Cash haemmoraging alert!

I'm just leaving myself a little note here so I can look back mid month and laugh: Congratulations me, I've used a £60 mouse on a £70 desk to spend £293 in 5 minutes.
Still - I've spent more in less before, and I am owed money by more than one person and I have stuff to sell on ebay too etc etc etc.

More to follow tomorrow :).

Blog Value Pack! 2 for 1!

Chapter One - Cat Fighting!

Disclaimer: Animals were harmed in the making of this blog. Not by us though, and not by any life form capable of being prosecuted. (He's fine now, and has been checked out by a vet).

So, it's 6pm, I'm laid on my nephew's trampoline with my hands behind my head, listening to the birds singing, basking in the sun almost like the cat on the grass next to the trampoline, and staring into the blue sky.

I'd been asked to move some stone chippings from my sister's old house to her new one. She's had to move out temporarily so they can refurbish her house, and so after a pretty damn painless move (not like the last one where I had to do everything to the garden short of dig it up with heavy machinery and start over) we've got everything sorted and she's all settled in. My nephew's trampoline and his playhouse are set up in the garden, and we're all relaxing outside.

My mum's driven home, leaving me to spend some time with my sister and nephew, and my nephew's roaming around the garden and his playhouse, I'm lounging around on the trampoline, my sister's doing work on her laptop on the garden table. It's turning into a nice day.

Throughout the afternoon, my nephew and I had played on his trampoline (I was playing on it to keep him happy. Okay, I was playing on it because it's fun too).

Tommy, the black and white cat, was on his lead secured to a post in the garden. He wanted to explore, but we didn't want to lose him so he has a little harness and a lead to stop him from wandering off. For an hour he happily roamed about and ate the grass, sniffed the plants and generally practiced looking cute and curious.

After a while we decided to swap and let Tigsy - a brown and black tabby cat who is tommy's litter-mate out into the garden, so Tommy goes back in the house, and Tigsy comes out on the lead. My nephew kept occasionally going inside and leaving the door open, so I had to catch Tommy (who evidently loved being outside) and return him to the house.

Later on, it gets colder. We've brought the cats in and are now relaxing inside. It occurs to me that we've not seen Tommy, and during a search of the house, I realise why as I find both the hallway door and the back door to the garden open. The little dude's wandered out, and despite half an hour of looking, was nowhere to be seen. He's apparently done this before, so we left a cat box outside for him, and ordered some food.
I spent the next two hours wondering what he was up to, and I realised that while I don't get on with cats in general, I took a liking to Tommy and Tigsy because they're both cute and sociable.

Anyway. Time passes, and while we're eating our food we suddenly hear this loud miaowing/screeching outside. Evidently two cats that don't like each other. One of them is Tommy. We both leap up from our food, my sis runs outside and comes back in carrying a struggling Tommy, who is soaking wet. Evidently he's so psyched from his fight that he is scared of/wants to attack everything.

We lock the doors as my sis cuddles him, we're glad he's okay, and we're glad to have him back.
He moves in my sisters arms, and with alarm, we both notice that he's left a bloody fur print down my sister's arm - he is hurt after all!

Of course, what should we do? The vets were closed, the PDSA was closed, what were we sposed to do with this injured cat? Tommy calms down, and gives my sister the opportunity to examine him - a small injury to his back right paw, he can still walk on the leg and the bleeding has stopped. We both kept an eye on him as he walks around quite happily, occasionally licking at his leg, but still frightened, jumping at every sound.
Tigsy comes in to check on him, and starts sniffing him. Tommy sees Tigsy sniffing him and calms right down, glad to be home and back in the company of his litter-mate.

And then Tigsy's lifts his tail straight upright, the fur standing out on end, making it super bushy and 3 times the size, and starts emitting the most alarming howling/whining noise I've ever heard him make, his eyes constantly fixed on Tommy's. Tommy responds in kind, by doing the same, and starts spitting and hissing. Uh oh.

Anyway we get the cats seperated, and while we're checking if Tommy is ok in the kitchen, Tigsy's sat on the stairs making this weird noise.
The two cats have got to live together though, and in the abscence of any advice from the cat charities (out of hour, no one to talk to) we determine that we've got to get the cats back used to each other. Tommy stinks - we notice that he's soaking wet, because not to put too fine a point on it, it looks like the other cat has pissed all over him, making him stink of enemy-cat. We rub a little pet shampoo foam over his back, taking care to keep clear of his leg, and the howling from Tigsy subsides a bit.

We get both of them on a lead, I've got one, my sis has the other, and keeping them close and under control, we let them first see, and approach each other.
Again, both start howling and hissing at each other, but this dies down as they get used to each other again.

Over time, we let them get closer, and they howl less and less and become more accustomed to each other. Eventually, Tommy sits down almost next to Tigsy, who responds by going to sleep.
We let them both off the leads, ready to seperate them if there are any problems.
Tommy goes straight over to the corner and starts relaxing, while Tigsy roams around the living room. He roams round close to the chair, turns round the corner, and there's Tommy.
Both cats freeze, and we both intently watch Tigsy gingerly walk up to Tommy, ready to stop any fighting.
Tigsy starts sniffing Tommy intently, while Tommy sits there and lets it happen.
And then Tigsy starts licking him - literally, he's there licking Tommy's forehead, almost as if he's welcoming him back to the house, and identifying himself as a friend. Tommy growls a little bit eventually, and Tigsy responds by wandering off and sitting down nearby. Seems we have peace at last.

I went home after this, but according to a phone call this afternoon, Tommy has been examined and is recovering nicely. Both he and Tigsy are getting on as well as ever now, and life seems to have returned to normal.

So what else have I been up to? It was my brother's birthday a couple of days ago, and we all decided to go to Pizza Hut to have a nice family celebration. Of course, as always happens, my mum waited until I was totally skint (had no money) before announcing that it's my brother's birthday in xyz number of days - three days before payday. I remember though that my brother asked me to order something for his camera a while ago, and while I never received the full order, I kept one half of it (they kept my money - meh). Operating on the basis that something is better than nothing, I grab his impromptu "present", and off we go.

What followed was a nice family night, less of a birthday party and more of a family occasion. It turns out my bro never did buy a screen protector - my present to him - so hopefully this one will come in useful for him. Of course I felt a little guilty that that was all I was able to offer him, especially since ht and his fiancee had bought me two lovely presents for my birthday, but I did mitigate it by remembering the "Buy the laptop or don't buy it, I don't care, and I'm not lowering my price" attitude he gave me before I bought my laptop. Seemed more than a little mercenary.

