Year: 2013

Goodbye 2013

Goodbye 2013

Well another year over, so I’d like to thank everyone for their support.

2014 will be an interesting new year, with lots if changes, so keep watching and reading to find out more.

Have a good New Year’s Eve!

I’ve bought a new Camera!

I’ve bought a new Camera!

Lots happening in the last month and more will be talked about next month, however, in the meantime I’ve spent some money and bought a new camera. The Canon 70D! Although I’ve only taken a couple of photos with it so far, I am impressed. It has lots of great new features too.

My existing camera is a 40D and while this is excellent, a lot has moved on since then with new connectivity.

So, for example, I now now take a photo, review it immediately on my iPad, then mail it to someone! Great! Also good for sitting down in the evening to review your photos, without having to sit at a computer. The camera screen is also touch screen with pinch zoom! The mega pixels are double that of the 40D at 20mp, and a great new cmos processer. Even the kit lens has IS in it! What else… a great fps, bracketing range at 3 stops, built in video (which I’ve also tested), HDR function, large rear screen, which reverses and folds out, battery indictor in the view finder! I’m sure I will find more too!

When I take photos other than the kids, I’ll start posting them!

Yesterdays World

Yesterdays World

Last Saturday we visited our friend in Battle. It was the opening day for the tearooms at Yesterdays World. Nat had done the logo design for the tearooms, so we wanted to see what it was all about and have a look around.

As we approached Yesterdays World they were just putting out the advertising board for the Tearooms with Nats logo at the top!

Tearooms Banner

We were shown through the museum down to the Tearooms. It looked great and had great views out the window of the fields in Battle. The tea and cream teas were also amazing!

After the tea, we started exploring the museum and went around the first floor, only to find ourselves outside the tearoom again. This time the Mayor was giving a speech, so I took some photos, then was asked to take a group shot. So I became the official photographer for the event! The photos could be in a local paper.

We then explored the rest of the museum. Its set in 2 buildings and goes over 5 floors. One of my favourite part I think has to be the Sweet shop.

Sweet Shop

These photos will end up on their website, which we will be redesigning soon

A Minor Update

A Minor Update

I’ve made a minor update to my website with regards to the background. If you are using IE8 or below, you wont see it, but everone else will.

I like the effect and it was very simple to do. The background was create from one of my own images, infact the top left thumbnail in the image

Teddy Bears

Teddy Bears

If you’ve been following my blog posts (although a bit thin on the ground this year) you’ll know that amongst other things, I also build websites which Nat has creatively designed.

One of our recenty ones designs is for Military Heroes Trading. They raise money for the Military Heroes Trust, for ex Military personnel.

One of the main items they sell are handmade teddy bear, which are have their uniforms designed and created in the UK.

mhtc

If you like or collect teddy bears, they are definately worth a look.

More Retina Galleries

More Retina Galleries

Ok, so thats September gone too! Sadly I didn’t get to put another post in the blog, but I’ve been busy! For one thing, I’ve been working on the Military Heroes Trading Website and secondly I’ve updated more galleries on my site to be retina quality.

I have completed all the Travel Galleries as well as all the Landscapes. These are now retina quality galleries! I just have 2 more sub gallries to update in the Birds section to remove the old styled images, then I can review the remaining galleries for retina quality updates!

If you have a retina iPad or retina display here is a preview of what is in them and the quality!

If you’ve looked at the galleries before, please take another look as some images have gone and been replaced with different one, and all are now a larger size too.

Where Did August Go!?

Where Did August Go!?

Hmm, for the first time, I think, I’ve actually missed a month and have blogged anything. Strange thing is, I thought I had. July and August have been such busy months, that it not surprising.

So, just as a quick entry I thought I’d post a photo that I took at the BMRC Auto Historica event that we attended last Sunday. I knew there was going to be a low past from the BBMF, but I forgot to take my big lens!

As it happened, the Lancaster & Hurricane flew over so low, that I didnt need it. This shot was taken at 75mm.

A Low Flypast

Alton Bus Rally

Alton Bus Rally

Another event we attend recently was the Alton Bus Rally, which was a lot more interesting than it might first sound. firstly, if was free to get in, which many event arent these days. There were bus rides also linking up with the local steam railway.

There were buses from the earily 1900’s and lots of old route master hop on hop off buses and not a bend bus in sight!







view more buses, more will be added soon.

A Short Break

A Short Break

We had a short break on the Isle of Wight. We visit there once or twice a year, but this time was the first time that our youngest was walking around on his own, so he throughly enjoyed exploring all the places we visited.

I had wanted to visit some of the southern coastlines to get some interesting shots with rock in the foreground and long exposured water, but as with most things, time conspired against us.

So we I had to settle for the scenery where we were visiting, or where we were passing. As usual with the island, it didn’t disappoint.

Robin Hill adventure park was great for kids, but it was also great for scenery!

I had wanted to try some more vertorama photography (2 or more photos, vertical panorama), so I tried it out on a couple of occassions. This is a view at Robin Hill


View at Robin Hill

Another view that is great is Brading Down, so I tried the another vertorama


View from Brading Down

I have now created a few of these, so I am going to create a Vertorama section to the website, under Creative

New Bird Species

New Bird Species

Another new species has been discovered, this time a bird. I find it great everytime a new species is discovered. Its good to know there are still species out there that are still unknown to science.

This time it’s a small bird discovered in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian tailorbird (Orthotomus chaktomuk), as it has been named, was first spotted in 2009. Tailorbirds are in the warbler family, and get their name from the meticulous preparation of their nests, weaving leaves together.

From detailed tests – from the birds’ plumage to their songs and their genes – it has shown that O. chaktomuk is in fact a separate, new species.

Because of the small and shrinking nature of the birds’ habitat, it has recommended that the bird is listed as “Near Threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.

There have been other discoverys of other new birds species in recent years aswell. In 2008 a new Warbler was discovered in Vietnam and in 2006

and very rare bird was discovered in India, only 14 were known to exist.

read more Warbler (BBC News)
read more 2006 discovery (BBC News)

info & images from bbc site.

Rural Life Centre

Rural Life Centre

After dong the Floral Fringe Fair on Saturday, with our friends from Home Front History, on Sunday we took the kids to the Rural Life Centre.

They had an event on ‘Days Gone By’ where they had lots of old things! We saw Steam Rollers, mini steam driven merry-go-rounds, steam engines as well as a steam train ride and a tractor ride to a nearby milking farm.

Amongst the steam engines and old cars was this gem. An large American Truck.
American Truck

The kids loved the day out and it was all very enjoyable.

The above image is a bracketed HDR image from 3 RAW files and processed in Photomatix v4

The Dambusters

The Dambusters

I wanted to try and create an image to remember the Dambuster raid 70 years ago.

So, I searched my archives and combined a few images to create this.
Dambuster
Hopefully a fitting tribute to the Dambusters