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Cambridge Sciences G7: One week in

2011-11-10T18:04:00.000Z

It's now almost a week since I took delivery of my (finally working) Cambridge Sciences G7-II 7inch Android tablet so I thought I'd jot down some notes on how I've found it so far.

Overall, ignoring the "screen goes mental when plugged into the mains" problem, I'm happy with the device. I've been using it at those times when I've wanted something bigger and easier to handle that my HTC Desire HD but, at the same time, haven't wanted to pull out the Chromebook. It feels right in the hand (albeit somewhat heavy -- I can't imagine me ever using this instead of the Kindle as a ebook, for example) and, despite the fact that there's no feedback like I get on my phone, the screen is fine for typing on.

Overall, for the money, I'm happy with the purchase.

That said, here's a few niggles and observations:

The battery status seems to be way off. Even after a full charge it tends to only show 93% full. It then seems to fall very quickly then ease up a little. I often also find that when I turn it off and turn it on again the battery will come back as showing having a higher charge than when I turned it off. This then falls rapidly back to where it was when I turned it off. All that said, the battery status seems roughly right so I've yet to find myself caught out by a low battery I didn't expect.
Out of the box the auto-complete that's part of the keyboard doesn't appear to have a British English dictionary. Because of this the only auto-complete options you get when you're typing are things it can complete from the device's local data (application names, contact names, etc...). This is a bit of a serious issue but not one without a solution. Although it's essentially the same keyboard I installed Gingerbread Keyboard+ (which does have a British English dictionary) and have made that my keyboard instead. This is the keyboard I use on my phone anyway so not only does it solve the problem, it makes me feel more at home.
There seems to be a pre-installed copy of EF File Explorer that can't be updated from the Android market. Any time I try and update it I get an error saying it's incorrectly signed. Bit of a shame because I use EF File Explorer.
While I do appear to have and be connected to the UK Android Market with the tablet some apps seem to be missing. For example, the UK Amazon app (the one that lets you shop from Android) isn't anywhere to be seen. Same goes for the Box.net app.
While I haven't had any of the WiFi problems some have reported in the reviews on Amazon (I imagine those problems have more to do with their WiFi setup than a problem with the tablet) I have found that it can be a little temperamental at times. Now and again I've had to stop and start WiFi to coax it fully into life. I also note that, if the unit has fully turned off and I've then turned it on again, I have to manually start WiFi. Not a big deal.
From time to time it seems to fully power off after some time in sleep mode. I've not worked out if there's a reason for this, or if it can be changed. Neither does there seem to be a set time between being put into sleep mode and it turning itself fully off. This, again, makes for a mild annoyance because, most of the time, it means you can't just pick it up and do stuff -- there's a boot time you have to wait around for. While it's not terribly long (I've not timed it but I'd say around 60 seconds) it does mean it can take longer to get the tablet up and running than it can to get the Chromebook going.

And, so far, that's pretty much it. No show-stopper. Nothing that makes me hate it and want to send it back. It's not perfect, but then again it's around 1/2 the price of tablets that try to be.

Cambridge Sciences G7-II 7inch Android

2011-11-04T16:42:00.001Z

I've been a pretty avid fan of Android since the early(ish) days. My first experience of Android was 1.5 on my HTC Magic (later updated to 1.6). I've toyed with the idea, on and off, of getting a tablet running Android. The last time I gave this some serious thought I ended up buying a Chromebook (a fantastic decision, I hasten to add -- I should probably write up my experiences of that so far at some point).

A couple or so weeks back I got an email from Amazon in which they included a pointer to this tablet. The spec seemed good, multi-touch capacitive screen, Android 2.3, and proper market access too. The price seemed right so I finally cracked and ordered it. It turned up a couple of days later and ended up being a bit of a disaster.

The first thing I noticed was that the screen just wasn't working at all. I couldn't type a thing. It was like every time I touched the screen it was registering many different touches. Worse yet, after a short while of trying to get things going (I was initially trying to connect it to my WiFi -- pretty much impossible given that I couldn't type the password because of the screen problem), the home app force closed and didn't want to play ball. A subsequent restart of the tablet had it just sitting on the Android logo on startup and nothing more would happen.

I sent off a message, via Amazon, to the vendor and, all credit to them, I got a phone call from their support guy within about 10 minutes. Turns out that the screen problem is really a mains charger problem. With the charger in the screen has all sorts of touch-sensing problems, with the charger out it works fine (subsequent testing shows this to be the case).

Between us, over the phone, we were unable to revive the tablet to get it to boot again so it was decided that I'd send it back to be looked at or to be replaced. As it happened, it finally sprung back into life a little later but, once it did, it refused to connect to WiFi. In fact, it wasn't so much that it refused to connect to my WiFi APs, it didn't even know how to do WiFi. It was like it'd lost its drivers or something.

Anyway, as requested, I returned the unit.

The process of having it returned and seen to took a little longer than I'd have hoped. I sent it recorded/insured and with a guaranteeddelivery of before 13:00 the following day but it didn't get delivered. According to the Post Office website nobody was able to receive it. The same happened the following day. Finally, after the weekend (this was the Thursday and the Friday that delivery was attempted), it showed as having been delivered on the Monday.

A couple of messages back and forth with the vendor didn't really get me any clear answers as to what was going on but, finally, yesterday, I got a message to say that a brand new unit was being shipped to me and should be with me today.

Sure enough:

This time, so far, so good. It still has the "on the mains the screen doesn't sense touch correctly" problem, and I've sent the vendor a note about that, but other than that it's working well so far. It seems pretty snappy, and I've had no problem installing apps from the Google market (including those that I've previously purchased for my phone). I've not used it much so far, other than setting up WiFi, throwing on some apps, sorting the sync with my accounts and so on. Mostly I've left it to charge. I'll see how it goes this weekend now and possibly write a little more about it next week (or before if it all goes horribly wrong).

It's been a while

2011-07-29T12:01:00.004+01:00

Erm, yeah, erm, hello.... it's been a while hasn't it?

It's not that I've fallen off the net. Neither is it that I've given up on enjoying any of the subjects that this blog dealt with (mostly things to do with photography). Mostly I've let this blog lapse because things like twitter became so much bigger and it was easier to write about stuff there (albeit very short writing) than here.

A few things have gone on since I last blogged. I upgraded my dSLR (now using a 50D along with the 400D). I got myself a Polaroid and started playing with Impossible Project film. I finally got myself a rangefinder camera and had a play with that. I set myself up with a digital Holga setup, of sorts (it's the new use for the 400D). I've also found that my photography has slowed down. It's not that I've lost interest, far from it, but I have slowed down a little. Whereas I'd be shooting and uploading every week (to my main site, I still photoblog from the phone a fair bit), I might only do something once a month, or every other month.

The big change of late is that I got on to Google+. Oddly, having done so has made me think about writing and blogging again. Twitter was and is too seductive -- it's so easy to bang out something sub-140-chars and be done with it. Using Google+ has got me writing things out at a little more length again, and so made me wonder about this neglected blog.

