2013 365 33

Zoot alors! It's week 33. A lot of this week involved getting ready to travel to Swansea for my first ever roller derby tournament. About a dozen bouts to shoot in two days, so a lot of prepwork involved.

The death by accidental misadventure of my 70-200mm lens during the week has also added to my sense of panic but a relatively inexpensive (2nd hand) replacement is on its way as I type. Hopefully it gets here on time.

12/08/13

I'm still getting a lot of fun from my 8mm fisheye lens. I took this on a visit to the Ulster Museum today and really like it and some of the other shots I got. OK, so it's HDR'd to within an inch of it's life but so what?

13/08/13

Very small and select secret gig this evening for Belfast punk/oi band Runnin' Riot. Got the chance to hear some of their new stuff ahead of their forthcoming CD launch. There's a chance some of my shots will make it onto the CD cover. In short, it was a blast.

14/08/13

Had my first visit to Castle Espie just outside Comber this week, a haven for a huge variety of birds. I don't do wildlife, but managed to get a couple of half-decent shots. This has to be a day of note as it was the last shots taken with my Tamron 70-200mm lens before it bit the dust big time. Adios my old amigo, you will be missed.

15/08/13

Old shot that I've done before, but not with a fisheye lens. It gave me several other ideas for shots involving a fridge that I naturally didn't get around to.

16/08/13

Had been on the lookout for a set of these blocks to use in the pregnancy/bump project I've been working on for the last few months. It's nearing the end, but we have a few set up shots we'd like to get and spelling out words with these blocks was one of them. Again, the temptation was too much for me. Sorry.

17/08/23

Mods vs Rockers fair and festival today? Sounds like a great idea and an opportunity to get some great shots. How wrong was I? It was dull, there was nothing worth seeing and this was the only shot I came away with. Lesson learned.

18/08/13

Full on zombie shoot with the ladies of Belfast Roller Derby this evening. I had three ideas for shots, two of which worked and one of which I was disappointed with. This was one of the ones that I felt worked very well, although it took a bit of fiddling to get the lighting right. I ended up with two remote flashguns balanced on my stomach and dialled down to 1/32 power to get it just about right. Using the fisheye again, and it also worked really well for another shot - but you'll need to check in next week to see it.

367-50 Week 50

IT'S WEEK 50 - ONLY TWO MORE WEEKS TO GO!
Sorry, don't know if I'm excited or glad to see the end of this. A few things coming up this week some of the them involving Roller Derby. Going to attempt the most complicated shot ever on Tuesday night if the weather stays dry.

22/10/12

It wasn't my idea, but a really helpful suggestion from another photographer (you know who you are) - why not take some shots of the rain drops sitting on spider's webs in the hedges outside my house. That killed an hour of my time this evening and was an antidote to helping children with their homework. I'm not sure what I did here, but this looks like drops of water frozen in mid air as you can't see the web strands holding them up.

23/10/12

Roller Derby photoshoot this evening, ably assisted by my son Conor. It was a Star Wars theme so we were trying to combine fire spinning and light sabres. This was a 25" exposure at f8 and 100 ISO with two remore flashguns set to fire on rear curtain flash. The flashes were set at about 1/8th power (got there by a lot of trial and error). All in all it worked out quite well; a bit of tinkering with exposure and cropping in Lightroom and then a spot of sharpening in Photoshop. Lets see how it goes down with the punters, so to speak. Big thanks to my two lovely and every patient models, McSlay and Chopper.

24/10/12

Halloween disco in school - Sarah decided to go as "Deadward" (i.e. dead Jedward - I wish). I ended up trying to do the hair for her. I'm afraid that it turned out more like Maggie Smyth in Downton Abbey than the annoying Grimes twins.

25/10/12

Another attempt at capturing some autumn colour. I had intended walking the dog in Stormont Estate and taking some pictures. That I did, but I saw this tree on the way there, just round the corner from the house. Fantastic reds and oranges and spiky leaves thrown in for free? Stormont pictures got binned.

26/10/12

I'd seen this type of shot done by a few other people (which were generally better than my attempt). However, in an idle moment this morning and in an attempt to take a break from work stuff I decided to give it a go and see how it worked out. Two shots taken in succession with a self timer lit with one speedlight bounced of a white ceiling. I know I got my hands a little bit out of alignment with my face/eyes, but I was working quickly. Imported both to Photoshop as layers and then rubbed through the "hand" layer to reveal the eyes underneath using a brush set at around 40% hardness.

