This is the final part to this ‘series’.  The final day with Red Cloud Days Photography course was better then the first day.  We were taken out to Wollaton Hall & Deer Park. The weather had cleared up a little, stopped raining and was even a little warmer then it was on Saturday, much the relief of everyone in the class.  There would be no need for the waterproofs I’d bought the day before

 

The intrepid explorers in the class and our fearless leader set out into the park

To carry on reading the rest of this post go ahead and click the link .. I’ve split this as it’s gonna be rather big for the front page of the blog. BTW, click on any photo to go to Flickr to see it in a bigger size. I’ve only kept the size down for faster load times.

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Tags: Photography, Red Cloud Days, Simon Bolton

Well, finished day 1 of the Red Cloud Days Photography course. So far I’m pretty impressed.

Simon Bolton, the instructor is quite good, sometimes the material gets a bit dry, but what can you do, there are some technical aspects that need explaining.  Simon has done quite well at not going into techno overload whilst explaining various bits to us, which is good.  I think he’s got it a bit easy on this course. He’d mentioned normally they have classes of 12, but this weekend there are only 4 of us on there.  I’m the only non-local, as the others are from the Nottingham / Beeston area.

I’ve picked up a load of very good info that finally brings together how Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings all gel to make photos what they are. On their own I suppose they’re all very simple concepts and I’ve read a lot about each of them, but I’ve had a problem getting good explanations on how they work together in what’s known as the Exposure Triangle. This was explained to us in the class room, then we put it into practice and saw the results back in the class room.  It was a very basic exercise to say the least but one which made us see how it all works.

First thing we covered really was Focal Length (simply put, the distance between the lens and the sensor / film in the camera body).  That lead into Depth of Field (DOF) and how that can be used and abused in photos both to improve the focus on the target and for artistic points of view.  This also included some discussion on how various sized lens will affect the perspective shown in the photo, ie, a wider angle lens such as an 18-55mm will give a good depth and show details such as ground contours in a landscape, but a long lens such as a 200-300mm will be flat and show nearly no contours.  This was something I’d noticed myself but never really gave much thought as to why this was, but that was explained in the class and I get it now  haha

Focus on the fence and blur the background – f/5.6 @ 1/1600th @ ISO 3200

Focus on the fence with less blur to the background - f/16 @ 1/200th @ ISO 3200

Next we’d gone into ISO (film speed, or how sensitive the camera sensor is to light) and how that affects photos.  Simply put, the higher the ISO the more sensitive to light the sensor becomes, but you trade off the high sensitivity for quality by risking a “noisy” photo with a more grainy look.  Lower ISO’s provide the higher quality photos, but in low light they won’t perform as well, so either more lighting (natural or artificial) will required.  It was explained that ISO really should be a last resort change when making setting changes in the camera.  Aperture and Shutter Speed plus the correct lens for the job should be used to get the job done.

We also discussed White Balance (WB) settings too.  This is certainly something I’d not really considered playing with and on all my cameras I’d simply left that on Auto, but having played a little today with the settings and seeing the results I can certainly see some uses for changing that when the situation requires it.

In these two photos the WB is set to “incandescent” for indoor photos, because of the programming you end up with these blue sort of photos.

 

Shutter Speed was something we’d spent some time on in the class room using some props (a ping pong ball on a table), using various speed settings to see the effects with the goal to using a speed that would completely freeze the ball in the air with no indication of movement.  We’d started at 1/60th of a second and worked up to 1/1000th of a second, very noticeable differences.  Then we’d stepped outside to do the same exercise but this time with cars as they passed the entrance of the building, we were shooting out the covered entrance (about 15 foot long and 10-12 feet wide).  So the window area to shoot through was rather small with lots of traffic passing by.  Again, some very noticeable differences in speeds, from 1/20th right up to 1/4000th of a second.  For these exercises I’ve got a bunch of pics HERE.  I’ve added descriptions to the photos of the basic camera settings (of course you can look at the EXIF data to get all the settings used).