I can't say I'll be posting here lots again, my Google+ stream will probably be the place where I wrote most. But I think it is about time that I look to using this for better-formatted bodies of text (along with images) and linking to it from twitter and G+.

Fingers crossed...

Fisheye and Flash

2010-02-11T20:10:00.002Z

After having some fun with the 38mm super-wide lens for my Diana+ I decided, late on last year, to also get the fisheye lens. So far I've not had the chance to use it but I aim to correct that pretty soon.

I mention this because, earlier this week, I took delivery of yet another extra for the Diana+: a flash. Here's the Diana+ with the fisheye lens and the flash attached:

The flash is rather clever. As well as working on the Diana+ (with it's two-prong connector) it comes with an adaptor for the usual hot shoe connection you find on many cameras. This means it'll work with my Lubitel 166B and, I imagine, my Holga 120GN. I'm also wondering if it'll work with any of my digital cameras too (no, I can't think of a reason why I'd want it to either — but it would look funny).

I'm looking forward to the chance to get to use the flash now.

seen by davep v1.2

2010-02-04T16:53:00.003Z

Back in October last year I used Blurb to produce a book based on the content of my photoblog. Having been very pleased with how it turned out I decided to do one every time the blog contained enough material. A couple of weeks back I had enough material to produce a second book. Here it is:

seen by davep ...

A geek and his mob...

By Dave Pearson

Book Preview

My copy is on order and should be with me in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to having a printed "collection" of the content of the blog.

White Horses by Juliet R. Harrison

2010-02-01T10:27:00.002Z

It started with this tweet from @ShutterBetty. You see that stuff all the time on twitter, of course. "Follow this", "retweet that", "use this hash tag" and... get some thing for free. Possibly. But probably not really.

But I took a look at the account in question, saw it was an account for a photographer, liked what I saw, and decided to follow anyway. And before I did I could see she had 1,000 followers. After I did the follow it went up to 1,001. I did find myself wondering "will this work then? what if someone else now unfollows? what if I look like I'm only #1,000, etc..."

I needn't have worried.

And, sure enough, less than two weeks later, this landed on my doormat:

So, I just wanted to say a big thank you to @lecheval. It was a very sweet thing to do, and I really am loving the book. I'm not really one for doing reviews, I generally don't have the words to describe books and people's art in that way, but this is currently in the pile of photography books that I look at on a regular basis.

If you'd like to have a look for yourself go visit the preview over on Blurb. If you really like what you see you can order a copy from here.

New Toy: 38mm Super-Wide Lens for the Diana+

2009-11-28T20:41:00.003Z

Yesterday I took delivery of a new toy from Lomography. Actually, two new toys, both connected to my Diana+. One of them was the 38mm super-wide lens:

It's a nice little package. Not only do you get the lens, you get a viewfinder (the black gadget you see fixed to the top of the camera) and a bag to keep it all in. The viewfinder is very handy because, as well as still allowing you to compose via the usual viewfinder, the super-wide one has brightlines for the "standard" lens too. This means that you can swap lenses without needing to pop the viewfinder on and off. I think that's a rather nice touch.

The other thing I purchased, more on a whim than with an actual need, was the Canon EOS Diana+ lens adaptor. Now I can use either of the Diana+ lenses I've got on my Canon EOS 400D.

I had hoped to test both toys today but the weather was pretty foul and the light was no good for a bit of messing about. Hopefully I'll get to try them some time soon. Obviously I'll blog about the results when I do.

First Test of the Diana+

2009-11-17T20:41:00.003Z

A couple or so weeks back I finally got the chance to put a roll of Fuji Provia 400X through my new Diana+. It's taken a while to get the images processed (strikes on the part of the Royal Mail partly got in the way, but I was also slow doing the processing at my end too) but I finally have the results up on my website:

Lomography Diana+ Test
I'm very please with the results. I've only published 11 images from the 12 shot, and the one that I've left out was my mistake. I'd attempted to use the Diana+ in its pinhole mode but took a wild guess at the exposure time and got it wrong. From what I could see the image looked from the point of view of how well the pinhole performed, but it was very over-exposed so I decided to leave it out. At some point soon I'll give the pinhole mode another try.

Vodafone push Android Donut to my HTC Magic

2009-10-20T20:35:00.004+01:00

I first saw it was heading my way last week and, sure enough, last night, Vodafone pushed Android Donut onto my HTC Magic.

I knew pretty much what to expect in terms of headline features, thanks to this video:

but there's a couple of other things that have changed that I really like.

First off, it seems that screen orientation changes are now much faster. Before, when I changed the orientation of the phone from portrait to landscape (or back) it would take a couple of seconds to sort itself now, now it seems to be a fraction of a second — almost to the point of feeling like an instant change.

Another change, again a speed thing, is that the camera feels much more responsive, and quicker to start up too (although I think the startup time as something to do with the above change). This is a good thing from my point of view given that I use the phone as the camera that populates my photoblog.

The new search facility is really nice in that, now, I don't need to bother with the search gadget on the home screen any more. Until now I had it on the middle part of the home screen taking up a fair amount of space (see right) but, with 1.6, the search tool comes up when you press the hardware search button so there's no need to use the gadget any more. That means I get four "cells" back on home. That's come in very handy.

So far I've only run into one problem after the 1.6 install. It seems that Google Search by Voice is now broken. Any time I try and run it I get a "force close" dialog (I know I'm not the only one too because there are plenty of comments in the Android Market reporting the same problem). That's kind of a shame because the new search facility searches contacts, amongst other things, so it would seem like the two together will work as a voice dial (in fact the video above suggests this too). Doubtless a new version of Search by Voice will turn up in the Android Market real soon.

First Google Wave Gadget: 5x5

2009-10-20T18:22:00.002+01:00

Last week I was lucky enough to get an invite to Google Wave (having signed up for an invite back in May when I first saw the Google I/O presentation video). Like most people, I imagine, I spent a couple of days getting to know it, finding contacts I know, waiting for the people I invited to turn up, and also playing around with some of the robots and gadgets that are currently available. By the weekend I was itching to do something about gadget development so I had a quick read of the development tutorial and started to play.

The first couple of gadgets were simply throw-away tests but I finally decided on something a little more "meaty" to try (still rather simple, but something more than just pure "Hello, World!" type testing). I decided to to a Wave-enabled version of my 5x5 puzzle.

The very first version was up and running in no time, but it wasn't terribly use as it didn't save and share state. Not to long later, however, I'd got my head around Wave's shared state system and I had a Wave Gadget version of 5x5 that multiple people could view and interact with.

Here's how it looks inside a Wave:

Nothing too clever, but one step along learning how to code for Wave.

If you're on Wave, and you fancy having a play, just use the add-gadget button and paste this URL into the dialog that pops up:

http://serenity.davep.org/5x5/5x5.xml

There's also a version hosted over on GitHub.

