I was going to leave a Christmas posts yesterday, but in the end I simply couldn’t be bothered. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of the day either, though I just wanted to make mention of the photo-related gifts I received. I shall list them below under their own little headings!
4Gb Sandisk Extreme III CompactFlash Card
For my trip to Scotland I wanted to make sure that I had enough memory for my days out walking and photographing. Not the biggest of cards, but the Extreme III works at break-neck speeds (not as fast as the Extreme IV but there has to be a balance between function and price). It’ll go very nicely with my others and I’ll now hopefully be able to go out all day shooting raw without having to worry about running out of space. I must just remember to take them off the card and put them onto the laptop once back at the hotel, or I won’t be able to do much the following day!
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Classroom in a Book
I’ve become a great advocate of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2. I’ve never been overly familiar with Photoshop itself, although I have recently worked my way through a similar Adobe book on CS3 and I have to say it’s a lot easier to get to grips with than I ever imagined. Fortunately however, most of the functions necessary for me and my photography can now be performed in a much quicker and simpler way using Lightroom. I’ve been giving it a go for a while, and whilst I sort of know my way around it, I wanted to go through the same process I did with Photoshop and let Adobe tell me the key things to look out for. Hopefully let me start developing my own presets too, although I’ve not yet had chance to look through it to see what chapters are actually included. I’ll let you folks know once I’ve been through it.
Joby Gorillapod – SLR Zoom
This is something I was contemplating getting myself, though at the last minute decided to take off my Amazon Wishlist. So it was a very big coincidence that someone saw it and decided to get it me for Christmas. Very nice of them.
The Gorillapod, for those who don’t know, is a bendy tripod that you can hook around objects (posts, branches, fences etc) to enable you to get into some very awkward spots to take your pictures. It also enables you to get extremely close to the ground as the legs bend up on themselves allowing you to be able to practically stand the camera on the floor. And I have to say in my testing yesterday it seemed to work very well indeed. The legs are incredibly sturdy – the one I have has been built to hold an SLR with a big zoom lens attached. I can’t wait to get out there and start giving it a proper go in the wilds of Scotland!
I took a trip to Cambridge today to visit one of Galloway & Porter’s warehouse book sales. Most people out in web-world won’t have heard of them as they’re a small independent book shop in Cambridge. If you’re in the area on one of their sale days I recommend a visit. All books are £1. Yes, that’s right: £1. They have a few academic ones at £2-a-pop and a small room just off the warehouse holding some at higher prices. But the rest are £1. Or less. They also have a wide range of kids books, with some at less than a quid. So they’re not actually all a quid. But most are! 90% are! So get yourself over to their website and take a look at when the next one is on. They’re very frequent and you won’t regret it!
After that I took a trip into Cambridge’s lovely city centre, bought a couple of magazines and planted myself in a comfy chair in Border’s Starbucks for an hour. I do love Cambridge.
Something not-so-good occurred on the way back though. The car had been making some horrible clanging noises all day, and just as I approached Bedford something detached itself from the engine bay and flew off. The noises stopped, but a couple of red lights appeared on the dashboard. Bugger.
Well, not knowing anything at all about cars, I took it down the nearest Nationwide Autocentre and got them to take a look. Fortunately it was only the fan-belt, and even more fortunately it hadn’t taken anything with it on its way out! So an hour – and a chat with the mechanics – later and I was back on the road. £32. A bit pricey for a piece of rubber, but I was expecting more for the labour. So I’m happy with that.
Now I’m back home in the warm, with a mug of coffee, a Photoshop magazine and Adobe’s premier image-editing software in front of me. Should be a good day.
Or maybe I could make a start on one of the many books I bought from the sale? No, I’ve got plenty of others I’ve yet to read before I get on to those!
I’ve been taking a look at editing some of my Chatsworth photos on this here Photoshop, and I have to say that as a complete beginner it is very daunting. Not only trying to find the right balance between the different elements, but also trying to figure out the terminology and what each of the tools does. But I’ve given it a go on one photo so far, and I’ve included a comparison image to this post. See what you think. I’ve played around with the curves and levels, as well as cranking up the colour of the grass slightly (see, I’m up with all the lingo!).
What do you think? Any suggestions for improvements or things you’d do differently?
The edited photo is now in the Gallery, where it will be joined by others once I’ve given them a once over.
I have perhaps the worst memory of anyone I know and anyone I’ve ever met. The information simply doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to be! Especially if it’s something I really want to try an remember.
Take this evening for example. It’s been a while since I had a go on Photoshop, and I decided I’d have another quick go practicing colour corrections. Could I remember what I was suppose to do? Could I hell! I had to get my book out again and follow each step, one-by-one!
Madness!
