Gulls At The Park

Another trip down to the local park this morning and this time the Guulls were out in force

 

 

Kinswinford Park

Popped down to my local park with the Vivitar 300mm f5.6 TX and got these of the local wildfowl

Use Of Old Digital cameras

Saw an interesting development on a photo forum earlier today that may be a one off but may also be a swign of things to come,a guy fairly new to photography was asking about the merits of the canon D60 and 10D that he had the oppurtunity of buying as a starter in DSLR photography and amongst the replies there were none exorting him to forget about these dinosaurs and get a 450D or 500D because they are up to date and have every mode known to man.

Now I once owned a D60 and can confirm that it was and is an excellent camera as long as you could live with its limitations,a bit slow switching on,not the fastest AF in the world and a bit noisy above 400ASA but in hindsight how much will that matter to most people who dont shoot fast action sport under floodlights in the middle of December.Neither in the replies were there any comments about it being "Only 6 megapixels" that was refreshing because maybe people are finally realising that unless you intend to crop drastically the you can mange with less that 15-20 megapixels,in fact I have an 18x12 on my wall taken with the D60 and its pin sharp.

So are we returning to the film days when you could carry around a 5/10 year old camera without fear of ridicule that it was not the latest and priove to other photographers that the old adage of talent and good glass still holds firm in the digital age

Image Stabilisation

I had never really thought much about IS but recently I acquired a new (Relatively new) compact to keep with me when the SLR was to bulky and I ended up with a Canon 710is,a few days later we were in York and particularly the minster where on the 350D i was getting shutter speeds of around 1/8th of a second at 100 ASA so decided to try the A710.

I have been pleasantly surprised not just for the way I have been able to take hand held shots at as slow as 1/4 of a second but also the quality of the shots,so maybe once the finaces allow it an IS lens for the SLR's may be called for

This Engine Is Just So Popular

As a steam rail photographer I was delighted when Tornado was built to fill a gap in preserved steam as no A1 Pacicific had survived into preservation,what I had not anticipated was the enormous interest that it would create amongst the non enthusiast section of the population,everywhere this big green machine goes there are hundreds limimg the route and all its excursions are sold out within days of going on sale.
So this was the sceanrio last week when I weas in York and popeed down to the station to get some shots of Tornado,thankfully York is a large station so I was able to find some free area of platform to get a set of shots

Some People Are So Thoughtless

Had a great day at the Severn Valley gala yesterday and got some shots that I was well pleased with including these taken at the Victoria Bridge,however when I got tio the bridge there were a number of other photographers and sitting down in the shrubbery in front of us 2 elderly couples.No problem I cheerily said they are hidden by the plants,they are now said another photographer but when the trains come they stand up and are right in the middle of your shot,sure enough when the next train came up they popped so had to do some serious cloning and cropping to keep them out of the shot.Now we were all to polite to say anything but it does make you wonder about some people

Cheap And Cheerful But High Quality

As I have mentioned before I have acquired a scanner and as well as shooting some film again I am working my way through decades of negatives and slides,I came across this one tonight and although it is not the most awe inspiring image in the history of the world it reminded me just what you could do on a budget This was taken with a Kiev 4, a rangefinder made in Russia but rather crudely copying the great Contax rangefinders of the 1950's but I picked it up second hand for peanuts,to my mind it shows why film still has a major place amongst the enthusiast photo community becaue although you can have fun for peanuts with digital the holy grail of cheap but high quality is still the preserve of film