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Proterra:Life

Focus-on-Imgaing 2011

Posted on March 4, 2011

It's that time of year again when I take a day off from the job that pays the bills, to spend time at the job that creates the bills.  That is I'm going to Focus at the NEC on Monday.

One reason I go is primarily to spend a day with photographers, cameras, gadgets and photographs.  Generally I don't go with a shopping list - as I know that I'm going to be tempted to get something. Plus to be honest the prices are not that greatly reduced I find.

So what am I looking for this year?

  1. D300S or D7000 - need to go and hold these and see really which I want.... money is now there to replace the D100 - it's getting to the end of it's life.
  2. Lee Filters 10stop filter - will probably buy this there.
  3. Attend some of the talks - never really done this before as I've always just spent the time wandering around all the stands. But as a lot of these are the same year-on-year time to get to some talks.
  4. Look at the new Epson printer that is a several generations away successor to the R2400

Often I've been with James but as he's doing his day job this year I'm going to head over to PhotoBox and find out really what the aspect ratios of the apertures of the calendars are! Plus why the Blacks on mixed colour/monochrome products aren't black.

Although I can't promise anything if there's some burning question you think could only be answered at Focus, post a comment and I'll see if I get it answered!

Will post back next week.

 

PC Performance and PhotoShop/Lightroom

Posted on May 26, 2010

So in trying to produce the latest images for Tone, Texture, Time my machine seemed to be really going slowly. Turned out that I was really running out of disk space on the local drives. Not only did that give appalling performance, but it also meant that a few attempts to print A3+ failed half way through.  Half a printed picture is useless.

Optimize performance of Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP and Vista on Adobe's site gives some basic information; on of the interesting things was having to local hard drives. Currently I have one 160Gb (small now) and a 500Gb NAS (RAID1).

So some thinking on upgrading the PC.

  1. Clear out stuff
  2. Run more from the NAS
  3. 2nd Hard Drive - Shuttle case can take it.. but need to move out the Floppy Drive/Card Reader.

Will edit this as thinking moves on... see Delicious Stream for more links on this topic

Why I will and won’t be voting LibDem

Posted on May 5, 2010

Tomorrow there is a General Election in the UK. In my area will have the chance to vote for both my member of Parliament and local council. I shall be voting in both of these, but shall be voting differently.

It’s worth stating some background to my voting choices. Firstly be born in 1975 meant that as I soon as I could understand anything about government my first Prime Minster became Margaret Thatcher.  So the reality that a another political party could really form a government didn’t become real until 1997 – a few years later.

Also it’s worth noting that I am an ardent ‘fan’ of the series ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ therefore I suspect a certain cynicism is present in my views.

So to my voting choices.  I was hoping that I would get to meet a Conservative Candidate and be able to assure them that I was “voting for a change” (the Conservative motto this election).  Voter apathy is often highlighted, especially amongst the young. This is to me the most concerning feature politics. My Grandmother would always say that people had died for my right to vote.  She would be horrified that people would consider no voting; although I suspect that she would be most horrified that the political parties had yet the voters get to the point where they saw no reason to.

This is one of the central reasons I have always, and will do this time vote for the Member of Parliament who is a member of the Liberal Democrats. They are not one of the two parties that have held government for many, many years. Therefore in order to get change of any sort we need a different government and therefore voting LibDem I believe is the best way of achieving that.

A Warning to the Liberal Democrats – you are a political party the same as Conservative or Labour, therefore I would expect you to have the same motivations. Should after several years of government you have not produced the change in thinking and belief then many people will be disappointed.

Note the phrasing in the paragraph above “vote for the Member of Parliament who is a member of the Liberal Democrats”. Any candidate who asks if they I would vote for them; would get the reply “sorry no I can’t”.  What the current system requires me to do the is vote for a party. In a general election it is interests of the country as a whole I am interested in. Those interests are therefore served by the government, and that under the current electoral system is governed by what party I vote for.