Still, I bet it was a disappointing birthday for him, which is sad, but seems to be for the par in our family when you consider how crappy my birthday was. Still, will keep my eye out for something I think he'll like - it would make a nice random surprise for him to get a belated birthday present :).

My ebay auction turned out to be a disaster. I bought the lens for £35, and put it up for auction with a Polariser Filter (value approx £15) included. I was very pleased as the price went up and up, at £30 with several hours to go. I figured that it would at least get to £50 and let me buy my new lens. I drifted off to sleep, having been up all day, and woke up later. The first thing I did was check the clock - 02:30am. The auction would be finished by now, time to check how much I'd made.
With horror, I saw that the final sale price was £31.30! There was no last minute bidding frenzy, in fact no bidding at all for the last three hours. Every time I want to buy something, bidders are snapping at it like bloodthirsty sharks, and something triples in value every 10 minutes! My lens when I bought it went from £6 to £35 in the last five minutes, why didn't this happen with mine?!
The thing is now that the bloke doesn't seem to be interested in paying for the damn thing.
Good. Hopefully I can relist the bloody thing and get a proper price for it.
Meh.

Still, I took the camera out today and got some good snaps of the local ducks again, so hopefully a few of those will have come out okay. I'll see to them later.

And now I'm off to drink Fanta and watch The Bill.

See ya.

And now we come to an entry I wrote a few days ago. I just never got round to uploading it because I'm lazy like that.

Chapter Two - "Kickass Brio" (Friday 18th April, 2008)

So I’m sat here on the makeshift bed we’ve put together for my ickle nephew, in the now almost completely refurbished spare room. Yep, I booked a day off work so I could go to a hospital appointment, and I seem to have spent the majority of the day moving, transporting, redistributing and otherwise relocating household junk - plenty of it mine – from the spare room/bathroom, to the loft.

I went along to my hospital appointment fairly quickly though, in the same seemingly ramshackle (admittedly it is having major renovation work carried out on it at the moment) building.

I was asked to wait, this time in the corridor outside the waiting room. As a good ten or twelve of us sat there in this dimly lit drywall lined corridor, I mused on the paper sign stating “please bear with us while renovation work is taking place” – or words to that effect.

I was seen surprisingly quickly; that is, I’d not got my arse on the seat before I was up again, and had a pleasant chat with the anaesthetist.

I then came home, sunk a can of hyper juice, and got on with building my nephew’s favourite toy.

See, my nephew is a big fan of Brio – a wooden train set type thing. You purchase the track yourself and build the track in any form you want – it’s kinda cool, you can build any track you want.

Now, the saying goes that “Model trains are like boobs. They’re meant for children but sooner or later, grown men end up playing with them”, and I suppose that’s the case here. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t pushing the trains around making brum brum noises or anything, but I did, as I always do, take great pleasure in building the largest and most elaborate tracks that I can. I like beating my own previous creations in terms of size and complexity, and the bigger the track, the happier my nephew.

So as I was saying, I’m sat here right now, my nephew is intently playing with the track, so far we’ve had “train races”, and “train rescue”. I’ll be right back – I’ve got to tag along while he finds something to do elsewhere. Whatever he’s doing, it sounds noisy.

Right, normal operation has been resumed; he’s distracting himself with a playmobil fire engine and a big toy crane that I used to play with when I was a kid. All in all, it’s pretty relaxed. We’re both chilling out in the nice new room, him with his train, crane and fire engine, and me with my laptop and my camera.

The urge to play with toys doesn’t dissipate with age, it seems.

What else have I been up to? Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time duck shooting – that is, photographing the ducks. I’m really happy with four of the photos, so that’s good. I’ve put my little 50mm lens up for sale so that I can buy a more modern Autofocus version of the same lens, and I also intend to get an SB800; A very sparkly speedlight. It kinda surprised me when I had a look at one at my bro’s house. Turn the speedlight on and it powers on with the same high-voltage whine that defibrillators make. I had to resist the urge to shout “clear!” before triggering it.

I’m also looking at selling an engine from one of my old bikes. It’s worth maybe £250/£200, so with some luck, I’ll also be able to buy a Nikkor 18-200 VR lens. You know, the one actually designed for my camera. [Edit, 25th April - no you won't be able to buy that lens, it's over £400! You must have meant the 55-200 VR.]

But hey, my life is so interesting right now that I’ve run out of things to update you on, so I’m gonna carry on chilling out here, and will no doubt end up chasing my little nephew round until he tires out and goes to sleep.

See ya!

Any object, small or large, can be photographed subjectively, all you need...

Sorry, I was trying to come up with a witty title - my box of witty titles is getting rather empty these days. I was looking for inspiration in my new book. Yes, that's right, my book "ebay shots that sell" finally arrived! Yay! Or not.

See, Half of you when you read the title will think "Photos that sell! It's a book about how to sell photos" which plenty of people do on ebay. The other half of you will think "It's a book about photos that make selling products easier". Half B, you're thinking too deeply about things, lighten up.

What arrived was a very sparkly very nicely done book with well over 150 pages, dedicated to helping you get the best out of ebay, using your cameras to help you shift whatever it is you want to swap for money. Which was great.
Unfortunatley, what I ordered, or what I thought I'd ordered, was a book all about how to take the sorts of photos people find appealing, and how to sell those photos online for money. I was basically looking for advice on making money with my camera.

Which leads me semi neatly to my second subject of the night - the trip to the airport passed off perfectly. We got there around 8am, parked up and went out back to set up the kit. No sooner had we got out the back than out of nowhere, over 110 tons of Boeing 757 flew at 160mph more or less past my nose.

What followed was four hours of photographic heaven, these massive aircraft would fly over at maybe 500 feet or so, tops, so close you could see which windows had had their shutters pulled by sleepy passengers, and which ones hadn't. Aircraft landed literally every 2 minutes or so. Every now and again it would go quiet but only until the jet wake of aircraft taking off on the second runway scissored past us, shockwaves cutting the air in half, like invisible bullets shooting past us. Every now and again we'd hear a roar, louder than thunder, and watch as yet another massive aircraft climbed into the sky. I noticed that with one 747, despite the incredible size and weight of the thing, it climbed into the sky in a slow graceful manner, on a constant slope, giving us a view right down its back, almost daring gravity to try to pull it back down again.

I'd noticed that for the first two hours of us being there, there were no 747's. This surprised me, because we were at the UK's third busiest airport. When I asked though, my mate told me that there were no 747's yet because they only used the largest aircraft on the long haul flights, and the aircraft on those flights, typically from the US, hadn't had time to arrive yet.