27/10/12

This is the view from the top of Slieve Croob, one of the smaller Mourne Mountains. It was a cold but bright day and I humped the big camera the whole way up here and wasn't going to leave without a photo. I was able to use the little concrete trig point at the very top to set the camera on and this is taken looking towards Black Mountain and Belfast. You could see the Harland and Wolfe cranes from the top - honest.

28/10/12

Started a big round of head shots for Belfast Roller Derby this afternoon with another batch to come next Thursday evening. As always, they were a great group to work with and the effort they put in for things like this is immense. I took this shot for myself, for the blog. The head shot is every bit as good. I was working on a high-key approach to the shots, and they seem to have worked out well; or at least I'm pretty pleased with them. Big thanks to Dempsey Hammer who organised everyone (excel spreadsheet at the ready!) and to my son Conor for being my assistant yet again.

367-50 Week 37

Another week, another week closer to the end of this project and I'm already starting to think about what to do next. The NEST2012 exhibition at T13 made me start thinking about found objects and photos of these. We'll see. I have the Belfast Banshees roller derby bout to look forward to on Saturday night as well. The rest of the week is, always, a mystery.

23/07/12

So here's the story. Around the coast of Britain between the 19th and 22nd of July these installations were being put up. A collection of illuminated tents with accompanying soundscapes of poetry called Peace Camp. We had two here in Northern Ireland and I opted to book tickets to the one at White Park Bay. My daughter Katie and myself set out before 9pm for a 90-minute drive. We arrived at White Park Bay at 10 o'clock to be told that the event was cancelled because of freak winds and freak high tides. I noted that there wasn't actually a breath of wind and the waves were being very well behaved and were in fact, quite far away. In the face of this, Katie and I had a cup of tea and decided to walk down to the beach anyway. All the tents had been taken down (except this one) and no poetry was to be had. Not to be put off without a fight, I tried a few ideas to get some sort of shot before we hit on the idea of getting Katie to go into the tent and wave a torch around it. This was the result on a 30" exposure at f-16, which shows up the tent but keeps a bit of detail in the sky and the foreground. At 10:31, I received an e-mail and a text from the organisers to inform me that the event was cancelled. Go figure.

24/07/12

Just saw this shot in the morning. The light was nice, the colour of the flowers stood out against each other and I thought that a shallow depth of field would work quite well with this.

25/07/12

A wee bit of spare time today and while doing some housework I was struck by the number of dead moths on one of the windowsills. A mystery - time to call in the CSI guys to investigate. I'm really liking the quality and the detail that the Nikon 60mm f2.8 gives. This was taken with the lens nearly pressed up against the subjects, but it came out pretty well. Razor sharp depth of field again.

26/07/12

This was my project for the day. I'd picked up a little Polaroid pocket printer and set about taking a series of headshots of myself. I roughly cropped these shots down in-camera and ended up with about 24 pictures (20 mins roughly, allowing for coffee). I then printed each shot off on the Polaroid printer and assembled the shots (about 30 mins). Took photo of finished piece and voila! I'm looking more like Eric Cantona as I get older and don't shave. A man can dream.

27/07/12

This was taken yesterday during a scouting trip for potential photoshoot locations. The Abbey at Greyabbey has masses of potential, with lots of possible set-ups that don't involve visitor information boards and bright green railings. It is handicapped by very photographer-unfriendly opening hours - 10am - 4.30 pm thus managing to avoid both early morning and evening when the light would be at its best.

28/07/12

Off to shoot Roller Derby this evening, with Belfast Banshees taking on Parma Violents from Scotland. As always, it was a great night and great fun to shoot. I've said it on this blog many times, but the Belfast Roller Derby crew are the best bunch of people to work with. Managed to fill a massive amount of storage space with shots and it is going to take most of tomorrow to process the photos, but it'l be worth it. I'm posting this pic simply because I like it. The framing, the light and the expression - no post-processing; this was how it came out of the camera.

