iPlayer recommendation

While I may not be updating my vid links above, I'm still watching plenty of YouTube and photographic vids.  I will get around to updating the vids and channel links soon.  In the meanwhile, a nice little program on iPlayer at the moment about Albert Watson (Pinterest, Wikipedia)...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03y85dl/What_Do_Artists_Do_All_Day_Albert_Watson/


.. well worth a watch if you have access to view iPlayer content (imho).


I also purchased a new flash unit, a gentle-on-the-wallet (at least in the short term) .. Yongnuo YN-568EX II.  I've been impressed by the wireless flash triggers I bought from this company so thought I'd try their highly rated flash unit too.   Compared to the Canon 420EX I've been using immediate impressions are excellent - finally manual controls on the back, intelligent E-TTL, high speed sync, fast recycle times at half/quarter power and a tad more output power.  Just have to see how that "Made in China" reputation holds out when it comes to longevity. 

US Tour - Purge

 

 

Whoops.  Left this post behind sat in drafts!?  A bunch more US tour photos...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time flies when it's wasted!

 

Ouch!  More than a month since I posted last?!  Really?  Ok, I guess if I'm scrabbling for excuses I'd include more decorating, some weather nice enough to get some work done in the garden, quite a bit of gym and running (I'm doing a 10k assault course in May!) and planning the next bike tour ... which may well be somewhere East!   Since we've gone South (Morocco), North (Iceland) and West (USA). 

 

Also been buying a few more pieces of photo kit including some more portable flash equipment & attachments that I can travel with, for the wedding in Cyprus next month.

 

Oh.. and I spent a bunch of time re-vamping the wedding website to something I think I'm happy with .. although the current photos are only 800px, so don't look ideal in full screen on a large screen!

 

M & P Photography link

 

What else ... I've calibrated my Sigma 105mm lens, that I noticed was mis-focussing while taking the macro shot below of a moth laying eggs on our wall.  Having keeled over at the price of an official lens calibration tool, I printed this template:  http://www.squit.co.uk/photo/focuschart.html

.. printed, stuck, cut, snapped and custom functioned my lens into perfect harmony with the 5D3.

Note:  On the 5D3 > Go to My Menu, register new entry, Custom Function III - 8 AV Micro Adjustment (Yes, there are tons of hidden custom functions).  Set it to enabled per lens and adjust using the instructions on the link.

 

The bottom photo is a nice hazey, birds flying into the Sunset, dreamy kind of affair.  Straight from camera with a little croppage, I love the hues and layers in the townscape.

 

 

105mm, ISO400, f/8, 1/125s, -1ev, flash, 3 images focus stacked

170mm, ISO100, f/5, 1/8000s, -1.7ev