Eventually though, my mate called me back from my wild photo taking spell, and pointed at something 10 miles out heading towards us. He told me that he could tell it was big, by the way the aircraft behind it was hanging back extra far, to avoid being caught in its wake. As it got closer, it became clear that there were four engines on this one, not two like the others. A 747!

So, I legged it down to the far end of the beer garden, almost at the airport boundary fence, set the camera to continuous high speed shooting and with a couple of bursts, took six or seven photos of this thing as it came over the trees, roaring past me with its flaps down, and touched down on the runway almost out of sight, but certainly not out of earshot. It passed me close enough to read the name on its fuselage; "Pretty Woman" (link is NOT my photo - I'm getting better, but I'm not that good yet!), and she definitley was.

In other news, I've bought myself a laptop, yes, a nice new (not new, first released in 2004) Toshiba Satellite A30. I've got it running okay now, got all the software I need, and some more memory on the way soon to cure its feets and starts. Not a bad asking price for it either, so that's worked out pretty well too. I can now view my photos as I take them, on a 15" screen.

Well, that's just about it, there's other stuff that's happened of course, but this is all about my life at the minute that I want to look on and remember, the rest I'd rather forget at this point, thankyou very much.

I'm going to leave you with some (some better than others) photos :). The first of which will of course, be "Pretty woman" - this is one of mine, in fact, all of them are, and I'm quite happy with them :).





















What's going on with this formatting? I'm not sure. They should let you put tables in or something.

But, before I go, have a look at my sparkly (it will be sparkly eventually) laptop :).














Bye! :)

More sparkliness

Okay, so a few things have happened since my last blog entry.

Pork rinds for one - last time I hadn't eaten any pork rinds, whereas now I've just eaten a packet of them. They were very yummy, but have left me feeling slightly ill. All that saturated fat.

My phone too, that's changed. The glass front of it has somehow been smashed, so I've had to order a new front (not as expensive as you'd think) to replace it. Which is fair enough, I like my phone, it's a nice slim handset and while other phones come in and go out of fashion, this one seems to have a timeless look about it, it's a design that never really becomes unfashionable.

I've also been throwing money at my photography, which devours it like a great big money devouring thing. One of my latest presents is my new lens. An old, but very very fast 50mm lens.
By "fast" I mean that the lens lets more light in over a given period of time, compared to other lenses. This means that the sensor doesn't have to be exposed to the light for as long, which means that exposures are much shorter. How "fast" is my lens? On a decent sunny day, it will happily allow me to take photos with exposures as short as one eight-thousandth of a second. This is fast enough to freeze the rotor blades of a helicopter in flight, fast enough to freeze aircraft propellers or car wheels.

I've also bought a rocket blower, in addition to something else that arrived only a couple of days ago.

As I mentioned in my birthday blog, you saw that my brother very kindly and thoughtfully bought me a lowepro micro trekker. a fantastic lil camera rucksack that allows me to take my camera gear here there and everywhere. However, my enthusiasm for photography has overtaken my available storage space, and it was only a couple of months before the microtrekker was not only full to capacity, but too small. This isn't a deficiency on the micro trekker's part - it was designed to be small, compact and easy to carry, and this it certainly is. But with a camera body with battery pack, six (at least seven before the end of the summer) lenses (count em folks!), two books, a rocket blower, and (by this time next month) a notebook computer and an SB800 speedlight, the little micro trekker found its capacity outmatched by the sheer amount of kit I own/want to own. Then there's the problem of carrying the tripod. A dead weight weighing nearly four kilos. While it's true that I could lash the tripod back to the micro trekker, it would be like carrying round a heavy and unbalanced letter P on my back.

So I went to 7dayshop and bought one of lowepro's largest models, the Compu Trekker AW. This much larger bag arrived a couple of days ago, and has vastly increased capacity. Not only is it designed to carry the tripod on its back, it's also capable of carrying a notebook computer and all the necessary cables. I've stuffed it full of all my camera related stuff and I'm still using only maybe 55% of the internal space of the bag. Plenty of room in there for lenses and a speedlight, and the tripod goes down the back of the bag without any problems at all. Ish.

Anyway, I've got to get all my stuff ready for tomorrow's photoshoot. That's right, tomorrow I'm going out with a mate, he's bringing his camera kit and I'm taking mine, and we're going to one of the local airports. There's a pub right next door to one of the taxiways, and the wings of the larger aircraft literally pass over your head while you're stood in the beer garden.

(56k warning, LARGE image!) View from the balcony of the pub, looking towards the beer garden. So we're taking our camera gear there, and want to get there nice and early so we catch all the international morning traffic (first time anyone's ever gone out with the intention of actually CATCHING the traffic eh?). Hopefully I should get some decent photos.

So now I've got an hour of cleaning all my gear, charging all my batteries etc etc.
Will post again soon, later! :)

Have some pictures. My computrekker all locked up and ready to go, and just how much free space there is inside :).

Drunk as a skunk...

Ever wanted to know what I did after many many alcoholic drinks?
It's not that interesting I'm afraid. Despite the fact that at this very moment I'm having trouble convincing my eyes that I do in fact own only one LCD display, despite the fact that I am convincing my brain that those sparkly 3d cinemas are old hat and my monitor isn't displaying two lines of text at the same time, I am managing to have a good time.
I am sitting watching many music videos which are invariably german in origin, singing alone where I can find the lyrics (i'm surprisingly good at singing german), and that's about it really.
No drunken rant, no political speech, nothing interesting i'm afraid, just me, drunk, and more boring than usual.
Have fun. I'd say I am, but it remains to be see until tomorrow, whether it was worth it.

So what else is on the cards?

Rammstein's normally taciturn and introvert guitarist, Richard Z Kruspe has formed his own band. This is definitley old news. But I don't care because frankly, anyone who keeps abreast of the news and current affairs has better things to do than to waste time on my random ramblings of shite. His band, Emigrate, seems (on the face of it [that means "after hearing one tune"]) to be fairly English oriented. There's something I like about this video, it kinda puts me in mind of Gary Numan.

Either way, if one fantastic band can turn into two fantastic bands, that's good, very good.

I'm off now, to drink more until I can think of something useful to say.

News Blackout... Or "Blackout News"...

Or even "cab elk no stu w" which the online anagram generator insists is proper English.

Yes, I'm sat here in my cold, dark and drafty room, in almost complete darkness. I'm not complaining though, I've got my hangover water, and my Admiral's Pie. So I'm in a generally good mood today.
Why am I sat in complete darkness? Well it's to do with this Earth Day thing. The general idea is that major cities around the world turn off all unneccessary electric lighting and equipment from 8pm-9pm local time. It's one of those symbolic gestures, though I daresay it should amount to a pretty cost saving for the cities as a whole.