29/07/12

Yep, it's now something like 6.30pm and I'm still sorting through shots from last night to get them posted to Facebook and to Flickr. I'm impressed with how the D800 coped with high ISO and was able to shoot on manual at 1/500 and f4 for most of the night with the D800 on auto ISO. It ranged up to ISO 6400 and these shots haven't been put through any noise reduction software. That will be a job for another day should anyone want them printed or published I suppose. And it was a real boost to see my headshots for the team in the bout programme. They looked really well. Better than the other teams, anyway. The full set from last night's bout can be seen at:

Belfast Banshees vs Parma Violents on Flickr

367-50 Week 34

It's been a strange week in many respects for me, and I've found myself doing some things I would never have imagined doing. None of which are going into the blog this week, because it's beard removal week here on 2nd Shooter. People have commented in the past about how they think that my beard or lack of it reflects my mood. I think I can say that this is the first time I've grown a beard and then shaved it off for purely photographic purposes. So, here's the plan. Having spent a month growing a full beard, I'm going to shave some off each day until I'm clean shaven by the time that Sunday rolls around. In other words, seven self-portraits all taken and processed identically. This is either going to be spectacular, or incredibly dull.

2/07/12

So we start with the full beard. The Rolf Harris, or The Gerry Adams depending on your point of view. This had to go, mainly because the sides start itching like mad when it gets to a certain length and shocking amount of grey (who an I kidding -white) on my chin makes me look and feel like I'm in my 90's.

3/07/12

I have to say that I'd never tried this look before, probably with good reason. Tuesday's facial hair was a challenge to wear all day, and my youngest daughter was quick to point out that I looked like Wolverine. Which I took as a compliment, until she explained that it wasn't. I did discover, however, that this looks really good with my buff/bandana on. Very redneck.

4/07/12

This is me in my natural bearded state. I've had this goatee for a couple of years now, and have worn it on and off over the last god-knows how many years. Maybe a bit bushier than normal, but that's what will probably be growing back once this project ends.

5/07/12

The Buffalo Bill look was something I kinda enjoyed, and it was fun sporting it to my ex-partner's graduation at Queens. As noted above, that was something I'd never envisaged happening, but it all worked out quite pleasantly and my youngest seems to have enjoyed the day, which was why I did it in the first place. I kinda like this look, strangely enough and kept it for as long as possible before shaving and heading towards my least favourite look of all, the moustache.

6/07/12

You didn't realise that there was another Chuckle Brother? I really don't go for the solitary 'tache at all. It reminds me of police officers or something. I was a little embarrassed to go out of the house like this but stuck it out. Avoided public places and didn't go anywhere were people might have recognised me though.

7/07/12

This was rather fun. My attempt at a Clark Gable moustache ended up making me look like a 1940's/1950's wide boy - George Cole in the original St Trinian's movies perhaps. I did try to throw in a "dodgy geezer" expression for this one - it seemed appropriate.

8/07/12

And here's a picture of my da. I'm not sure how I feel about looking in the mirror and seeing my dad looking back every morning. On the plus side, it makes me look a few years younger (I know I'm deluding myself there, but hey) and requires much less maintenance that any sort of facial hair. Bare face for a little while, I think and then welcome back goatee beard.


Technical details? Usual Nikon D90 with a Nikkor 60 mm f2.8 lens. ISO 200, shutter speed 200 and f 5.6. One flash above and left on half power, one below and right on one quarter power. Both flashes at 45 degrees to the subject and shooting though umbrellas. Post processed in Lightroom4 using a black and white/yellow filter and given a dark vignette.

367-50 Week 33

A relatively busy week this week. Photo trip arranged for Monday, go karts on Thursday and over to Nottingham to visit my son on the weekend. Shouldn't have a problem filling this week.

25/06/12

After deciding to just get the hell out of Belfast for the day and drive north, I ended up at Mussenden Temple and The Dark Hedges, two of the most photographed places in Northern Ireland. I came away with very few good shots, but this is my shot of the day. I've seen better pictures of The Dark Hedges, but at least this one has a story to go with it. Standing in the middle of the road, camera on tripod, neutral density filter attached and so on. A little Nissan Micro drives up and stops; out get Pearl and Margaret, both elderly ladies and absolutely charming. We talked about the hedges and they offered to walk up the road to give the photo "a sense of perspective." Those of you who know me will know that that is something I've always lacked. Off they went, up the road to the bend you can see in the picture and then back again. And then Pearl produces her e-mail address and a book of oral history stories from Rathcoole which she had worked on. That was absolutely golden.

26/06/12

This week's cucumber update - there it is - a little cucumber. I've now quite a few of these growing although I was fairly sure I spotted a mouse darting away from the plants when I went in to take this shot. Do mice eat cucumbers? Was it one of the frogs that live in the greenhouse pretending to be a mouse? Bugger.