That was pretty much it for day one.  Tomorrow we head out to Wollaton Hall & Deer Park.  Here, we’ll put what we learned today to the test.  We have a list of photos that we should get using the different techniques we learned.  That should take a couple hours in the park, then it’s back to the class room to go through our photos and pick our 10 best pictures to review and critique.  There will even be a little competition for best photo of the day with the winner getting a gift voucher for £10!

So, watch this space for another update either Sunday night (if I’m not too tired) or early next week.

Tags: Photography, Red Cloud Days, Simon Bolton

Last year just before Christmas I bought a new Nikon D5000 kit from ebay.

Every time I’d bought a new camera over the last 5 or 6 years I’ve wanted to get a DSLR, but I never did solely because of the cost.  Well, I finally decided to pull the trigger and jump in.  The D5000 was a good starter DSLR, perhaps one day I’ll upgrade to something closer to professional, such as the Nikon D7000 (or whatever is out when I’m ready to buy again).

Anyhow, as with most hobbies there are always little things (and not so little things) to add-on, and photography is without a doubt a hobby full of add-ons.  The extra bits you can buy are truly endless.  I think the thing that has kept be from buying too many add-ons is, again, the cost.  You can get lens from a £100 – £10,000, flashes, light boxes, reflectors and countless other items.  Another reason that’s held me back is my current lack of skills to make full use of the kit.

I’ve taken around 7,000 photos with my Nikon since I got it about 10 months ago.  Pretty good going I suppose.  I’ve tried to play with all the features of the camera and figure them out on my own, usually with the help of videos on Youtube or from forum postings.  This has worked quite well for me, but I’m still missing some hands on instructor led sort of learning, professional guidance.

Back in the mid’80’s when I was, well, much younger, I’d taken a photography course while I was an Air Cadet in the R.C.A.C #7 Penhold (Markerville) Squadron.  This was a 2 week course if I recall during the summer camp at CFB Penhold.  Without a doubt, those were was good times.  Anyhow, that course while clearly not working with Digital cameras really got my interest going in Photography.  I remember we’d all used the Pentax K1000, a very popular 35mm camera back in the day.  We’d had to learn to develop our own photos in the darkrooms provided, I’m not sure to this day which was more fascinating for me … taking the photos or developing them and printing them.

Oh well, back to the now.  As I said I’ve been adding to my camera collection so aside from the D5000 and it’s stock 18-55mm lens I’ve also bought a Tamron 70-300mm lens.  It’s very nicely priced lens that gets some mixed reviews but I think overall it’s mostly positive.  It’s a decent compromise of cost and quality.   I’ve also got some of the other usual bits, a couple of tri-pods, and a recently purchased camera backpack all nicely compartmentalised for the safe storage and protection of the gear inside.  I’m not 100% how I feel about the backpack yet, but it does work better then how I use to carry my camera and lenses around.  I’m sure it’ll grow on me.

So, in the interest of trying to get back into photography and hopefully end up with better photos I’ve signed on for a two day course with Red Cloud, being taught in Nottingham this coming weekend (Oct 8-9).  The details of the course sounded interesting and designed for newbies and the cost wasn’t out of this world either.

I’ll close this posting off now and hopefully I’ll get more posted shortly after the course with an update / review of the course and hopefully show some photos taken during the course of the weekend..

Watch this space …

Check out Photography – part 2

Tags: @RedCloudPhoto, DSLR, Nikon, Photography, Tamron

Earlier this year I bought a bread machine.  Nothing special, just a cheapo £30 job from Argos I think it was.  It’s pretty basic, all ingredients are dumped into the baking/mixing pot and that’s that.   There were 2 reasons for getting a bread machine, 1) to make better bread then I could buy (better for you, less rubbish put in) and 2) try to save some money by making our own.  I’d found that while I could buy a decent loaf of bread for about 80p-£1 with 25 or 30 slices in it, we were chucking out 1/2 to 1/3 of a loaf as it would go bad before we could finish it.   Since getting a bread machine we’ve tossed out a mouldy loaf only twice in about 8 months.

So, how do I make my bread?   Well, like anyone that gets a machine for a first time I went through some pretty bad attempts. 

This was one of the failures.  I had 4 previous failures to this one, some ended up like this, others ended up with severe muffin tops.