I joined in, turning out my lights and all my electrical appliances (excluding the computer, obviously) not because I believe that humankind is going to singlehandedly destroy a four and a half billion year old planet, but because in general I approve of green technology, as long as it doesn't negatively affect me. This despite our (soon to be ex) government's policy of taxing anything not-green into oblivion, regardless of the fact that other much larger much more polluting countries have no pollution legislation or interest in energy efficiency whatsoever.
I've always seen our country's stance on climate change as being like the cat that stands in the bear's path while the lion sits idle, but nevertheless, I approve of symbolic gestures in general, so here I am, in the dark.

So what did I do today? Actually, and in a manner that's completely unlike me, I woke up at 4am, rolled over, went back to sleep, woke up at 07:40 and got out of bed. I left for work nice and early, taking the opportunity to have breakfast on the way to work, I relaxed when I got at work, had my cup of coffee and everything - it's been a pretty laid back and easy going kind of day. I worked. Well, I sat in my chair, mumbled and stared at my screen, so officially I worked, which when your boss isn't SUPER hot on facts and figures, is pretty much the same thing.

I came home to discover that one of my ebay presents has arrived - I got paid on wednesday so I went on a (random but inexpensive) spending spree, ordering a few little odds and sods that I kinda wanted. So what arrived today?
A lens reversing ring (ebay item). Yay, go me. Basically it's a piece of metal with a screw thread on one side, and an F mount on the other. It cost me four quid ($8 at current exchange rate). For a thin, lightweight and almost insubstantial piece of metal.
I felt kinda taken for a ride, until I actually put it on my camera and gave it a go.

Well, it definitley does the job. Wow. If only £4 could go as far as this little piece of kit in every job.

Just a little note to tell you all that I accidentally closed firefox while typing this - thank feck for automatic backups!

This thing has given my camera capabilities it didn't have before, it has essentially taken the place of a dedicated macro lens costing over a hundred times as much, and while a dedicated lens might produce better results, I don't have £400 to kinda spend on something I won't use that often.

But yeah, I came in from work, opened my package, and started playing around with the camera. Out come the gems collection, and hey, out come the photos. It's a decent piece of kit my camera as I say about 8 times a day. Light goes in one end and decent photos come out the other.

So here's my camera set up with the lens reversing ring - notice that you can hardly see the ring itself, but how all the lenses are the wrong way round on the camera. Notice how the huge lumbering hulk of a camera is focused on a tiny little jewel parked next to a ruler, the sole purpose of which is to highlight its tinyness.

I figured that for macro photography, the best subject was my gem collection. the little yellow thing in the photo is an 8mm citrine. Under the power of the lenses though, it became so easy to turn it into something spectacular.

Well, kinda spectacular, see, one of the bitches about lens reversers is that the lens has no connection to the camera, so there's no autofocus, there's no apeture control (at least not from the camera's point of view) in laymans terms, once you put a lens on the wrong way round on a camera, the camera can't help you - you're on your own and the photos you take, you take without help from the camera's focus or light sensors.

I took one photo as a kind of reference guide, just to show you how small these stones actually are. Here, you can see how tiny this stone is (Yes, the ruler is incredibly out of focus - one of the problems with macro photography is that when you're taking photos of really small things, you lose all of your depth of field - this basically means that it's impossible to get more than a tiny area in focus).

Once I'd got the practice in, I started playing around, got a few more gems arranged together and took a few photos until I came up with some good results.

This was the best I think. The largest stone is only 10mm across, the smallest only 4mm. Those lenses sure do a good job of capturing all the detail.

Well, now Im off to spend more time on my computer, and start my *holiday*. Okay, I spose I'd best explain.

CHAPTER TWO

I had to go to hospital on tuesday. Hmm where to start. The beginning I spose, the beginning is always a good place to start. Well skipping a load of random rubbish, I've got to go to hospital to have my jaw operated on, remember?

So we finally find this place. It's down a backstreet - sure this's the center of Britain's fifth biggest city so there are a lot of backstreets, but I was still kinda worried. The other buildings, as if in a cartoon, seemed to lean inwards at the top, the traffic was non existant...

I got in and handed in my paperwork and they sent me up the stairs - polished, tidy stairs reeking of the unique brand of "clean" that only hospitals (even our MRSA infested hospitals) contain, I worked my way to a waiting room - essentially a corridor that had been squared off with a couple of partitions that looked like they were in the process of being replaced, with a couple of desks and a few chairs shoved in there. No natural light, only the insipid yellowy green light of the hospital's corridor lights. Every now and again, we'd hear a rumble as the lift/elevator/whatever rumbled up past the floors.

I sat there for about twenty minutes, watching random people come in some go off into some bright doorway filled with natural light, in the manner of one leaving purgatory for heaven (I am not religious! It was a metaphor). Eventually my turn came and I was led out of this almost Harkonnen medical waiting room, past rows of clean sparkly dentist's chairs.

I sat opposite a consultant, an austere scary dude in his late forties or early fifties, who I expected to basically ask me in polite terms "what do you want, what are you doing here"
Actually it was a lot better than that, he explained that loads of people request sedatives when having dental operations (particularly ones that involve scalpels being taken to their gums and drills being taken to their jawbones!) so it's nothing to be ashamed of. Besides it's nothing i've not done before.
He tells me that "You won't be under general anaesthetic, you will be sedated. It's a needle in the back of your hand, and it doesn't put you to sleep, but it does make you feel like you've had eight or nine pints of lager". I spose my yooffull appearance must have convinced him this was a suitable comparison. At least I'm young to somebody.
Either way, you're given a nine-can reward for a needle in the hand? I'll have two. Maybe three.

I hope I don't come out of that place drunk.

anyway, he got me in the dentist's chair remarking "don't worry we're not going to do anything today".
Do I look worried? Well, probably yes, but still. Get off my case.

So I took tuesday off, chilled out, got home, chilled out more. Then I had to work four days in a row - which for me is a lot because i work four days a week - two on, one off, two on, two off.
So now I've booked a week off to get myself back to my normal lazy lifestyle. I've got a few more pressies to recieve from ebay, so I can't wait.

And as a final note, my mouse started working randomly today, seems the trouble is in the charging, not in the using. Maybe I can keep it afterall.

Dusty Spring...

And not a Field in sight.

Yes. In the past few days I've been suffering with problems with my camera. I'd discovered some spots on the images that I was taking, but they perplexed me. I noticed that they appeared on some photos but not others. They were definitley spots though and they were annoying the hell out of me.
I took the lens off (sticking the body cap on the camera) and cleaned it. I put it back on - spots still there.
I changed the lens with another one - spots still there.