27/06/12

Ok, it's been months since I've had to wear a suit for work. Court today and a suit that fits me. This was my excuse for a self portrait. Something old, classy and sharp. The photo, not me.
Again, set up in the back bedroom with the bare minimum of kit and shot with cable release/timer delay and using tethered capture via Lightroom on the Macbook Pro. Tethered capture with Lightroom 4 seems to work a lot better on the Mac than on my previous windows-based laptop. Used the aged photo preset in Lightroom, dodged my face to lighten it and applied a little dark vignette. And got a haircut. Jesus - you'd think I knew what I was talking about.

28/06/12

Thursday and the work "end of term" outing. This year it was karting in Broughshane. I know it doesn't sound too attractive, but I couldn't recommend this highly enough. Nice staff, good equipment and pretty fast karts. These are two of my female colleges. Number 1 is Clare who started off slowly and gradually got faster over the morning. Number 7 is Fiona who just flew from the beginning. She was somehow able to zip around the track without spinning, sliding or screeching the tyres (all of which I did). However, for sheer mindless stick-the-pedal-down-and-sod-everything-else I think I came out on top. I am somewhat sorry to report that I lost out on the last lap to a man who gave up psychology to become a Presbyterian minister. One can only assume he had god on his side. Or in his petrol tank

29/06/12

Evening flight out of the City Airport over east Belfast, travelling with number 1 son Conor to visit number 2 son Rory in Nottingham. There's a aerial view of Forestside Shopping Centre for you.

30/06/12

That's Rory - the last of my kids photographed for this project. We had an interesting afternoon, doing a photographic scavenger hunt around the Market Square in Nottingham. Three of us armed with cameras and a list of shots to get. I was very impressed with some of the pictures that both Rory and Connor came up with - we need to find some way of posting them up for everyone to see. On a more personal note, I find visiting Rory difficult in many ways. We haven't spent that much time around each other and I feel that we're pretty much strangers to each other. More recently, even getting to talk to him on the 'phone has been a challenge. Having Conor with me is a bonus though - he's good company and an excellent travelling companion.

1/07/12

Sunday morning, up too early again and walking round Nottingham with the camera. I love being somewhere different in the mornings, before every one is up and about. I took some shots of buildings in the morning light, which turned out OK. But early morning photowalks also mean coffee and smokes. This was the most welcome cup of coffee in a long time. Big, black and strong and accompanied by a Marlboro Light.

Cheers and thanks for reading this far. If you like the blog, feel free to share if with the Facebook button up above and on the left.

367-50 Week 27

Over the half way mark this week in terms of this project. Frankly, things still suck. I'm still up and down in terms of my thinking and my moods. Highlights of the week? I'm trying to cut back on the sleeping tablets to see if I can manage anything like a normal night's sleep. I'm going to have an initial assessment appointment for counselling this week and will be resigning from the presidency of the City of Belfast Photographic Society as I am not fit to offer anything to the club.
As an opening paragraph, that beats "it was a dark and stormy night."

14/05/12

Three objects on the mantlepiece. Tacky carriage clock which was here when I moved in last Thursday. Little fat Buddha has been with me for over ten years. He's my lucky money buddha - rub his belly when you need it and he will bring you money. Trust me, it works. Just don't use him too often. The little Coco taxi was picked up by my wife and I on our trip to Cuba and was one of the many things she handed back to me when I was moving out. I got handed every little thing that was to do with us - yet I just want to hold on to everything that reminds me of her, from the little coco taxi to the passport photo in my wallet and everything in between.

15/05/12

Did a shot like this a few years back, in the last house that I rented. I stole the idea from my wife. This is a more direct steal than the last one - or at least in my memory this is more like her original shot. An homage perhaps.

16/05/12

Today was difficult and stressful with a morning visit to the doctor and finding out my car was sicker than I thought. Out of the blue, my best friend Colin rang and announced he was coming to visit me as he had gotten wind something was up. The fact that I've been ringing him twice a day for two weeks with no success - it didn't seem like the time to bring that up. Colin is an honest and decent man, and my oldest friend. He tells it like it is while reminding me that he loves me. And he did both today.

"No matter how bad you think things are or what the problems are, there's no excuse for what you did." He's right

"You're standing there looking at all the broken stuff lying on the floor and don't know what to do." Right again.

"I still love you and think you're a good man" 

That's harder to either believe or understand right now.

This was by far one of the harder conversations I've had and it was made harder by Colin's poor memory at times and by the fact that he didn't seem to really grasp that I was now living by myself. I found this incredibly distressing and it left me flattened. I hadn't thought it was possible to feel any worse than I had been feeling, but after Colin's visit I did. He'll ring tomorrow again, just to see how I am.