Note that I'm still tinkering with it and it could go wrong at any moment. If it does, don't worry, I'll be sure to fix it right away. And, if you want to ask me something about it, I'm davep.org over on Google Wave — feel free to Wave me.

New Toy: Lomography Diana+

2009-10-14T21:45:00.003+01:00

I tried to resist. Really, I did. But ever since I got my Holga 120GN there's been a part of me that's kept nagging the rest of me about looking at the Diana+. Just for kicks. Just for extra toy-camera fun.

Last week I cracked:

I just got a new delivery of Fuji Provia 400X so hopefully, in the next week or two, I'll get some time to take it out for a spin and shoot a test roll (sadly this generally means needing to wait for weekends now because weekdays are dark before I finish work).

I'll blog the results when I get them.

New site: www.seen-by.me.uk

2009-10-13T20:03:00.003+01:00

Back in May this year I finally cracked and joined the ranks of people who use "smart phones". For a while I was seriously thinking about going for an Apple iPhone (especially after seeing Elizabeth Gordon's early shots with CameraBag) but, in the end, I was tempted by Android and got myself a HTC Magic.

One of the first things I did after I got it, following the lead of Elizabeth Gordon and James Beston, was to get a posterous account. At first I used it as a place to post ad-hoc photos but, pretty soon, I started to treat it as a more (insert hand-waving here) "serious" photoblog.

It's been running for a few months now and I'm rather happy with the content. So much so that I've decided to let it have its own domain: www.seen-by.me.uk.

Also, recently, I finally cracked and won an ongoing battle I've been having with Blurb's Booksmart (the battle is all my own making — I just don't "get" that software) and made a book of the blog: seen by davep v1.1:

seen by davep ...

A geek and his mob...

By Dave Pearson

Book Preview

The content of the book starts a couple or so months into the blog (hence v1.1 rather than v1.0, there's technical reasons why v1.0 didn't get created first) and ends a couple of weeks ago. At some point I imagine I'll make v1.2. I currently have a copy of the book on order (I only really made it for myself anyway) and will post about it here when it finally turns up.

Recent Holga Photographs

2009-09-24T22:45:00.002+01:00

Recently I put another two rolls of Fuji Provia 400X through my Holga 120GN. They've both been processed and scanned (once again thanks to to my friendly Scottish landscape photographer for the scanning) and the results have been uploaded to my site:

Holga Near Billingborough

Holga on Stow Lane

Holga in Bourne Wood

Holga at Wheelgate Park

Second Outing With the Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens

2009-08-24T09:57:00.004+01:00

After my very quick test of my new fisheye conversion lens the other night, I was impatient to give it a better test. Last Saturday afternoon had great weather and great skies so I put the fisheye on my EOS 400D and took a walk up to Birthorpe and back.

Here is the result:

Fisheye to Birthorpe

New Toy: Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens

2009-08-20T10:55:00.004+01:00

Ever since I got to play with one back in the 1980s (using it on my Zenit 11), I've wanted a fisheye lens of my own. Trouble is, they're generally expensive, especially given the limited use they have.

And then, a couple or so weeks back, while browsing for something else on Amazon, I stumbled on the Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens:

It turned up yesterday and, last night, just as the sun was setting, I managed a very quick walk around the village to give it a quick try:

Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Test
My initial reaction is very favourable. There's very obvious fringing as you move away from the middle of the image (which I expected), but the sweet spot is very sharp and, overall, it's nice and easy to use.

Great little toy that will get more use.

Seen by Me -- An experiment with video slide shows

2009-08-10T17:10:00.005+01:00

For a long time now I've wanted to have a go at creating a video slide show. While I did have a quick dabble with Animoto a while back, and while it was fun, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

I've wanted to be able to take a piece of music, ideally an instrumental, and try and weave my images around it. To this end I've spent some time, over the months, looking for instrumental tracks that I love and which are also licenced in a way that would permit using them as the backing of such a video. That was the really important part, that I was legally permitted to use the music.

And then, last week, one of my favourite singer/songwriters released a couple of instrumental versions of her songs via her newsletter. She also said that anyone was permitted to use the music in other works as long as full and proper credit is given.

One of the tracks was the instrumental of I'm Yours. I *had* to do something with that. And so, last Saturday night, I fired up Windows Movie Maker and started having a dabble.

This is the result:

And please, if you like the music, go visit Marian's website and have a listen to her music. Better still, why not treat yourself to some of her music?

Even better, if you're looking for instrumental tracks that are licenced in a way that let's you use them while passing on the news, why not join her mailing list and keep up with what she's doing?

PS: If you didn't click through to the original song, and you're done watching the video, have a listen to the original here:

<a href="http://mariancall.bandcamp.com/track/im-yours">I'm Yours by Marian Call</a>

First Roll From the Zero Image 2000

2009-07-08T18:20:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I finished uploading the results of the first film through my Zero Image 2000. I'm very impressed with what I've got out of it on a first go.

Another film out of the Holga

2009-06-25T17:07:00.004+01:00

Thanks to the processing and scanning skills of my friendly Scottish landscape photographer I have the results of the most recent film from my Holga 120GN online:

Soon It Will Be Clear

If I Know One Thing

Flat Bed

Holga South of Birthorpe

Holga in Grantham - 2009-06-06
That was another roll of Ilford HP+ 400 and, once again, I'm very happy with the results. I think I'm probably more keen on sticking with Fuji Provia 400X in the future, mainly because I feel, for some unknown reason, that colour does the Holga more justice.

All Set With the Zero Image 2000

2009-06-18T16:07:00.002+01:00

The postie came today, carrying a parcel from 7DayShop:

The main thing being that I've now got some film to use with my Zero Image 2000 so I'm all set for when I've got the time (and the weather is playing ball).

And, as you can see, I found a dinky little case and a nice soft bag to keep it in when I'm wandering about, or when it's in storage waiting for its next outing.

Hopefully the first outing will be real soon.

New Toy: Zero Image 2000

2009-06-10T18:17:00.005+01:00

Today I took delivery of a new photographic toy. A Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera:

I've been considering a pinhole camera for a while and I'd decided that, given that I already own a couple of medium-format film cameras anyway, a medium-format pinhole was the obvious choice.

I probably won't get to use it for at least a week as I've only just ordered some film for it. I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

Holga in Sleaford and Grantham

2009-06-10T09:42:00.003+01:00

Last night I finished processing and uploading images from the latest roll of film through my Holga 120GN. The photographs were taken around Sleaford and Grantham:

Holga Around The Hub

Off Carre Street

No More DIY

Holga in Grantham
Once again I'm really pleased with the results. The Holga really is a great little camera and all kinds of fun to use. The more I use it the more I'm glad I cracked and got one.

And, as always, thanks to go my friendly Scottish landscape photographer for the processing and scanning.