So I took the lens off, locked the mirror up (so I could see the sensor) and had a look. There was a little dust on the sensor, but it didn't correspond to the dust on the images. I was stumped.

So in desperation, I resorted to doing what I normally do when things go wrong for me - I went off on one and had a go at everyone except the idiot responsible - me. This is a personality flaw of mine and one that I'm trying to remedy.

Anyway, I decided that the first thing to do was to have the sensor cleaned. I didn't want to do this myself though, because the sensor is a smooth shiny precise expensive piece of technology, and if you scratch it, you pay through the nose, ears, mouth and all other orifices to have it fixed. Nikon also advise against cleaning the sensor (beyond blowing dust off with a blower) yourself. The section on sensor cleaning in the manual basically says "Nikon strongly recommend that you do not attempt to clean the sensor yourself, if you do attempt to clean it, you will invalidate your warranty, default on your mortgage, and people will laugh and point at you in the street. Anyway, here's how to clean it". Fair enough, I'll get someone professional to clean it for me. But was dust the actual problem?

It can't hurt to take a blower to it to get the dust out I spose, at which point my mate pointed out that not only did Nikon charge him £90 per camera to clean out the dust from his camera, but it also took them 2 months to get the cameras back to him. (Note to Nikon: I have no proof, I'm just going on what I was told, so don't sue me please! PS: I love your cameras, can I have a free D3X? I promise to do a fair and accurate review?)

"Bugger that" I thought, I'll have a word with a couple of local places to see if they can help. I didn't pay [equivalent at current exchange rates] $1600USD for a camera just to not-be-able to use it for two months. So I sent an email to a local camera place who shall remain nameless:

To: [address witheld]
Subject: Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

Hi there. After buying myself a nice Nikon D200 as an expensive present, it

has taken me a grand total of six weeks to get dust on the sensor. I can't

blow the dust off, and as per the manual, I'm not really willing to attempt

to manually clean the sensor myself.

Is this a service you offer? If so, would you be able to clean the sensor at

the time, or would the camera need to go elsewhere?

Would you be able to give me any indication (if you are able to clean the

sensor for me) of the cost involved?

Many thanks!

Cool. Covered all the bases, which was good. They replied quickly too. I was rather impressed.

To: Squid
Subject: Re Nikon D200 Sensor Clean

We sell the kits you need to maintain the camera.

They cost £90.00 and include all bits to do the job.

Regards
Person.

Bollocks. Well they got back to me quickly, which was good. And that's about the only good thing about it. Obviously hadn't read past the first paragraph. Still everyone's only human, so I won't hold it against them, but I didn't have the heart to send an email back saying "listen you idiot, that's not what I asked", because I'm not that hostile a person. Well I am, but as you noticed, I keep the majority of my hostility to myself :). No, really.
Admittedly, my attempts to blow the dust off were confined to blowing hard into the camera (holding it reasonably far from me so as to not get spit in it - that WOULD be an embarrasing and expensive inconvenience) so like I say I'm going to buy a blower and see if I have any more luck with that. But why didn't the dust on the sensor correspond with the spots on the images?

My dad directed me to the aptly named cleaningdigitalcameras.com which gave lots of useful information that seemed to be a toned down version of Nikon's "If you break it you will die but this is how you do it" advice.

As I was reading, I was there with my camera taking reference photos - eventually taking a few photos of a white sheet of paper just so the dust would show up, which it did.
I noted that there were about 6 spots on the image.

All of a sudden, a thought occured to me.
I put the camera aside and took out a spare lens. I held the lens to my eye, holding it like a telescope, and adjusted the distance between the lens and my eye until I got a clear image.
And I knew.

Take a magnifying glass, look through it, adjust the distance between the magnifying glass and your eye, and you will know too.

The lens inverts the image and projects it upside down onto the image sensor! How stupid, how absolutely stupid of me not to realise! This is secondary school stuff that they teach to 12 year olds! The reason the dust doesn't correspond to the spots on the image is because the sensor takes an upside-down snapshot of what's in front of the lens! Up is down, left is right.
Some damn photographer I am, I sell my images (okay, image) online, but I forgot this basic, basic principle of photography!!!

I flipped the mirror up and had another look at the sensor - the dust corresponded exactly to the spots on the image.

CASE CLOSED.

Now all I need to do is go and get the dust out of there. I'll try this rocket blower first, they're supposed to be good. Ignore the "around" bit, that's just for liability reasons.

So.

What else have I been up to? Well, since my last blog, not much. I came home last night, had my chips as usual and then went to sleep. I woke up at 10PM. Rolled over, grunted and snorted in the manner of the half-asleep and next thing, it was 00:00am. So I got up, chilled out for a couple of hours, spent some time on the computer, read about a few movies, etc, war of the worlds, signs, poltergeist etc, then stuck the TV on and went back to bed.

What followed was a four hour long series of nightmares that literally involved me sitting upright in that manner people with nightmares do, and nearly cracking my head on the cupboards above my head. I mean the dreams were GOOD, but they were of BAD stuff. You know, like my response to really bad events and stuff.

I spose I played prey too much as well, because that featured in it too, kinda.

Sooo, my nephew's present is due to arrive tomorrow PM, at which point we can go and get it assembled, and maybe I can get back that £30 my sister owes me - seriously, I'm skint.
My nephew's coming over tomorrow which will be good, he came to see me tonight, the lil fella, and I was asleep most of the time :(.

Still, I'll do my best to make it up to the little guy.

Anyway, I'm off to drink vast quantities of beer, and go to bed at stupid o clock. Hope you all have a nice night, and a nice bank holiday weekend.

Very sparkly...

So, I'm sat here, chilling out in the new recreation room at work.
I have to say, for a company that used to have an astronomical turnover rate and very low morale, it's impressive. I'm sat on one of four new computers, with LCD monitors and mostly unfettered internet access, while across the room, my colleagues are either sat chatting round tables, watching the huge (easily 35"+) flatscreen tv on the wall, or playing on one of three Xbox 360's against the back wall.
There are sparkly chairs and cappucino machines, cool blue accent lighting, new carpets, striking blue/white walls, and decent first-floor/second floor (the floor above the floor on the ground) views out over the car park and the wildlife reserve, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is actually a pretty decent place to work.

Which is, I suppose, fairly subjective. Every job has its pros and cons, and I spose this is at the moment, the biggest pro the building has going for it. And while the rec-room is slowly increasing in popularity (it's a bit of a badly kept secret at the minute, no company wide newspoint mention or anything) work is proceeding on getting the rec room downstairs to a similar standard.