17/05/12

Having time on your hands is both a good and bad thing. You can get things done (good) or you can sit around with thoughts running through your head that make it feel like a washing machine on a fast spin cycle (bad). I have to admit to doing both over the last while. Today I got around to having the grinding noise in the front wheel of my car fixed. Good stuff included it not costing as much as I thought, getting it back the same day and meeting Roger who runs Milford Motors in Ballyhackamore. Bad thing - the customer toilet. I'm not going into detail but I should say that it was the filthiest toilet I have ever been in and this photo really doesn't do it justice.

18/05/12

I got up early this morning and in an effort to keep myself occupied (which is frankly becoming more difficult with each day that passes) I took myself off to the Balmoral Show before it up and moves to The Maze. Have to say thanks to my wee sister who was on the gate and let me in for free. I could be unkind and say that it was wet, cold and full of culchies but I actually managed to put in a good few hours of wandering about taking photos. The sheep shearing competition was good fun and the Bulldog Lings motorcycle display team were worth seeing. These two old lads were just looking over the half door of a horse stall beside one of the show-jumping rings. I couldn't resist.

19/05/12

This picture is a bit personal (I apologise to anyone who is offended by my torso) and I took it for two reasons. Having been trying to lose weight since January I had dropped from 16 stones to just under 14 1/2 stones. Over the past two weeks due to stress, not sleeping and not really feeling like eating I dropped another stone. Yep - I know, I brought it on myself.
I think I wanted to see what I looked like at this weight and to be honest the person looking back at me is a stranger.

Connected to this was the fact that my wedding ring started to slip off my finger and I had a couple of panics when I couldn't find it. Yesterday at the Balmoral Show being a case in point (it had come off in my pocket). Again, I know that I'm leaving myself open to charges of hypocrisy, but my wedding ring means something to me. It's a physical connection to someone that still means the world to me and  it reminds me of happier times. I had a look through some boxes and found a white gold chain and thought I would try to wear it with my ring, as in the picture. It only dawned on me when I looked at this shot that my dad has been wearing his wedding ring on a chain round his neck since my mum passed away. I'd always known he did this, but didn't connect it to what I had done. I'm hoping this is temporary and that once I put some a little weight again I can put my ring back on my finger.

20/05/12

Crumlin Road Car Boot Sale, Sunday morning. I plucked up the motivation to tackle doing a car boot sale and thought we'd give this huge one a try. Went with every intention of selling some unwanted stuff which I don't have room and which has been boxed up for over a year but arrived too late to get a pitch. Apparently you need to there at 6am to get a pitch - they had been turning people away since 7.30am. Having dragged Vonnie and Conor along, the decision was made to have a walk around. This meant watching Vonnie buy loads of stuff, and we went home with more stuff than we came with. Chatted to a few people about cameras, photography and stuff. The stall holder who owned the above articles was pretty quick to point out that it was the first time anyone had ever asked to take pictures of his pig's ears. Is this an analogy or an allegory? What's the difference?

367-50 Week 24

Bienvenue, Ola, Hoz Geldinitz and so on. Welcome to week 24 - yes that's WEEK 24 of my dinky little photoblog.  God only knows what's coming up this week. Nothing planned in advance and no known photoshoots in the works, except for a camera club outing on Wednesday night.

23/04/12

Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM+ for short) was invented in 1938 and by 1942 was being used by Britain and the USA as an IQ screener for all new soldiers. Welcome to the 2012 version which now includes a very test of ability as well as the good old visual matrices. But why take a photo of this? I'm doing a training session next Wednesday on a new batch of psychometric tests being given out to all post-primary schools and this is one of the tests in the box. It's incredibly dull stuff and I can't think of any way to liven it up except to throw in a few pics. Jokes about psychometric tests are thin on the ground. Mind you, if anyone knows one - leave me a comment on the blog or e-mail me at michaelbarbour902@btinternet.com. Best joke that can be used next week will win a pint at my earliest convenience. *Update* See joke at bottom of blog - all my own work.

24/04/12

Spent all day in Larne, assessed two nursery children (observations and psychometrics and interviews with staff and parents) and got to drive half way home with the roof down. Then went to take the kids aikido class when we graded two of the newest students. The went home and went out for a run - one hour with no stops. I'll not tell you how far I covered but it wasn't as much as the target of 7 miles for the marathon relay leg. My picture - me after my run. I forgot to take my camera out with me today.