Second Roll of Colour Images From the Holga

2009-05-26T23:03:00.003+01:00

Following on from yesterday's set of images, I've now finished processing and uploading the results from the second roll of Fuji Provia 400X through the Holga 120GN:

Orange Swing

Holga Sunsets

Folkingham Road

Breakthrough

Somewhere Near Birthorpe
Overall I'm please with the results from both rolls of 400X. I'll be using it, and the Holga, some more at some point soon.

First Colour Images From the Holga 120GN

2009-05-25T15:22:00.002+01:00

I've just finished processing and uploading images taken on the first roll of Fuji Provia 400X that I've put through the Holga 120GN. On the whole the results are okay. Some of the shots were a little over-exposed (I've "rescued" them with a little extreme and "Holgaesque" post-processing) but that's to be expected if you head out in bright sunlight with ISO 400 film (even at f/13). Those with a keen eye will note that there's only 11 images in the sets that follow rather than 12. One of them is a family photo so doesn't go on the site.

Morning Walk In Bourne

Wildcards

Oseby Lane

Industrial Landscape

Overwhelming

Find Another Use

Objects In Space

2009-05-21T17:29:00.003+01:00

A little departure from the norm for me. A set of photographs, but not taken with any of my cameras. I decided to start a series of still life images using my ageing flatbed scanner as the camera. The result is Objects In Space.

Sunset Walk Last Night

2009-05-07T17:33:00.006+01:00

Last night I took the EOS 400D and the Holga 120GN out for a walk up the road to Birthorpe and back. Along the way I managed to capture some fairly dramatic skies. You can see the 400D results over here — you'll have to wait for the Holga results, obviously. :-)

Holga at Belton House

2009-04-27T14:52:00.002+01:00

I mentioned last week that, while shooting around Belton House the other weekend, I'd also taken along my Holga 120GN.

One trip to my friendly Scottish landscape photographer later and I have Holga at Belton House.

Feature in the Grantham Journal

2009-04-24T11:36:00.003+01:00

It started a week or two ago. Over on twitter I saw Elizabeth Gordon reply to something written by Kevin Day about how he was going to have an article about his photography in his local paper. I added Kevin to my follow list and, later on, caught the pointer to a photograph of the article.

I got to thinking that this was a good idea — local newspapers doing features on local photographers and/or artists in general — and half seriously mentioned it to @GranthamJournal. I got a reply of "yes" (which surprised and delighted me) and "let's do you first" (which surprised and horrified me, in a good way).

Fast forward to today and this is what I find in the paper:

I'm a little freaked to see a photo of me there, and I think I'd have picked a different selection of images if I'd known that they were all going to be reproduced in black and white but, overall, it's a great article, Bob's written some good text to go with it.

It's the first time I've ever had my work shown off like this. While I've had photographs in magazines before (mostly astronomy magazines) this is the first time I've had my general work shown off. It's kind of nice. :-)

Now I'm looking forward to seeing who else is going to be featured in the series.

Recent Photographs

2009-04-21T17:41:00.005+01:00

Some photography happened this last weekend. First off, on Saturday, I found myself sat waiting in a car park in Grantham and I had my PowerShot G9 with me so more shots for my Life in a Car Park series happened:

Life in a Car Park #3
On Sunday the weather was really nice so some time was spent in the grounds of Belton House:

Belton House - 2009-04-19
While I Belton I also ran off a roll of Ilford HP5+ 400 in my Holga 120GN. Hopefully I'll get that processed in the next couple or so weeks.

When we got back home I noticed that the blossom on the pear tree in our garden had gone crazy. That was crying out for a shot with my Lensbaby Muse:

Lensbaby Blossom
Finally, later in the afternoon, I decided to take a walk up to Horbling. Partly because I'd not taken any photographs there, but also because I wanted to go find some more shots for the Evidence theme that I'm also toying with at the moment.

Horbling

Recent Photographs

2009-04-15T14:05:00.002+01:00

Last weekend was a long weekend here in the UK and, as normally happens on a bank holiday weekend, the weather was pretty awful (yes, mostly sunny week with rain most of the weekend). However, despite the lousy weather, I did manage to get some photography done:

Three Views of a Structure

Unsettled

Uncomfortable

Disturbance

Chasing the Fleeting

CRT Assemblage #5

First Roll From the Holga 120GN

2009-04-09T17:15:00.002+01:00

I've just uploaded the results of the first roll of film put through my Holga 120GN. The shooting of the roll was a bit of a rush job, done in about ½ hour, just so I could test that the camera was working well. It appears that it is, and I'm really impressed with the results. I'm especially fond of these two:

There's no question that I'll be putting more film through this.

Another Walk With my Lensbaby

2009-04-07T10:50:00.002+01:00

Last Sunday was a nice spring day so I took a walk up to the village of Birthorpe and back. I took along my Powershot G9 and my EOS 400D with the Lensbaby Muse attached.

The results can be seen here: Birthorpe and Back Again.

New Toy: Holga 120GN

2009-03-30T13:46:00.002+01:00

Ever since I got my Lubitel 166B this has pretty much been inevitable. It's taken some time, I've managed to resist for quite some time but, last Monday, I cracked and finally placed an order.

I now own a Holga:

A Holga 120GN to be precise.

You can pretty much blame it all on Tom Gooding. Last Christmas he got a 120N and I happened to ask him where he'd got it from. He pointed me at Holga Magic. They looked pretty good, had good prices and, given that someone I knew had used them without bother, they also now had good "word of mouth" too.

So I bookmarked them and managed to hold off until last Monday when I finally cracked.

The service from Holga Magic was excellent. Shipped without 2 days of placing the order and arrived a week after I'd placed the order.

Now to find the time to go out and have a play...

Another Set of Lubitel 166B Photographs

2009-03-19T21:04:00.004Z

I just recently finished another roll of Fuji Provia 100F in my Lubitel 166B and, once again, thanks to my friendly Scottish landscape photographer I now have the results.

The first set of images were taken while observing at Woodland Waters. They are a set of three star trails (the first trails I've done on colour film with the Lubitel):
Lubitel Star Trails - 2008-11-22

The second set of images were taken around Sleaford at the same time that I was shooting with my Lensbaby Muse:

Lubitel in Sleaford

The final set of images was shot around Billingborough:

Lubitel in Billingborough

More Lensbaby Muse Shots

2009-03-02T23:28:00.005Z

Yesterday afternoon I wandered down the the local park with the Lensbaby Muse back on the EOS 400D. The result is Billingborough Park - 2009-03-01.

Billingborough Snow

2009-02-05T16:29:00.003Z

We've had a fair bit of snow this week, something that's pretty rare in this part of the UK. So, today, I couldn't resist heading out with the camera to take some shots when the snow let up: Billingborough Snow.

Why I Like Twitter

2009-02-02T16:25:00.003Z

Today is a good example of why I like twitter:

Lensbaby Muse Case

2009-02-01T21:38:00.002Z

I've been getting on pretty well with my Lensbaby Muse, so well that I've actually made a point of taking it off the 400D for now to stop me shooting everything with it (really, I'm not kidding).