Which I suppose is important, because you have to bear in mind that as with any call center job, while you're sequestered inside your own secure office inside a secure building with a secure car park, you're also exposed to the madness that everyday people seem to suffer from, and choose to inflict on other people. My longest call today? Thirty four minutes. Thirty one minutes of which was the caller repeating themselves. I progressed right from "okay, well I'll get xyz to give you a call, thanks" to "I've got to go now" and then right up to "i'm going now" before cutting the caller off mid sentence, if only to save my own sanity - and her phone bill, which she spent 15 minutes complaining about.

Pets? I don't think I'll ever get one again. Not when they seem to cause people this amount of trouble.

So what else have I been up to? Well, I've recently had one of my photos accepted by fotolia, a photography agency that sells royalty-free images. The basic concept is that I take photos, upload them to fotolia, and if they're good enough to pass quality checking, they go up for sale. Money is divided in a 70%/30% split - them and me, respectively. Might not sound like a lot, but the more photos you have and the longer you're a member, the higher the cut you get.

There you go, please buy my photo.
There's serious money in online photo sales though, and the beauty of it is that as you expand your portfolio, your income increases, so unless a client site goes down, your income only ever goes up. Maybe one day in the distant future I won't need a job. Who knows.

Anyway, I'll write more tonight, I've got to be back on the phones in 7 minutes, so time to work my way to the office at the other end of the building. Hopefully the afternoon will be over as quickly as the morning was.

Have fun!

Grr, I hate HTML.

You will doubtless notice that the layout of the blog has screwed up.
This is because despite the fact that I am no good at HTML, I have got so sick of the blog taking up a narrow strip down the center third of my screen that I have tried to change the width of the overall blog, to get rid of the massive borders either side.

Obviously you can see the result, I'll fix it when I have more patience.

Special Review - Micansu T700 Tripod

Okay, so this time, I'm posting something a bit different. This is not a blog entry, it is in fact a review of my sparkly new camera tripod. If you're into photography, this may be of help. If not, you can skip this one, you won't have missed anything. Anyway, let's begin.

One thing I've noticed through researching on the internet, is that there's not a lot to be said about Micansu's T700 Tripod. That's not to say that people don't think highly of it, there's literally nothing out there about this tripod.

So today's entry, is a quick review of the tripod, which arrived this morning.

First Impressions:

The package from Micansu (actually vistarex) arrived well wrapped and securely packaged. The postage was reasonably quick, ordered on the sunday evening, arrived on the wednesday,
All documents enclosed.

The first thing that I noticed about the thing was the weight - over three kilos, this is a substantial tripod. Take the head out of the box (boxed seperatley) and you're left with a nice little (if somewhat... budget appearance) carrying bag. This will come in useful so you don't have to carry the thing around in your hands.

Feet:

The tripod comes with feet fitted, nodescript but substantial rounded plastic feet that will probably do the job, but don't inspire faith. Not to worry though, as it is also packaged with a bag of bits, that on closer inspection appeared to be a trio of spare feet - these are much more substantial and work in a ball-and-socket type arrangement to keep the feet level on the floor regardless of how rugged the surface is, By screwing the feet inwards, you expose the rather pointy metal spikes at the tips, designed to dig into soft surfaces and again, keep your camera expensive side up. They're a bit fiddly, but certainly look sturdy.

Legs:

The body of the tripod itself is made from extruded aluminium, and the top of the legs are covered in a rather nice foam sort of material, which means it's reasonably comfortable to drag around, and you won't burn/freeze your hands on the metal if you're shooting in hot/cold weather. You notice on your first glance how sturdy the tripod looks, even when it's fully extended, and this is a tall tripod, at over 70 inches fully extended, with center column in the lowest position. With the column in the highest position, the camera is some 7 and a half foot above the ground, which is more than high enough for even the tallest photographers (and actually feels a bit precarious when it's balancing up there. But the sturdiness of the tripod isn't compromised, and it's still rock steady. The legs are also adjustable independently, and while most budget tripods will have all three of the legs linked to the center column, with the T700 you can spread the legs out until they're almost horizontal, and each leg will lock into one of four positions - good for extra stability, I imagine,

Center Column:

Unlike my old tripod which used a rack and pinion type arrangement to raise and lower the center column (which had the advantage of being quickly and accurately adjustable, but which spun the control lever around at a frightening rate when you wanted to lower the camera again, frequently jamming it under the legs and potentially causing you to drop the entire kaboodle), the center column in this tripod is again, a simple triangular section of extruded aluminium. It's secure though, and adjustable simply by using a lock nut which presses a pressure plate against the column (so you won't damage it). Unscrew the nut, slide the column to the height you need, and tighten the nut again. Simple.
This tripod however is much more versatile than its rack and pinion cousins, and allows you to actually slide out the entire center column, and re mount it upside down, so that the head of the tripod is in between the legs, and the camera dangles down from the center of the tripod instead of perching on top of it. This allows you to get the camera millimeters above the floor, for more versatility, and is accomplished by removing the security plate at the bottom of the column - a little triangular plate mounted into the column with a press stud type thingie, designed to stop the center column (and your camera) crashing to the floor. Again, very secure, very sturdy. Both ends of the column have a standard screw thread (3/8) on the end, so that you could fit a head to either end. The end opposite the security plate however, has a substantial metal plate that the head could screw to, whereas the plate itself is just plastic. For this reason, I'm using the "top" end as the top.

The Head:

I purchased the tripod with the optional Pan and Tilt head, on the basis that it's less fiddly than the ball head, which is also an option when you're buying.
The head actually ships in four bits - the head, and the three knob/lever thingies that screw into it. Instructions were provided, and the head was assembled quickly and easily. It has several controls, the foremost being the three levers. One controls horizontal panning, one controls vertical tilting in the front-back direction, and one controls side to side tilt, allowing you to tip the camera on its side from 90° at the left extreme, and 30° at the right. The vast majority of (if not all) of battery grips on the market have the controls at the right hand side, so tilting the camera to the right gives you full access those secondary controls in what is a natural and convenient position for taking portrait photos.
Both the side-side tilt, and the side-side pan have little reference markers on them, so you can see how far you're panning/tilting your camera, in degrees.

The head also includes a quick release plate, for those times when you need to get the camera off/on the tripod and capture that quick shot. The quick release plate also includes a small but effective safety catch, so you don't accidentally lose the camera off the top of the thing.