25/04/12

I'm on a wee bit of a roll here in terms of strange things I've encountered in the offices of various solicitors. Today was a real gobsmacker. An innocent question - "where's the bathroom" actually lead me to a door behind which was .....a bathroom. Complete with corner bath and shower cubicle which you can't see in this shot. I felt like cancelling the interview I had scheduled and taking a bath.

26/04/12

Comber Greenway, between the Sandown and Beersbridge Roads. North Road bridge in the distance. It's cold and wet. Weather's miserable. Running a little and feeling like shit.

27/04/12

Dirty and grainy shot of the same walkway at sunset. This is at the end, heading into the Holywood Arches. It's not pretty. This and the previous shot were both taken and processed using the Camera Awesome app on the iphone 4.

28/04/12

This is the almost finished backwall gallery for the City of Belfast Photographic Society exhibition with most of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed prints on display. Unfortunately I had to leave before it was finished with the highly commended and commended prints still to be hung. I'm pleased to have four there so far, with a few more to come. I'm also very proud of my 9 year old daughter, who has two first placed prints in the novice/beginner/general section and four pictures up there - damn! She has the same amount as me.

29/04/12

I planted three forest flame bushes in pots in the front garden last year - they've all been out in flower for some time and all have different coloured flowers. These are the white variety - the other two are red/pink and variagated pink/white. They've done really well but I suppose they need to be planted in the ground at some stage.

Cheers for stopping by and having a look at the blog. Don't be shy and drop me a message on the blog - feedback gratefully accepted.

*Update*
Just remembered the joke about the man who goes to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist takes out the Rorschach Ink Blots and shows the man the first one, asking what he can see. The man says "I see a gorgeous naked lady and she's looking at me in a very inviting way." The psychiatrist shows the man the next ink blot and the man says "I see two people making mad passionate love."
The psychiatrist says "I think I can see the problem - you're obsessed with sex."
The man says "me? You're the one showing all these dirty pictures!"

367-50 Week 21

Back to butts this week. Not much of an exotic nature to share this week but some strange happenings indeed to recount.

2/04/12

Today was our first wedding anniversary. I came home to find this rather excellent toilet paper installation in the living room, courtesy of Lynsey, Hannah, Maud and Roy. It was then I figured out that the first wedding anniversary is "paper" and realised that I'd got Trish a bunch of flowers. Whoops.

3/04/12

And here are the flowers in question. I started playing about with my Lensbaby although the light was very limited in the kitchen. I'm not always sure when using manual focus if my shots are sharp - part of being a little short-sighted I suppose. Even with the dioptre on my camera set properly it can still be a little hit and miss. The ability to shift the sweet spot on the Lensbaby Composer is a nice feature and I pushed it over the the left of the frame for this short. I think there might be some fun to be had with this little bit of kit. Perhaps a themed week on the blog is in the works?

4/04/12

I knew that going to camera club AGM was a bad idea. Trish had indicated that after 3 years that she wanted to step down as President. I knew that no-one else would want to do it but wasn't expected to be ambushed into standing for the post. So there we have it - I am now President of the City of Belfast Photographic Society and here's my chain of office to prove it. In reality this means that the above item has moved from Trish's underwear drawer to my underwear drawer. I'm still in shock.

5/04/12

After last night's AGM at the camera club and my shock investiture as El Presidente I decided that it would only be right to have a presidential portrait taken. I made an effort and put on a shirt and tie and felt that the cigar and trust-worthy expression would be just the ticket.

6/04/12

Keeping the theme of self-portraits, I shot this today after picking up a second hand Nikon 60mm f2.8D lens. Supposed to be very sharp and good for portraits and macro work. Been playing about with it this afternoon. The depth of field is a little out in this shot - My eye is sharp but the camera is way too soft for my liking - but then again I was shooting it "wide open" at f2.8 into a mirror. More playing to come. The  lens is really solid and seems very well-built. Autofocus is fast and accurate but doesn't have full-time manual over-ride and getting in into manual mode is fiddly. It also claims to close down to an f-stop of f32 which I've never seen before. I shall give it a try.

7/04/12

Still playing about with the new 60mm micro lens. There are two of these novelty bottles sitting on the kitchen window sill and I was just shooting close up with the new lens to see how it performed in terms of macro work. It does pretty well, although you do need to get very close with a 60mm my 105mm macro lens gives a bit more room to work in. Anyhow - nice and sharp and the colours are good.