When I got the machine I’d tried the recipes that came in the book with the machine.  A couple worked fine some failed.  I Googled about and found THIS RECIPE.

That worked fine exactly as it is, but the loaf was “small” not filling the machine, so I tinkered with it.  Slowly increasing things until I got the sized loaf I wanted and that work.

 

So, now my standard recipe  is:

 

500g of Flour (See notes below)

300ml water

2 teaspoons Yeast  (an easy bake sort of yeast for bread machines)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons sugar (I’ve used both castor and normal sugar, normal is cheaper and works 100%)

4 tablespoons of powered milk mix (dry)

4 tablespoons of oil (See notes below)

Optional – add some seeds (See notes below)

Set machine to “Light” loaf and Go..

 

Notes:

Flour – I normally use a mix of flours (250g of each).  The primary flour is Allinson Strong White Bread Flour, then I’ll add something else to it, such as whole wheat or a seeded flour mix, or just 500g of the white.

Oil – Normally I use Olive Oil, I found it just adds a bit of flour over Veg oil.  I’ve also used Walnut oil and Peanut oil.  Both add a nice flavour, and smell to the bread

Optional – If I don’t use a seeded flour I’ll add additional seeds to the mix myself.  One of my favourite seed mixes is the Tesco Wholefoods 4 Seed Mix, I’ll add 100g of these seeds to mix, very tasty.  I’ve also used 80g of Tesco Wholefoods Brown Linseeds. Or just use Sesame seeds, 80g.

 

Since using the above I’ve only had 1 failure and I believe it may have been to “dead yeast” .. I chucked out the rest of the tin (not much left) and use a new package and it worked fine.

What is you’re favourite Bread Machine recipe?

Tags: Bread, Bread Machine, Recipe

I say “lists” because I find I have different needs at different times.  This depends on if I’m using my Android devices for work or play.

 

Essential apps for “play”

Social Network / Chat Apps

 

Facebook

It goes without saying, Facebook is one of the required apps by “most” people these days.  There are many Facebook apps to pick from in the Android Market, but the one I’ve stuck with is Facebook for Android.  This app has been updated quite a bit since the first version I’d seen 2 years ago when I first got my Samsung Galaxy S (I-9000).  The latest versions of the application include access to pretty much every feature on Facebook now, including Facebook Chat.

Trillian

That brings me the next app, Trillian (by Cerulean Studios, LLC).  I’ve been using Trillian off and on pretty much since it came out, must be the best part of 10 years now.  This is a great mutli-IM platform with lots of features (a few drawbacks too, but what “all-in-one” tool doesn’t have it’s drawbacks).  When Trillian came out for Android I jumped on it right away.  Some of the features of Trillian that I find useful are the I can now share my chat history between all my devices (Android, PC, Web).  You can debate with yourself if storing your chat history either locally or in the cloud is a good or bad thing.  I’ve been down that road and have found that in general having my chat history has been a good thing.  Searching for shared URL’s or other info has been a time savings for me.

Tweetdeck

Twitter (<- click to get to my twitter ID) is another social network I frequently use. For this I choose to use Tweetdeck.  I also use Tweetdeck on the PC so this works very well when I’m also using it on my Android devices.  My preferences are stored and shared with my various devices that use the app, also making things convenient, just sign in and you’re good to go.

 

Pingchat

The final chat application Pingchat, is a mobile device only application, but it’s cross platform, making it quite useful.  This app should save you loads over using SMS to communicate with your friends, especially International friends.  It works very much like RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, but it’s not limited to only one platform.  You can send messages, pictures, videos, voice messages, etc.  It’s very similar to another application called WhatsApp Messenger, I also use this, but not as much as Pingchat.

 

Everyday apps

 

Kindle

The Kindle app from Amazon is a very nicely done application for reading.  However, from my personal experience reading on a phone or even an a tablet isn’t nearly as good as using a real Kindle Device.  The screens are just not as nice to read from as that which is offered by the E-Ink technology used by Kindle.  However, it’s still a very good and simple application to use an easy to browse the Kindle Bookstore and purchase new books for immediate delivery to your device.