Complaints:

The actual finishing is perhaps my only complaint about this tripod, and it's here that the T700 falls down a bit - just a bit, not a lot.
With the exception of the legs, which are finished in a black enamel/powder coat type finish, the majority of the exposed metal on the tripod is finished in an attractive dappled gunmetal finish. Unfortunatley, my tripod had evidently been knocked or caught by something, either at the factory or in transit, as in one area, a the finish was peeling off exposing bare metal underneath.

In addition, the reference markers on the head seem to be printed on some type of plasticard, and are stuck into place on the tripod - not a problem as this's how I'd expect them to be fitted, except on the side-side tilt reference marker, it's not been centered before being stuck on so it's a little off center. On this subject, as you may have noticed from earlier, there is no vertical tilt marker, and the side-side pan reference marker seems to have no corresponding reference point on the head itself. Also, with the head fitted, you will not actually be able to get the tripod in the little shoulder bag that it shipped in. Aftermarket bags are available, but it's irritating when you need to pay to replace something you already have. That said, you're not likely to lose the tripod out of the bag even with the head fitted, so it still serves its purpose.

My next complaint is that the factory didn't seem to spend any time cleaning the tripod up before shipping it out. Some parts of the tripod, particularly the head, were still covered in swarf from the machining process, and if you were to get that on your camera, it could cause a great deal of damage to the lenses, the lcd screen, or worse, the sensor inside the camera if it got in while you were changing lenses. In addition, the joints of the camera/head, all the bearing surfaces are liberally lubricated with grease. Good, because it makes everything run smoothly, bad because they used more than they needed to and you're at risk of getting it on your camera.

My final complaint is that the feet, which were thoughtfully supplied with the tripod, are actually no good at all. This is not because of any deficiency in their design, but simply that so far, I have tried everything except taking tools to the tripod to get the existing useless plastic feet off, and they are absolutely not budging. [Update: April 5th - I managed to get the old feet off the tripod - you have to push them off, not twist them off]

VERDICT:

FEATURES:
Weight: 7.5lb/3.4Kg.
Closed Length: 30 inches/76cm.
Max Length: 76 inches/196cm.
Quick release clips for easy leg adjustment.
Independently positionable legs adjustable to four positions.
Reversible center column with 3/8 Head mounting thread at each end.
Non slip self-levelling feet, with spikes for soft surfaces.
Quick release plate, with safety catch.
Head is adjustable for 360° Left/Right pan, 135°Up/Down tilt (approx), and 120° Left/Right tilt.
Spirit level indicator.
Supports up to 6Kg/13.22lb.

Pros:
Looks great!
Independantly positionable legs adjustable to four positions.
Self levelling feet with spikes.
Quick release plate with safety catch.
Extremely sturdy.
Maximum height is greater than any photographer would ever need.

Cons:
Sturdy construction means high weight.
Finish poor in some areas.
Factory installed feet will not come off, so can't fit self levelling feet.
No vertical tilt angle indicator.
Will not allow you to tilt the camera directly up at 90° to the horizontal - could be a problem when photographing the sky.

All in all, I am pleased with the tripod. It's extremely sturdy, very versatile. the head solidly locks the camera into position, while the quick release (and the safety catch that prevent its accidental use) is a boon to people that like to go quickly from mounted to hand-held photography. It is an attractive piece of kit, it looks the business too. While there are a few niggles with the overall finishing of the tripod, build quality seems reassuringly solid and you get a lot of versatility that you really don't expect at this price.
Most people have never heard of Micansu, which is a shame, as £70 will net you this tripod and your choice of head. For budding photographers who don't have the £250 most people like to spend on their tripods, this is a great alternative to the more expensive more established names. I am very happy with mine, and look forward to using it in future.
I'll happily recommend it to anyone.

Pictures (Linked to photobucket to be as 56k friendly as possible)

The tripod standing up, unextended
The tripod at its maximum height
Independently adjustable legs
The camera can be easily mounted on top of the tripod
It can also be easily mounted underneath, for macro shots etc
The finish is poor in places though
The adjustment guide on this one wasn't centered properly
Too much grease on the joints could cause problems

Fin.

Spam sandwich, please!

Okay, so, it's 11:04PM, the weather outside, well, the weather outside is trying its best to get inside. A lovely gazpacho of freezing rain, hail and sleet, all gently blended together with ferocious winds that drive it at high speed horizontally towards my window.

Which is fine, I'm in here nice and warm (though if the weather is like this in 24 hours time, I will be out running in it - eek!)

So, today I have been working (bloody hell, that snow, for that is what it is, is really coming down now!), or at least maintaining an appearance of working. Tomorrow I shall also be working, but thankfully I'm only on a 90 minute shift tomorrow. Work insisted I take the remainder of my holiday allocation, so I'm going in for only three times as long as it takes me to get there.

After work I came home to find the game I ordered - UFO Afterlight - has arrived (good skills, ebay seller person, I only ordered it 2 days ago). My tripod hasn't, which is a shame as I was rather hoping I'd have it by tomorrow, on account of the fact I'm supposed to be going out to the nature reserve again.

Not to worry, I spose I could always go on thursday.

So, what's with the title? As you probably noticed, I've been the target of some pointless spammer prick. Convinced that whatever product/service they are offering is so bad, so substandard, that no amount of advertising could ever sell whatever it is these mediocrity merchants are trying to peddle, they decide to skip the advertising altogether and trick people to their sites instead.
So you'll notice that to make a comment, you now have to fill out one of those image verification boxes (just type what it says on the screen folks), and wait for me to check your comment before it's added to the blog.
Not that I expect either of these changes will make any difference since I don't receive any comments at all these days - have all my readers deserted me?

So what else have I been up to? The highlight of my day is probably erm. 4am this morning.
I was asleep, I was warm, I was content.
I wasn't bored, I wasn't hungry or irritable. I'm all three now.
But, I've been busy with the camera again (in addition to cleaning every last speck of dust off every last piece of equipment, apart from the 8 or 9 specks of dust that are intently clinging to the low-pass filter inside my camera, which are not visible on the images I take, but are acutely visible to the naked eye - gonna have to get a shop to have a look at the filter if it becomes any worse), I've been playing around taking sparkly shots, and after about 10 minutes work, managed to get this photo, which I'm rather pleased with.

So yeah. This is today's official photo of the day. As for me, I'm going to fiddle around a bit longer with my computer, before disappearing off to bed. I won't go to the [nature] reserve tomorrow unless the weather improves considerably.
Not much point going with my [old] wonderfully springy and useless tripod, now is there.
I suspect I may have a small meal - glass of milk, maybe some fruit or whatever, and then an early night. I didn't have my siesta so I am pretty tired.

Take care, folks.

I need some support...

Yep, it's true.