This leads on to why I’m not going to vote Lib Dem in the local election. In this I am voting for a person to represent and look after local issues at a local level. Here, I feel that party politics has less to offer me.  It is true that the same system works for electing the local council as for a government; but I feel that choosing the correct person is more important to represent local issues.

Therefore locally I always vote independent; the local independent candidates have done very well over many years. I see no reason to alter this.

These are my thoughts today; there are some holes in the thinking possibly. I would willing entering into any discussion of policies and principles of the system.


Apologies for any inconvenience

Posted on July 11, 2009

It's been some time since this blog was last updated. Well quite a lot of time actually - nearly two years. Well at lot as happened in those two years. When I say a lot I am referring to the 15mth old little one upstairs asleep (currently).

So I apologise for any inconvenience whilst I've not been blogging.  So why what write this now?  Well in the interim I've actually started using Twitter and been 'micro-blogging' for some time. I saw the title of this post on a vending machine. My thought process was - 'oh I'll tweet about that when I get back to my desk; but 140 characters can't sum up my dislike for it'. So I'm here!

Scenario is: at work we have cashless-vending. i.e. we need to 'charge-up' a card with money. Stick in your card, cash, and you can now use vending machines/buy lunch at the canteen etc. There aren't many of these charging machines, and when one was out of order, the nearest is the other side of the site. Ten minutes walk - ok not a big problem but it gets a "grrrr" when all you want is quick coffee before the next meeting.

So what's my problem? It's the any in the phrase. It has always implied to me that the author is saying.  "This machine being out of order could possibly in some rare circumstance have caused you inconvenience. Should this unlikely circumstance have arisen then I'm sorry".

It's the fact that the any suggests for the most of time you won't have a problem - but if you do hey, we're sorry. My argument is that they when this phrase gets the probability is that you have (or will) be inconvenienced. Therefore this phrase just adds "insult to the injury".

Rarely you do see "Sorry for the inconvenience caused" - which always gives me a better feeling. It's also a case of writing a phrase that is so often used the author is not actually thinking about what they have said.

Anyway - that feels better now, rant off.  So when will the next post be? 2011? I certainly hope not, but if it does I apologise for the inconvenience I will have caused you.

An afternoon in 1642

Posted on August 25, 2007

I went down to Little Woodham this afternoon - the "1642 Living History Village". James is a long standing member and encouraged me to come down; some pictures where required as well.

The weather was wonderful, and the site is in amazing small piece of oak woodland. Absolutely English!! Together with the wittle and daube buildings it is a very impressive place. After a while you really start to forget that it's 2007. The civil war siege of Portsmouth was occurring this week in 1642; one thing that struck home is that 1642 what we now think of as being close wasn't then. Scale was very different.

Wonderful people with great stories to tell of life and living. Narrowly missed being signed up to be a Pikeman.. best job for a gentleman apparently. Attention to detail is amazing - sausages in the chimney to smoke and kill the maggots.

My knowledge of 1642 is a bit rusty - better brush up for next time as well. Sadly some of my photo knowledge left me as well and the VR lens didn't perform as well as I had hoped it would do.

In the words of Bill Bryson "Go; go now".... (though I'd like to keep my car if you don't mind... plus it didn't exist in 1642 anyway)

Wheelwright, originally uploaded by Calanais.

 

Christmas Presents for the next couple of years…

Posted on August 23, 2007

Well my request for presents for the next fews years are now taken.. Nikon have announced the D300 (I've a D100).  See the initial summary at dppreview

I love the D100 - wonderful build quality and I've really got some good use from it.  The D300 has some great advances over the D200. Noteably to me are 100% viewfinder, 12MP, auto focus that is way superior that the D100.  UDMA CF cards, and HDMI video out could be useful.

Plus it has built in sensor cleaning... yes excellent.

Having just got some new lens and filters; no way will I be able to get a D300.. so perhaps Christmas 2009?

50 people experience the seasons

Posted on July 11, 2007

50 people experience the seasons, originally uploaded by flipzagging.