Dropbox

The Dropbox app is another must have if you want easy document access between devices.  I have been a long time user of JungleDisk, and even though they have decided to completely abandon Android users, but they have got a iPhone/iPad version available and I would still recommend it for PC and the Apple devices, it really is worth the small price.  Anyhow, since i don’t have JungleDisk for Android I’ve been forced to use Dropbox (<- click for my affiliate link, it’ll get you some extra space when you sign up).  I have to stay that Dropbox does work very well but the cost of space beyond the free space is more expensive then Amazon S3 Storage, which JungleDisk uses.

Quickoffice Pro

Quickoffice Pro is my mobile Office application of choice.  It provides all the usual tools for creating, editing, viewing Microsoft Office documents.  It supports Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF’s.  When it comes to documents you can use local documents stored on your device (Android, iPhone/iPad) or stored in various cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.net, etc.

 

Titanium Backup Pro

Titanium Backup Pro is a fantastic application but it will only worked on rooted devices, which is something I think most people will do to their Android devices, it makes them more usable (in my Opinion).  This application will also allow you to remove some of the  bloatware that comes on some Android devices.   You can not only back up to your local storage on the device but also to Dropbox for all it’s cloudy goodness.

 

Tasker

Tasker is a full automation application for your Android device.  Think CRON for unix, but inject Schwarzenegger levels of steroids into it.  Some of the automation I use on my phone include, keeping my GPS turned off at all times but Tasker will turn it on when I start an application that needs it, then switches it off again when I exit the app.  When my phone connects to my home Wifi network it will switch off Bluetooth and force GPS off since I don’t need at home, also, while at home, between 11pm and 7am if the device is plugged in it will silence the phone so I’m not annoyed at night.  The possibilities are just about endless for this app, and it’s worth every penny.

 

Games

There are so many games available it’s really hard to list the ones I’ve played and liked, but I suppose a short list would have to be:

Angry Birds.  There are different versions and personally, I think they should all be downloaded and played 

• Angry Birds
• Angry Birds Rio
• Angry Birds Seasons

Airport Mania (Free) – You get to control the process of incoming and outgoing air planes.  It’s not as simple as landing them and taking them off though, you need to get to them to the terminals, get them fuelled up, cargo loaded, washed if their dirty and repaired if they need maintenance.  I’m considering buying the paid for version as I’ve completed the free version, it really was quite addictive.

Jewellust is another must have game.  Spring for the paid for version, you won’t be disappointed.  The kids also love playing this game.

 

Essential apps for “work” (or geeks)

These are a few apps that I feel are a must off for work or just geeking about on the Internet

ConnectBot

ConnectBot is a must for SSH.  It not only supports SSH Keys but also port tunnelling.  This is very useful to get access to internal destinations on a network that allows you to SSH into.

LogMeIn Ignition

LogMeIn Ignition isn’t a cheap app, and it’s about the only thing people complain the most about, the price.  But, if you have a load of machines setup to use LogMeIn you will not regret paying the price for the application.  I have 5 or 6 PC’s configured with LogMeIn (Free) and I find this tool simply awesome.  I can access my PC’s with the phone (or tablet) over pretty much any sort of connection and it just works.  GPRS is a bit slow but it does work, which is impressive.

Wyse PocketCloud (Pro)

This is the best RDP/VNC client I’ve used on Android, it also supports VMWare View if your company uses this.  I’ve not actually tried this function myself, but the VNC and RDP are very good, couple this with ConnectBot and you can tunnel your way into a network and access RDP over the SSH tunnels.

Wifi Analyzer

This is a great tool for doing Wifi surveys with, you will need an additional installed app to use it.  Check out the screen shots of it on the Market, it really does a very nice job.

 

A few others I must also mention are:

Shark for Root – Wireshark network sniffer (also get Shark Reader to read the output on the Android Device)

Net Scan – Scan your local network for devices and open ports

Root Explorer (for rooted devices) – Poke through everything on your Android and mount areas Read/Write so you can modify system files – Danger Will Robinson, Danger

 

I hope you find this helpful, and I’d love to hear what apps you MUST have on your Android, and tell us why.