Having done this, I got to thinking: generally, when I go out to shoot, I tend to pick a lens and stick with it for the day. On the whole this works well and the fact that I do this is reflected in the fact that I don't actually have any lens cases for any of my lenses. The Lensbaby sort of throws this idea out though. It's the sort of lens that doesn't work for every shot but it's also the sort of lens you want to hand for those shots you see that cry out for the Lensbaby treatment.

So I decided to get a case for it. Turns out the Muse has a case available for it and so I ordered one last week and it turned up last Saturday. I'm very impressed with it too. I was expecting something "squishy" but it's actually very rigid. It feels like you could drive over it and it would survive (I'm not suggesting you could, I'm just saying it feels like it — if you want to try that then all the usual disclaimers apply ;-)). Even better, it's not much bigger than the lens itself and, because of this, it means the whole thing easily fits into a (large) coat pocket — very handy!

And, as a bonus, it's a perfect snug fit for the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

Sleaford - 2009-01-24

2009-01-24T23:58:00.002Z

Today I took a short walk around Sleaford, taking my EOS 400D and Lomo Lubitel 166B with me.

It will, obviously, be a while before I have scans of the shots I took with the 166B (there's still some frames to be used on the film), but I have uploaded the photos I took with the 400D:

Sleaford - 2009-01-24

You'll note that they're all shot with the Lensbaby Muse. I've actually made a point of taking it off the camera now and putting it away for a while — it was starting to get a little too addictive. ;-)

A weekend with the new Lensbaby

2009-01-19T10:56:00.003Z

As I'd hoped, I managed to get out with the Lensbaby this last weekend, and even managed it a couple of times. First off, on Saturday, I managed a quick walk around Billingborough which resulted in this set of photographs: Winter Walk - 2009-01-17.

Then, on Sunday, I took a walk out to Birthorpe and back, the result being this set of photographs: Birthorpe and Back.

So far, I'm still having fun with it and I'm very happy with the purchase. There's little doubt that it can be frustrating at times. Often shooting with it can be a bit hit-and-miss. But there's no question that it's a lot of fun and a very different approach to doing things. It also slows you down, which is no bad thing.

Lensbaby Muse Test

2009-01-14T16:17:00.003Z

Today I managed to get the Lensbaby Muse onto my EOS 400D and take a few test shots to try it out and try and get used to it.

It took a little bit of getting used to at first, and I was sort of surprised at how it puts a fair bit of strain on your fingers when you're trying to get, then hold, the focus (I'm sure I won't notice this once I really get into using it). But, overall, I had loads of fun with it and can't wait to play with it some more.

So, anyway, here's my Lensbaby Muse Test. All the shots were taken with the double glass optic and the f/4.0 aperture disk.

New Toy: Lensbaby Muse

2009-01-13T09:46:00.005Z

I've been on and off the idea for some time now but, last week, using some Christmas money that turned up after Christmas, I decided to treat myself to a Lensbaby Muse. After a bit of looking around I decided to order from Bristol Cameras (I'm happy to report that the whole process of ordering to delivery was fast and without any fuss or bother — I'd use them again).

So, here it is, in its little box:

All being well, this weekend, I might even get the chance to get it out of the box and give it a try (that's one of the annoying things about winter in the UK, by the time I get home from work it's dark and I think this sort of lens is best first tested in daylight, less to worry about then).

Update: I managed to do a quick test the following day.

The one I got is the Canon fit (this will be used on my EOS 400D, obviously) with the double glass optic (see the optic comparison gallery for examples of the different optics and the effects they give).

Poladroid

2009-01-12T17:33:00.003Z

A few weeks back I ran into Poladroid. The idea sounded like fun, and possibly even handy at times: take an image and make it look a little like (what most people think of as) a Polaroid. Sadly (for me), the software was only available for the Mac, but I did notice that a Windows version was coming soon (I run Windows and GNU/Linux here).

Checking today I noticed that the Windows version was finally available, so I had to have a quick play:

This might be fun for some images.

Trying Tumblr

2008-12-21T22:25:00.004Z

My friendly Scottish Landscape photographer mentioned to me the other day that he'd been having a play with Tumblr. As normally happens when one of us tries something out, the other has to go have a play too. So, in no time, I created my own Tumblr account.

I've decided to use it as somewhere to "showcase" some of my photographs. Think of it as a mini-blog of personal favourites.

The nice thing about messing with this is that it gave me another reason to make use of the ruby library I wrote a while back for querying my published photographs. Tumblr has a simple API for writing entries so it made sense to write a little command line tool that would post a photograph to the blog. All the command does is it takes the filename of a photograph on the command line, finds it amongst the collection of published photographs, and then publishes an entry for it using nothing more than this code:

Net::HTTP.post_form( URI.parse( BASE_URL ),
                     {
                       "email"             => EMAIL,
                       "password"          => PASSWORD,
                       "type"              => "photo",
                       "source"            => image.jpeg_url,
                       "caption"           => caption( image ),
                       "click-through-url" => image.url,
                       "tags"              => image.tags.join( ',' ),
                       "generator"         => "org.davep.tumblphoto"
                     } )

Nice! :-)

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II: Quick Test Shoot

2008-12-15T14:37:00.003Z

A little earlier on today I needed to pop to the shop. Despite the fact that it's a pretty dark and dank day I thought I'd quickly take the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II for a spin. I came back with the following shots:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Has Arrived

2008-12-15T09:43:00.001Z

Last Saturday the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II that I ordered a few days back arrived.

I've not had the chance to give it a proper test shoot yet, just a handful of family shots around the house but, so far, I'm impressed. All being well I'll give it a go some time this week and publish the results.

Fixing a Stuck/Hot Pixel on a Canon EOS 400D

2008-12-13T21:55:00.005Z

This evening I was processing some photographs I'd taken with my Canon EOS 400D earlier today and, while doing so, I noticed for the first time that it appeared to have a rather prominent red stuck pixel. I looked back through some of my earlier (although still pretty recent) photographs and could see it there too, although it did appear to be fainter.

Assuming that it was just "one of those things" (it's not like it's something that isn't easily fixed in Photoshop) I didn't think too much of it for a while but then I got curious and did a little bit of searching on Google. In doing so I found this page. Given that there was nothing to lose I decided to give it a go. Here's what I did:

In the menu I turned on JPEG+RAW shooting.
With a lens on, and with the lens cap on, I took a 10 second exposure.
I then went back into the menu and, still with the lens on, I did a manual sensor clean for around 10 seconds (turning the camera off to finish the operation).
I turned the camera back on and, once again, with the lens cap on I took a 10 second exposure.

After doing all of the above I downloaded the images to my machine and had a look. Sure enough the stuck pixel I'd seen showed up really well on the first image. Here's an image of it, on the left is a 100% crop of it and on the right is a blown up version of it:

I also found a couple of blue stuck pixels too. However, on the image I took after I'd performed the manual sensor clean, there was no evidence of the stuck pixel. I have no idea how or why this works but it appears that it does make a difference.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens

2008-12-11T09:37:00.003Z

I've finally done it.