An absolutley stunning set of images - they are produced by combining 50 different pictures that represent the same topic. The texture of the photos is quite stunning.  What I really like about these is that colours of the seasons really stand out well.

Well worth checking out!

Dodgy Statistics

Posted on July 1, 2007

Often in news reports you hear stastics quoted, such as 1 in 5 people eat fish once a week, or 20% of people got A grades in this exam.  Fine, it tries to give an idea of scale. There are many ways of quoting for example

  • 1 in 4
  • 25%
  • A quarter
  • 2 out of  8

Now they all quote the same proportion; my assertion is that whilst these are the same amount, that saying "a quarter of people" gives a different 'feel' from "1 in 4 people".

Assuming this assertion holds, the problem that I have is when 2 statistics are mixed together. For example (and this is the real example I heard today).

A quarter of students achieved grade A in A-level exams, compared with 1 in 10 a few years ago.

By using the x in y approach for figure a few years ago and using "a quarter" now I think exaggerates the difference between the amounts. Say we recast the sentance,

 25percent of students achieved grade A in A-level exams, compared with 10percent a few years ago.

Does that change the perceived difference? I think it does - please contradict me!!

Broughton Down

Posted on July 1, 2007

Despite the threat of more rain, I ventured out this morning. Having spent much of yesturday inside, I very much wanted to get out side. Checking the BBC's weather page this morning hinted that today would be notably better. The satelite pictures suggested that better weather was coming in from south-east.

Buoyed by a promising conclusion from the amateur meteorology, I headed for Broughton Down. A location I've wanted to visit for sometime, due to the tag of "the best views in Hampshire" from the Hampshire Wildlife Trust.

Following the HWT's directions I got there eventually, although the car is now muddy and it's suspension has less life in it. Walking past the burnt out shell of Ford Fiesta, I was not confident in that tag line. Nor did passing the supposed location of one of these view points. I sure it was a nice cornfield, if cornfields are your thing. After landing flat on my back after slipping on some exposed chalk, I had firmly removed "best views" from my thoughts.

Things started to look up, when I found that the actual view points where on the other side of the small wood I had walked down. Looking over across the village of Broughton, the countryside opened up. A small but pleasent chalk down with numerous low growing flowers, but without the usual butterflies that accompany such land. The weather at this time was turning bad so macro shots would have had me soaked, so I head into the woods. Some wonderful old knarled tress.

However whilst in there, the cloud started to break up giving some better light and I headed out again to the chalk down. The expanse of the flowers, much like bluebells looks like a great shot but capturing it is always difficult. A few shots with the 200mm looked promising; will attempt similar at a later date.

Time was now approaching lunchtime; the (virtually) unmarked track and that burnt out car had been at the back of my mind at the time. This seemed like farily remote and safe part of the test valley but was it? Plus I was hungry

Would I go back? Possibly, but I think I'd like to park in in Broughton, or similar go through the down on a walk to somewhere else.

See the results!

Recycled Photo Paper.. and can Valentine’s day to a sustainable part of the year?

Posted on May 28, 2007

Well finally a photo paper made from recycled components has been released. The GreenPix Photo Matte is the paper in question.

The only problem of course is that the paper is currently made in the US, so I would have to ship via a carrier across the atlantic. Now can I deliverably do this? Should I do this? What's the carbon cost of air freight... (ps I don't want to know)

This raises a great question - in that we really don't know the full lifecycle of anything that we buy. The final product may have been assembled in the UK say, but where have the constinuent components come from. For example, one report suggests (also cited here) that buying roses from Kenya instead of from Holland will produce a fifth of the CO2. Essentially because of the fact that in Holland, the greenhouses will have to be heated.

There are other issues involved of course including work conditions in the various countries. Also it does raise the issue of should be get away from requirement to give roses early in the year. So can we move Valentine's Day to later in the year so I can give truely English grown roses???

oh.. and I'm going to check where my Epson photo paper has been made!

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