LEGO car timelapse
Tesco had the LEGO Technic Supercar set 8070 with 25% off... couldn't resist! About 20 years ago I got the LEGO Technic "Test Car" set 8865 which I still have so it was quite a nostalgic build.
I recorded it to build a timelapse. Set up my 7D on a tripod and started Canon's EOS Utility to take a photo every minute. Apologies for the poor viewpoint but I was so eager to build it...
LEGO Technic Supercar Timelapse
After the Advisory Day
Today was the RPS Advisory Day; the first time I have ever publically shown photographs (excluding the web) and received critical feedback.
I was starting to consider work towards the Licentateship (LRPS) of the RPS (Royal Photographic Society) and this day was an opportunity to take along work and receive feedback with this in mind. The day was run extremely well with around 20 people showing work for both the LRPS and the ARPS.
My turn was shortly after lunch. An initially daunting experience soon became a very enjoyable and educational one once others started displaying their work. The panel were honest and fair; and I agreed with all of their comments regarding my work and many regarding others' (although it was difficult to see details in others work as we only had time for the panel to take a closer inspection because of the number displaying photographs).
The day has really encouraged me to attend future advisory days and start thinking of my photography in a more structured way. Today marks the start of me seriously working towards the LRPS.
Advisory day
So next Saturday is the big day where I get my first completely independent photograph critique! Erk. It's my first RPS advisory day; where the critique is done in a public forum with others potential applicants and observers. It will be interesting, if not a somewhat daunting experience.
I had a good weekend catching up with old uni mates on Saturday and I was told about an interesting project that originated in Edinburgh; it's called Blipfoto and the idea is that photographers only upload a single photo for any given day shooting. Seems like a useful resource to document your everyday life or even support your own one-per-month or 365/366-project!
Through my web trawling last week I also found a useful photographic resource called The Luminous Landscape. There are a couple of interesting essays regarding exposure relating to modern CMOS and CCD sensor technology used in digital cameras. The particular essays are Expose (to the) Right (2003) and an updated work entitled Optimizing Exposure (2011).
Note: I'm going to start using WordPress' post "Featured Image" feature in future posts to make this a little more photograph-orientated.
Resolution and photography development
To renew my photography interests (and a wee New Year resolution) I have decided to work towards the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Licentateship (LRPS).
There is an advisory day in Scotland at the end of this month so I'm looking forward to that; I'm working on getting a set of photographs to take along for some feedback. The photographs I'm currently planning on taking are from several years of taking digital photos and of varying subjects.
I'll document the process as much as I can on this blog to help others out who are thinking of working toward the award.
7D and 100mm f/2.8 USM macro
I finally bought the Canon 7D after agonising over it for months; also picked up the Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lense.
I've upgraded from the Canon 400D which I've had for several years now and it was beginning to show its age. The macro lense is my first so I'm looking forward to get started dabbling in that world.
I'll update the gear page soon.
Lightroom and Photograph Collections
I've recently had the time to sort out my Lightroom Catalo, backups, and general photograph organisation.
I run a local Perforce 2010.2 server on a local Debian/AMD64 box for all my data version control requirements. Perforce allows a free licence for "personal use" (2 users and 5 workspaces, or unlimited users and upto 1000 files as of 2011.1) which is superb for running a sever locally for distributing files and backups.
I've added a page to describe how I organise photographs in Perforce and how I setup Lightroom catalogs.
F1 on BBC
So this weekend marks the end of the F1 season at the Interlagos circuit, Sao Paulo in Brazil. The BBC 1 coverage of the qualifying session has just started and the BBC have recently announced their coverage deal for the 2012 season (available here).
My initial reaction when the deal with Sky was announced was of disappointment. I've been watching the F1 on terestrial TV for many years, and don't subscribe to Sky. The BBC coverage over the last few seasons has been absolutely superb, and in fact gets better weekend to weekend with their analysis, F1 Forum, and the fantastic Martin Brundle grid walks!
The coverage deal is better than I expected; BBC will still show a 90 minute or 2 hour show on each race they do not have the live rights for. I was hoping to see Montreal on the live race list but the inclusion of Brazil, the night race in Sinapore and of course the classic Spa (Belgium) makes a nice sweetner.
.Net Wonders
I'm quite heavily involved in .Net development at work. We're increasingly using .Net technologies on the desktop and its proved extremely efficient now that we have some core tools and libraries written in C#.
This evening I found a few useful .Net links on dotnetkicks.com covering some little .Net/C# language wonders:
- C#/.NET Five Little Wonders That Make Code Better
- C#/.NET Five More Little Wonders That Make Code Better
- C#/.NET Five Final Little Wonders That Make Code Better
I have to disagree with part 3's "Implicit Typing" discussion. I really am not a fan, purely from the point of view of readability and maintainance. We often have to read and understand each others code and programmers using implicit typing make that extremely difficult at times; it can be fine when using familar API's and classes but in new code it can be a big hinderance and time sink.
The time lost when understanding others code I feel has a far larger impact on productivity that the time "saved" by physically typing less code.
Interfit
So I eventually got a working off-camera flash setup; two Interfit Strobies Titan Pro's. They were slightly more expensive than I was hoping but its worked well with a little testing in the flat.
Hooking these inbetween my Canon EOS400D and 430exii flashgun for some off-camera action.
Now I need to think about an actual shoot...
Off-camera flash
First post on the new site! I've recently been getting into the idea of trying off-camera flash by viewing a lot of photographs on Flickr and reading sites such as Strobist and viewing the work of Joe McNally.
I dabbled a little way back in February at a 1-to-1 portrait tuition session with Sam Heaton at Clear Photography in Edinburgh. The session was about 90 mins in the Clear Photography studio and only scratched the surface of what was possible with off-camera lighting
I'm planning to buy some kit over the weekend to allow me to move my 430ex ii off-camera and start experimenting with this technique.
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