Almost a year after I last went shopping for a lens I've gone shopping for another. That last time it was a choice between the Tamron AF 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 Di II LD and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II and, in the end, the Tamron won (mainly because it extended my focal length range rather than double it up as the 50mm would have when compared to the 400D's kit lens). This time I've decided that the 50mm is just too nice a lens, at too good a price, to ignore.

Hopefully it'll turn up in the next couple of days and I'll be able to have a play and post some results.

Google Friend Connect

2008-12-09T11:39:00.003Z

This morning, during my first "coffee in the office", I was reading my various RSS feeds and found this item on the Google Blog. Thinking that it sounded kind of interesting I went and had a look and realised that it would be dead simple to implement on my photography pages.

With less than an hour's work (a lot less really, it took longer to set the colours than it did to sort out the code on my site) I had a social networking, rating and commenting system added to my site. The only minor issue that slowed me down a little was the fact that the rate/comment gadget, when set to "per page" scope, doesn't appear to take URL parameters into account when deciding that something is a "page" (in my case this meant that a comment left on one photograph was left on every photograph on my site). Because of that I had to switch to the ID scope system and add a little bit of PHP to generate a unique ID per page.

See here for my main photography membership page and here for an example of a page with the ability to rate and comment.

Lincoln Light

2008-12-08T09:19:00.003Z

Yesterday afternoon I was in Lincoln and, as normally happens when I head into town, I had my Canon PowerShot G9 with me. During a wander around the city the low winter sunlight was too hard to resist, hence Lincoln Light.

Self Portrait - 2008-11-29

2008-12-01T09:32:00.002Z

Last Saturday night I wandered out into the garden and had a sudden urge to do something with the light on our house wall. This is what happened:

November Walk

2008-11-17T14:29:00.002Z

It's been a while since I did any photography around Billingborough but, yesterday afternoon, not too long before sunset, I went for a short walk and took the EOS 400D with me.

Despite the very low light levels I managed to get some shots for a small set: November Walk.

RedBubble Find: Eeyore's Boat by PigleT

2008-11-07T10:51:00.002Z

Eeyore's Boat by PigleT

RedBubble Find: Urban Flower by srinivas

2008-10-17T11:11:00.003+01:00

I guess the main reason I really like this shot is that it reminds me so much of my photograph Communication.

Urban Flower by srinivas

RedBubble Art Manager for Windows v1.7.0.0 Released

2008-10-13T10:12:00.003+01:00

I've just uploaded a new version of my RedBubble art manager application (this is v1.7.0.0). You can get it from here.

This release makes a change to the work promotion dialog that lets you specify where you want the promotion code to link to. Before it would only link to the normal view page for a work. Now, as an option, you can link directly to the purchase page for the work:

The difference is as follows. If you click on the following image you'll get the normal view page:

whereas with the promotion code set to link to the buy page, you'll get this:

Before anyone asks: no, sorry, I can't have it so that you can specify exactly which product is linked to when going to the buy page.

RedBubble Find: Escaping Reality by Geraldine Lefoe

2008-10-01T13:30:00.002+01:00

Escaping Reality by Geraldine Lefoe

Calendar: Landscapes

2008-09-28T14:21:00.003+01:00

My third RedBubble calendar. This time based around some of my landscapes:

RedBubble Find: The Humble Humber by Paul Hutchings

2008-09-25T23:21:00.003+01:00

The Humble Humber by Paul Hutchings

Calendar: Against the Sky

2008-09-24T22:17:00.002+01:00

My second RedBubble calendar. This time based on my Against the Sky series of photographs:

RedBubble Find: Holy smoke by Anthony Begovic

2008-09-24T17:45:00.001+01:00

Holy smoke by Anthony Begovic

RedBubble Find: Disconnected by Adriana Glackin

2008-09-22T16:10:00.002+01:00

Disconnected by Adriana Glackin

Lubitel at Belton House

2008-09-20T21:28:00.003+01:00

One last set of photographs from my recently developed film from by Lubitel.

This time it's four images taken during a recent visit to Belton House:

Lubitel in Norfolk

2008-09-20T21:01:00.002+01:00

Some more images from my recently developed film from by Lubitel. This time three shots taken during my holiday in Norfolk:

Lubitel at Rutland Water

2008-09-20T16:08:00.002+01:00

During a recent trip to Rutland Water I took along my Lubitel 166B as well as my EOS 400D.

Last week my friendly Scottish Landscape Photographer was kind enough to process and scan the film for me and I've started to process the results. Here are the images I took while on the trip mentioned above:

Calendar: Black and White Photography

2008-09-18T10:36:00.004+01:00

Now that RedBubble have calendars available to the public I've decided to make one available: Black and White Photography by Dave Pearson.

RedBubble Find: Sidewalk Love by Michael Douglass

2008-09-17T09:39:00.002+01:00

Your immediate thought might be that the space should be in front of the woman, not behind. But look closer at the window...

Sidewalk Love by Michael Douglass.

Four Views of Belton House

2008-09-14T22:03:00.002+01:00

This afternoon we went for a wander around the grounds of Belton House. As always, I had my camera with me:

Books

2008-09-12T10:28:00.003+01:00

Last night I was messing about with books and my camera:

RedBubble Find: Ullswater Shoreline by Mike Finley

2008-09-09T16:58:00.003+01:00

Ullswater Shoreline by Mike Finley

CoolIris with RedBubble's Featured Works

2008-08-29T21:42:00.002+01:00

Having started playing with CoolIris yesterday and having had some success, and with the thread that started this all off in the first place in mind, I thought it might be fun to mock up how things might look if RedBubble provided a feed that CoolIris could use.

So, I fired up GNU emacs and knocked out a quick and dirty variation on getrbart that created a "Media RSS" feed for the first 10 pages of the featured pages. The result looks like this:

If you have Cooliris installed in your browser you can see what the result looks like by visiting this page and kicking off CoolIris.

Thanks go to Bobbie for helping to test it.

Rutland Water South Shore

2008-08-29T12:53:00.003+01:00

The final set of photographs from last week. After spending most of the day messing about on the water we took a drive round to the south shore of Rutland Water and, while I was there, I took a small set of photographs:

South Shore Rocks

South Shore

Tower

CoolIris with www.davep.org

2008-08-28T23:10:00.003+01:00

Having previously added CoolIris support to my RedBubble wrapper site I decided to go ahead and add it to my main photography site. Because of the way things work over there it took a little more effort but, now, I've got it working:

For those interested in the technical details: I obviously didn't want to create one honking great RSS feed of every photograph on my site, that'd be far too much data moving around all in one go. Thankfully the advanced developer documentation (note: no direct link to the documentation in question — fancy JS tricks are fun for some things but for documentation? Meh!) points out that a feed file can have next and previous links so I could create a feed for each individual album and they could all point to the previous or next albums.

