Illness

It sucks. I haven't slept properly for 4 nights now and I'm starting to enter a state of minor delirium, it is by no stretch of the imagination pleasant. Normally when I get ill from a stomach bug it takes at longest 2 days before I just puke and then I feel fine but this is a whole different ball game, I have a persistent queezy feeling in my stomach which means I have no appetite and I cannot sleep because I'm taking hourly trips to the toilet. That also means that I am consistently dehydrated because it takes between 1 and 5 minutes for a glass of water to pass straight through my system. Nice. Time drags its heels when you do not sleep.

Just to top it off ontop of all of that I am completely unproductive, so far I have had 2 days off work and this post is the only thing I have achieved in the past 2 days and I had to lie down for a bit after because I thought I was going to faint from all the exertion - how depressing?!

Anyway, here's to recovery.

Fire

Yea, I blog about it fairly regularly but only recently have I actually discovered how to take a good photo of fire. You might think how hard can it be? then I say take a picture of fire and see for yourself.

Now take those settings and apply them to a concept like this:

Just as soon as I can arrange another fire blowing session I will have them up. Watch this space.

Texture#4 Cathederal

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Bristol City Cathedral while in its proper use - I was not allowed to take photos during the service so I had to reserve myself until afterwards meaning I was not taking pictures of the main hall though the architecture of the building is phenomenal throughout.

Cathedrals are amazing buildings. The materials and techniques used to build them equate to nothing built by today's standards. The intricacy of the carvings, the attention to detail is outlandish in a construction so large and so numerous. This is another way in which age and texture correlate; things are not built like they used to be. It's all pre-fab and cost effective. Take a picture of any interior built within the last 50 years - bland by comparison to the way things used to be done with such care and dedication to each and every detail.

Cannon 100mm F2.8 L Macro

Last week while I visited my brother I had the opportunity to play with this lens:

I had heard so many good reviews about the image clarity the brand new image stabilisation technology and the reliable L brand build quality that I had to give it a go.

Park cameras will be well known to you if you regularly research buying anything photography related within the UK - I am yet to read a photography magazine without at least a double page spread advert from them. The funny thing is that the best thing about them in my opinion is not their prices but the fact that the one store they have will let you try before you buy with anything in store to your hearts content.

so anyway my brother and I were playing with this lens and here are the things that stood out in order of severity:

1) The auto focus on this lens is insane - the bracketed focusing option speeds it up ten fold and it is near silent (not all USM lenses are e.g my 24-105). I found that with persistent focussing it was possible to continually track a moving object and keep it within focus - very impressed

2) The image quality is everything that its cracked up to be (more to see in a bit)

3) 100mm fixed focal is more flexible than expected - its fairly easy to take portraits as well as macro shots.

4) minimum focusing distance is short enough for 1:1 reproduction which means phenomenal macro shots are easily achievable.

5) The image stabiliser really does make a difference

6) F2.8 broadens the range of lighting situations you can shoot in dramatically - This is a bright lens!

Here are some test shots we took in store with my camera, completely unedited except reduction in size:

If you want a sense of scale this is a 77mm lens cap

Exif:     f/5 exposure time: 1/50 ISO: 1600 as you can see the stabiliser comes into its own at only 1/50 hand held complete clarity is achieved.

Exif: same as above, this is clearly overexposed because I did not change the settings on the camera so it doesn't give the clearest picture of image quality but it does give you an idea of what you can fit into frame - I was about 4 or 5 paces back from the subject - you would have to be a fair distance to get a whole person in but a head and shoulders is very easy to achieve.

Its easy to assume that because it has macro written on it that you cant take decent picture of anything unless its tiny - certainly not true this would/does make a superb portrait lens.

In combination the low f stop and the image stabilisation mean that you can take bright clear pictures in normally unworkable lighting.

This was and now is even more so, firmly on my wish list the only problem being that it costs just under that of my 24-105 L lens though that is relatively reasonable value for money given the results of this lens I would give it 92/100 the last 8 being lost to the the cost.

Texture#3 Bricks & Stones

I spent last weekend in a converted barn in Bideford, a lovely place in North Devon. It was among other things old and I am finding that age and texture often correlate or should I say decay and texture? That aside it was a beautiful place to capture, rich with texture.

Practice makes perfect

though in all honesty it rarely is ever perfect and that's why the practice is in no short supply!

Having recently changed my setup once again in an attmept to get better waterdrop shots I finally stumbled upon (I have been looking for it for ages) out most illusive turkey baster - for the purposes of this project essentially a large capacity pipette. I took around 1500 pictures in this set and got loads of collision shots  but alot of them were pretty messy and visually alot of the non collision shots turned out to be much more appealing.