Whenever I perch (or should that be salmon, yes, salmon is more exotic), whenever I salmon my camera on my current tripod, it's like the stupid thing can't hold its weight. I swivel the camera round on the tripod, lock it off, and the tripod just sinks under the camera's weight. Fair enough. It's a BIG camera, as you've seen.

So I've just ordered myself a new one. See, eBay were nice enough (very nice, I thought) to send me a letter through the post (as opposed to by carrier pigeon or whatever) basically saying "You're an ebay star because you spend lots of money with us. We like you, and to prove it, here's £10 off your next offer"

"Fantastic", I thought, too grateful to consider the fact that i've been a "yellow star" since I achieved 10 feedback about a year ago, and am now not only a "blue star" at 79 positive feedback (and no negative feedback! see, I told you I'm a nice guy!), but well on my way to being a Turquoise star (100+). But all that colour chart stuff aside, eBay basically sent me a nice colourful letter saying that I'm a nice guy, and giving me money off my next purchase. I like this :). They also gave me a card to put in my wallet, so that if anyone ever steals my wallet, they will also know I am an eBay star!

Anyway. The tripod. Okay, so it's a camera tripod. Big deal. Indulge me, while I try to get excited over an expensive three legged stick.
Well, on the plus side, it is very solid and looks very good. It's got a handy spirit level so I can make sure the camera is level before I start taking pictures, and it also has a "pan and tilt" head with lots of knobs and suchlike so it looks more technical and expensive to passers by.
Seriously though, it's a heavy (very heavy, 3.4 kilos) 71.5 inch tall tripod that will hold the camera rock steady, and allow me to take seriously steady photos with very very little blurring. This is good.
Even better, it also allows me to position the camera millimeters above the ground, so say, I can take pictures like this. Which is also good.

[NOT VERY RELEVANT AND NOT VERY INTERESTING BIT] In true "I've never heard of them before" fashion, my tripod is manufactured by a chinese/japanese company called Micansu, a fairly pleasant sounding eastern name. Said tripod is sold on behalf of Micansu by another company called "Smick Trading". And no one else. Odd, are these two in cahoots or something?
Actually, Micansu and Smick trading are both part of the same company with the incredibly western sounding name Vistarex.ltd, which rather un-exotically, is based in Laindon, near Basildon, in southern England.
Why am I telling you this? I don't know, but it's worth bearing in mind that plenty of other manufacturers do this as well. Belinea for example (the guys who make computer monitors) are actually part of Maxdata, while Matsui, the japanese TV manufacturer, is actually part of the Curry's/Dixon's (Now Curry's Digital, where I bought my camera, see how it all links!) group, and hasn't even been exported TO japan, much less produced there. Or as Wiki says, [EVEN LESS RELEVANT AND INTERESTING BIT] "Matsui is the brand name of a line of electrical items such as televisions, VCRs, and microwave ovens sold in the UK, introduced in the 1980s. It is an own brand of the DSG International plc retailer, and not an independent manufacturer. Buying a Matsui product is therefore akin to buying the supermarket brand.

Contrary to popular belief, the company is based in the UK. The Japanese-sounding name was chosen as a device for fooling customers into believing the goods were made in Japan, since common perception at the time was that electronics from the Far East were of higher quality than European counterparts. During the 1980s, many Matsui televisions were rebranded Ferguson sets made in the UK.

Since both Dixons and Currys are owned by the same DSG International plc group, some Matsui products are identical to Currys Saisho branded items."

So that's cleared that one up.
What else has been going on over here. Well, despite what the gentle, barely audible breeze filtering in through my open window is telling me, we are apparently due for incredibly severe weather in the next few hours. A huge weather front is due to meet an equally huge spring tide, and is apparently likely to result in a tPratchett esque farcial disaster of incredibly British proportions, you know, like an earthquake that doesn't knock anything over or a tornado that has just enough power to rearrange some cafegoer's chess pieces.
Despite my cynicism though, we are apparently due for a big one, and people everywhere are battening down. It's been quiet all night but it says that the storm front isn't due to reach us for another couple of hours yet, so maybe all hell will break loose, I don't know. Either way, I'm going to stay inside instead of practicing my new balancing-on-top-of-telegraph-poles style of yoga.
It was only tiredness that kept me from practicing this the night of the earthquake, I shudder (pun absolutely not intended. No seriously) to think what might have happened!

So what am I going to do now? I'm off to see whether Herr Ashen has posted any more videos. Then I might go downstairs and grab a burger or something like that. Once I've done that I might rearrange my ammo collection, if I have the patience, and later on I intend to learn how to play Texas Hold-em. If I find I have the required attention span, which I haven't, so far.

Anyway, what's to show this time. You can have a look at my sparkly new tripod if you're photographically inclined, and I also have a desktop wallpaper for you. It's not of anything in particular (It's my computer with the case off - I think it is pretty cool, could be better but hey, you want to see some of the absolute crap some people have as their desktop background).

Here










Right, now I'm off to buy some nice poker chips, maybe. I don't why, I always wanted some poker chips. The nice ones that clink, not the cheap plastic ones.

Take care, all, and I hope we don't get too much damage from the storm :).

And so things start moving again...

Yes indeed. After the success that was my nephew's birthday party, I've had a reasonably good week. I've finally managed to order his present which should come (late - yes, but we had arrangements to make) in the next week or two.

My Battery grip arrived today, and it makes the camera look huge, which is good. It's also quite handy to use.

I spose the most important thing I've done today is arrange to see one of the doctors at the hospital about my jaw operation. I then phoned the AFCO and told them that I can do ADSC as soon as the operation is completed.

So after a night of preparing for an early night and generally tidying the place up, I'm off out, for my first run in ages.

And hopefully this time, I can actually get as far as passing ADSC. I am beginning to really really really hate my crappy terrible horrible job.

Anyway, time for a run, then wind down with a shower, a drink of juice or something and some nice fruity porridge or something like that before I have an early night :).

UPDATE: 11:11PM

Well, I went out for my run, and once I got into my stride (ha haha etc) I actually pretty enjoyed it. I did have a brief moment where out of nowhere a massive huge dog started barking at me (on closer inspection it turned out to be an excitable labrador and his owner) and the rest of my run was pretty uneventful - easier than normal in fact. Certainly in comparison to the one I did at Strensall.

I came back, panting, groaning and snuffling, and dove into the shower, taking care not to brain myself on the hard ceramic tiles.
Okay so I actually hopped in, nearly falling over, and chilled out in the shower, before preparing my supper and coming up here to write this.

I now have a run-induced headache, and my throat hurts, I feel 40 years older, but hey, it was a good run, and now I'm, gonna have a good supper and a good sleep :).

Night.