The nice thing about this is when you're viewing an album and you hit the CoolIris button in your toolbar you're taken to the part of the wall that's displaying those images. Then, as you move about, the wall grows in the direction you're moving in, following those previous and next links.

I'm now toying with the idea of adding a MediaRSS feed generator tool to RBArtMan. Extra (X)HTML hacking would be needed to make it all work on people's own sites but it would mean that most of the grunt work would be done for them. I'm not making any promises, it's all down to available time.

Rutland Watersports

2008-08-28T20:44:00.002+01:00

Last Friday, the day after getting back from camping in Norfolk, we all headed out to Rutland Water with some kayaks and spent a large part of the day messing about on the reservoir.

Before I got wet I took some photographs around the shore: Rutland Watersports.

Messing with CoolIris

2008-08-28T12:21:00.002+01:00

I've been meaning to have a play with CoolIris (previously known as PicLens) for a while now and this thread over in the RedBubble forums prompted me to have a look (mostly because there was a link to the developer information — how could I resist?).

I had a quick read of the information and managed to quickly add the required feed to my Photography by Dave Pearson site (the one I created a short while back as a way of using my RedBubble art list exporting tool). I installed the extension into my copy of Firefox and right away I had a funky 3D wall of my photography on RedBubble.

Nice.

I then did a little more reading and had a quick play with the "Lite" version of CoolIris. This is more or less a in-browser slideshow tool. That took a little more work (it didn't want to auto-discover the feed so I had to tell it where to look using the feedUrl option) but, soon enough, I had that working too. So far I've tested it in Safari and Opera (on Windows) and it seems to work fine. To see it in action, in a browser that doesn't have the CoolIris software installed, just click on the "Slideshow" option in the menu of my site.

I might have to have a look at adding this sort of feed to my other sites.

Normal for Norfolk

2008-08-27T16:36:00.004+01:00

I went camping in Norfolk for a few days last week and, as you'd imagine, I took the cameras along. I've now finished processing the shots and uploading the various albums to my photography site. The different albums are:

Burnham Deepdale — Where we were camping (Deepdale Farm).
Burnham Market.
Hunstanton.
Brancaster.
Wells-next-the-Sea.
Walsingham.
Old Hunstanton.

CRT Assemblage Redux

2008-08-26T19:20:00.002+01:00

Having had a play with the idea a couple or so weeks back I had another play just before I went on holiday:

RedBubble Find: The Raging Stillness #2 by Geoff Coleman

2008-08-13T09:54:00.002+01:00

Star trails, Moon trail, aircraft trails, storm... What's not to like?

The Raging Stillness #2 by Geoff Coleman

RedBubble Find: Abstract Sky by Anne Staub

2008-08-08T17:13:00.002+01:00

I enjoy photographing the sky so it's no surprise that I love this image:

Abstract Sky by Anne Staub

Iconic Britain - Nikon pull out

2008-08-06T18:00:00.003+01:00

According to Amateur Photographer magazine Nikon have pulled out of the Iconic Britain competition I wrote about last week.

You can read statements from Nikon and Microsoft over here.

Rutland Water - 2008-08-03

2008-08-04T14:22:00.003+01:00

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Rutland Water and, while my wife and son went for a short cycle ride, I spent some time wandering around the water's edge with my EOS 400D, PowerShot G9 and Lubitel 166B.

The Lubitel shots (three of them) will obviously be posted a lot later (there's another nine shots to be taken to finish that roll) but I have published the other shots from yesterday.

This is the second trip I've made there (the first was back on 12th April this year) and the weather wasn't that much different. Less rain than the last time, but still very cloudy and windy. I wouldn't mind actually getting down there during a fair day some time.

RedBubble Find: Cayo Blanco by Colin Tobin

2008-07-31T16:53:00.004+01:00

Just the scenery alone works for me with this one — the changing layers of colour. But with the person in there too...

Cayo Blanco by Colin Tobin

Iconic Britain

2008-07-30T14:12:00.003+01:00

Here's an interesting one from a copyright/licence point of view:

It seems that Microsoft and Nikon have got together to create a competition called Iconic Britain. On the surface it looks like your average online photography competition. But there's a twist: you don't need to be a photographer, you don't need to take any photographs at all.

The idea appears to be that you enter the competition in one of two ways. You can either submit a photograph and stand a chance of winning a Nikon camera, or you can vote on photographs and, each time you vote, stand a chance of winning a Nikon camera.

It's the submission part of the competition that's interesting. The site appears to be encouraging people to submit images they find using Microsoft's Live Search for images. You search for something you think is iconic of Britain, you look at the resulting images, and then you drag one into the submission box and submit it into the competition. When doing so you have to agree to the terms and conditions of the competition. There's an interesting item in there:

Entrants acknowledge that some images generated by Live Search may be subject to the intellectual property rights (including copyright) of a third party. Microsoft does not encourage or condone Entrants submitting images to the Competition that infringe the rights of a third party. In the event Microsoft is notified that an image infringes the intellectual property rights, or any other right, of a third party it shall promptly remove the image from the Competition.

The problem here is that, when you do a search via the site, there's no attribution for the work, no link through to the source of the image, no simple method of knowing if you're abiding by the above rule.

Simply put, the site seems to be designed such that your average user can never truthfully agree to the terms and conditions.

Someone hasn't thought this through.

CRT Assemblage

2008-07-30T11:09:00.002+01:00

Me. A television. A camera. An experiment: CRT Assemblage:

RedBubble Find: The Party by John Pitman

2008-07-29T14:57:00.003+01:00

It's nice to see a landscape with people in it:

The Party by John Pitman

The 141st Heckington Show

2008-07-28T14:56:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I took my cameras to the 141st Heckington Show. This is often said to be the biggest village show in the world (note the careful wording in the banner on their website).

Along with the usual displays of livestock and the normal events you'd expect to see at a village show there was also a display by UK FMX — a motorcycle stunt team. It's the first time I've ever tried to photograph anything like that so it was quite a challenge. As it is, I think I got a handful of reasonable shots.

You can see the full set of photographs from the day over on my main site in the 141st Heckington Show gallery.

RedBubble Find: Chill Out by James Price

2008-07-24T11:41:00.002+01:00

Ahh, yes, that feeling:

Chill Out by James Price

Got my Lisp t-shirt

2008-07-23T15:56:00.003+01:00

The postie turned up today with a package from RedBubble. It was my Lisp t-shirt that I ordered a couple or so weeks back:

Here's a photo, with CLtL doing the modelling:

New Toy: Sunpak PF30X Flash

2008-07-17T13:48:00.004+01:00

I've been after a flash for my EOS 400D and PowerShot G9 for a while now but I've never really had the spare cash. As much as I'd love to spend £250+ on a Speedlite it just wasn't going to happen.

And then, last weekend, while having a browse around Amazon, the Sunpak PF30X popped up as a related item to something I was looking at. The price (£49.88) looked too good to be true so I did a little more digging about. Pretty much everything I could find suggested it was a good flash for the price. What was even more encouraging was the fact that "the price" tended to be closer to £100. A quick search on eBay confirmed that this was a good price with most of the "Buy it Now" offers being around £75.00.

And so a purchase was made...

It turned up this lunchtime and I've just had a (very) quick play with it. It worked fine on the EOS 400D and, after some messing about, on the G9 too. For some reason, when I first attached it to the G9, it just wouldn't fire. After turning the flash and the G9 off and on again everything seemed to work just fine. I'm not sure what happened there.

I'm now looking forward to having some free time to have a proper play. I think I can also feel some on-the-cheap off-camera flash action coming on at some point soon. :-D

RAF Waddington Search Hits

2008-07-15T17:05:00.002+01:00

I've been running my ruby and graphviz weblog tool on an ad-hoc basis for a while now, generating my photography search hits page, and it's been running pretty well. I've had to iron out one or two small issues but mostly it's run smooth and has been interesting.

I did an update earlier on today and found this:

It's pretty cool that people are finding my RAF Waddington photos, but it's even more cool to see XH558 turn up there.

RedBubble Find: Kata Tjuta by Erland Howden

2008-07-14T15:41:00.002+01:00

Delightfully minimalistic:

Kata Tjuta by Erland Howden

Bourne Family Fun Day

2008-07-14T09:50:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I took a drive down to Bourne to have a wander around, and photograph, the Bourne Family Fun Day. The event was held at the recreation ground in Bourne and was held in aid of the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance and another charity whose name escapes me at the moment.

The highlight of the day had to be watching an Elvis impersonator performing a cover version of Nirvana's Come As You Are. Life doesn't get much odder than that. ;-)

You can see the full set of photographs over here.

RedBubble Find: Zombie Bridal Party by Cathie Tranent

2008-07-08T17:34:00.003+01:00

I love this photograph for three reasons: 1) I love a good zombie movie, 2) It's funny, 3) I love the idea of a city having a zombie gathering.

Zombie Bridal Party by Cathie Tranent

RAF Waddington 2008

2008-07-07T23:13:00.003+01:00

Last weekend was the 2008 RAF Waddington air show and, as we've always done ever since we moved to Lincolnshire, we went along on the Saturday.

The forecast was awful. Mostly rain but with the chance of it clearing up a little in the afternoon. This would normally be disappointing anyway but it was worse given that this show was going to be the return to the skies of the privately rebuilt Avro Vulcan XH558.

As forecast, the morning was wet and horrible and hardly anything was flying (although the Red Arrows managed to put on a small display despite the fact that the cloud was very low). Thankfully the forecast chance of better weather in the afternoon did happen and we ended up with a nice sunny day.

Given that I had the PowerShot G9 with me as well as the EOS 400D I decided to try recording some videos too:

A joint display by a Typhoon and a Spitfire:

XH558 takes to the sky:

A joint flypast of XH558 and the BBMF's Lancaster:

XH558 lands:

It wasn't all videos though. I shot plenty of photographs too. For those see my Waddington 2008 album on my main photography site.

Self-Documenting ruby t-shirt

2008-07-02T21:21:00.004+01:00

For reasons I don't really understand myself, recently I've been messing about with the idea of code on t-shirts. Sure, it's not exactly a new idea, but I couldn't resist it. I started out with this Lisp t-shirt (mainly because I wanted one myself, the order is in and I'm looking forward to getting it) and then went on and did this one (which I'll probably end up buying at some point in the near future).

And then I got to thinking that it might be interesting to have a go at creating a t-shirt that was, in effect, self-documenting. The idea being that the design would contain code that would, as much as possible, be usable in creating the design. After thinking on this for a while I decided that a Mandelbrot set would be a good place to start.

Having already done some Lisp I thought it was time to do something with ruby. So, I sat down and knocked up a quick script that would plot a Mandelbrot set, emitting it as a PBM file, just to make life easier. I then converted that to a PNG. After that I loaded up Photoshop Elements, created an empty image sized correctly for a RedBubble t-shirt design, added in the Mandelbrot and then layered the ruby source code over the top. A tweak or two later and I had a finished design:

I'm rather pleased with the result.

That said, the idea still needs some more work. While the shirt contains the code to produce the background image it's not a fully self-documenting t-shirt in that running the code on the shirt won't produce the whole design. That's to say: you can't run the code and get a PNG that's ready to upload to RedBubble.

I think a bit of reading of the documentation for RMagick is in order.

RedBubble Find: Catbells in the morning by PigleT

2008-06-27T11:27:00.002+01:00

The reflection alone makes this. The encroaching tree on the right, rather than distracting, gives a feeling of the image emerging. But what really makes it is that small yellow dot. You want to look closer don't you?

Catbells in the morning by PigleT

Mostly Sky

2008-06-26T16:19:00.002+01:00

Just one more, honest. Had this urge to do one of shots that are mostly sky:

High Timez

2008-06-26T11:34:00.002+01:00

It's official: Animoto is kind of addictive.

:-D

Animoto

2008-06-26T09:59:00.006+01:00

I quite like photographic slideshows done as videos and I've dabbled with them from time to time. However, I've never published any because, ideally, they work best with some music to back them up and as far as I'm concerned that can create all sorts of copyright issues.

This morning I read this RedBubble journal entry by Grant Bissett and decided to create an Animoto account and have a quick play. The thing that most attracted me was the fact that they appear to have a library of licensed music, thus solving the copyright issue I tend to worry about.

It's pretty clever too. You start a video project, you either upload a bunch of images, or download them from a small selection of supported image-hosting sites (in my case from Flickr), you make the final selection, you select the backing music, and then wait a (very) short while. And then you've got a video.

There are options for sharing and embedding the video, and there's also the option to upload to YouTube:

There are two levels to the service. You can create videos for free but they can't be any longer than 30 seconds. If 30 seconds isn't enough you can make a longer video on a pay-per-video basis. There's also the option (which you also have to pay for) to create DVD quality videos. All seems fair and sensible to me.

Besides, these days, who's got an attention span longer than 30 seconds? ;-)

Exterminate!

2008-06-25T12:59:00.003+01:00

Getting excited about an episode of Doctor Who is okay, right? No matter, I'm excited:

RedBubble Find: Mozzies Beware! by Martin Pot

2008-06-23T17:46:00.002+01:00

I often find myself shooting lone objects against the sky. Sometimes with a perfectly clear sky, often with quite a busy sky. I love to look out for examples of this style of shot from others. Here's one I like:

Mozzies Beware! by Martin Pot

Seventy

2008-06-21T14:17:00.004+01:00

I try and carry a camera with me everywhere I go. Even when I'm doing something as mundane as popping into the local town (Grantham). Most times the camera never gets used, but at least I've got it there in case something catches my eye.

One such "eye catching" moment happened this morning. It's raining, I'm sat in the car waiting for my wife while she was in a shop, and I notice how cool a sign in a shop window looks as seen through the rain on the windscreen. So out comes the Canon PowerShot G9 and I have a little photography session, the result of which is this:

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