Month: April 2024

A life of pane ?

by

April 21, 2024

5:54 pm

Comments Off on A life of pane ?

photography

,

Hello everyone,

Picture. Meme. A tortoiseshell coloured cat wearing glasses. The cat is in a sitting down pose on a chair, with paws up on a folded newspaper. The captions are "The face is like a work of art." "It deserves a great frame."

I meant to do a post last week but something happened which meant having to ration the rational thought for a while :

Picture. We're looking at a pair of broken glasses and a dwagon. We see one half of the glasses, with the dwagon in the background holding up the disconnected glasses leg in outstretched paws.

Eek. That happened while I was cleaning the reading glasses while at an off site meeting a couple of Thursdays ago. The optician and me didn’t think it was fixable but they were able to pop me in for a rather emergency appointment on the Friday. And the new pairs arrived Friday two days ago. I could have done with an upgrade anyway, that pair were done during covid times and the mask was making the machine fog up … so the prescription was a bit off.

So what happened there ? The learn from experience wise after the event thing points me towards that join there. Most of the frames in the shop look like they’re made with a bend in the metal or plastic to make that 90 degrees between the lenses part and the legs part. A bend means the metal is somewhat gently formed through that 90 degrees and it’ll keep the bonds between the atoms intact. Those frames were made with a fold, which will break the bonds between the atoms and introduce a weakness that’ll lead to cracking and the fairly clean break you see there.

If you see the metal formed into a U shape throughout the bend, that makes it still more stronger.

So I have new glasses now but for a week I’d gone back to an ancient maybe 25 year old pair which were before my broken nose. I think they’re actually the pair that mean I still have 2 intact eyes, because they withstood the impact of a cricket ball. And I can still read in them ! The misalignment (my nose is still 2mm off centre) leads to headaches though and a rationing of that rational thought.

Pictures. A set of 4, top left showing my red plushie dwagon looking at a comprehensively wrapped and taped cuboid box. Top right, the outside is off and we see dwagon looking at clear white bubble wrap. Bottom left, dwagon is looking at a white box, with a tall camera lens on top. Bottom right. Dwagon is beside camera, with the new long lens fitted pointing upwards and the shorter lens in front.

I’ve had another couple of arrivals and deliveries as well since last time. The Canon R50 did remarkably well at Insomnia, with all of the pictures coming out looking great and most importantly … properly sharp. Love that, people were loving the pictures I was sending out as well.

That’s a big thanks to Geraldine of the MS Maud cruise too, Geraldine was the ship’s photographer and part of the expedition team. Early on in the cruise, Geraldine was leading workshops on how to get great photography pictures out of the cruise. Because it’s not just about the time on the ship, it’s about getting those memories to look at afterwards as well. There were separate workshops for those with DSLR and Mirrorless (like the R50) cameras which I didn’t go to but a couple of tips from the main presentation are things I’ve tried to keep with me … So that’s :

Be selective about the pictures you send to the world. The Insomnia day collected 109 pictures, of which 18 went to the bigger collection on Facebook. That might still be too many for a day :-D. That’s the thing though – people will turn off their attention by picture 25, if they even get that far. With this age of digital photography and big memory cards, take lots of pictures but just show off the best ones. Hold back the mediocre ones or the ones that didn’t quite work.

Composition – it helps a lot to turn on the 3 x 3 grid facility that’ll be in any camera (if you can find it!) Our brains like to see things in certain places in the pictures. The 3 x 3 box grid helps to set everything up for best effect. Maybe that works here …

Picture. We're looking out across a dark grey sea, rippled by waves. Above is a light blue sky, with white clouds dominating. At the horizon, we see the two vertical towers of a bridge that marks the horizon. A faint rainbow can be seen to the right.

Or maybe I need to upgrade my tripod :-). That was from the first little field test of the new lens. It’s a 55-210mm lens to fit the R50 camera. That means it picks up from the maximum zoom of the lens I got with the camera and extends all the way out to get pictures like that of the nearer Severn Bridge between England and Wales. That first bridge is 10km away and you can (on the native resolution ! This is 1/3 height and width) electronically zoom in to see individual suspension bridge cables.

Happy with that, looking forwards to seeing how it does in the cricket at Lords. I took that picture at Portishead’s Battery Point, which has the advantages of 24 hour parking, easy roads to get there and great access to cafes.

Picture. We're looking at the assorted building of a town, clinging to the side of a hill overlooking a very stony beach, with the tide and sea approaching from the lower right.

Good little trip to the sea side, with it taking about an hour for my fingers and eyes to thaw out again. Shoulda brought my scarf :-).

Not sure whether the bridge pic was on the tripod or not but it was a good trip out and test of the new lens. Found some wildlife too :

Picture. We're looking out over a field of light green grass, with centre stage being taken by a black and white bird, looking right. Hedges make up the background.

That’s something we can all do with our cameras as well, with modern ones with so many pixels in the sensors. The native resolution is 6000×4000, that little cut is just the 1078×768 pixels in the middle with it mostly arranged to have Birdy in the centre of the 3×3 grid. The rest of the pictures from the R50 here are the 6000×4000 reduced to 2000×1333.

I might be looking at my tripod though because it was being very awkward to adjust it to the optimal angle. It’s gone a bit stiff and there’s a huge change in angle when you tighten it all up. Perhaps fixable by taking it apart, might be looking at one with a ball joint instead though. That’s one for when I go hunting for pictures of the stars again though, wonder when I’ll get that chance ? (It’ll need a late night trip now – lots of daylight)

Thinking of late night trips …

Picture. We're looking at a collection of five boxes, all different colours with Naked Marshmallow banners and the flavours marked. In the centre, the head of our red plushie dwagon is poking out.

Last delivery – a consignment of goodies from the Naked Marshmallow Co. At the back, there are Chocolate Orange and Mini Egg marshmallows. In front, Vanilla Bean, Candy Floss and Salted Caramel. I’ve gone through the Candy Floss and Mini Egg marshmallows already, on to the Salted Caramel and they are as lush as you can imagine them being. More from Naked Marshmallow, thoroughly recommend them and they still have some last chance sales going.

Link to camping ? I knew I wasn’t going to be in so I opted for the “deliver to pick up”, with the chosen spot being the camping place. (I’m not going to give them free advertising this time). A wonderful recent video discovery has been Wildbeare (youtube link). She’s a lovely person who goes off for camping expeditions and comes out with fun, quick videos to capture the adventures. Hugely recommend giving her a watch, both for the lovely chilled out vibes and also for very honest and open opinions on how the gear does in the conditions she takes the gear into.

They’re inspiring stuff and picking stuff up from the camping place let me evaluate with my own eyes what’s available and what kind of size and weight it might be. Cos chasing those stars is looking like it might need an overnight in a tent in a place where Dodgy People won’t be.

I think I need to change car though again before I think of doing that … as my current physical condition (aka potato from legacies of the condition of my outsides and pandemic living conditions) would mean I wouldn’t want to be too far from transport. And while Red is a lovely little car, it also suffers from only having 140mm of ground clearance and I’m worried I might tear something off the bottom of it on the more rugged roads and tracks.

Time to close out though (10 minutes left in the Imola World Endurance Champ race). Time for pre dinner noms ?

Picture. Our green dwagon is on the right, adorning an apron with "feed me" written on it. To the left, a faintly pink cube of a fluffy looking marshmallow.

Have a lovely evening everyone.

A dwagon gets a case of Insomnia

by

April 7, 2024

7:36 pm

Comments Off on A dwagon gets a case of Insomnia

events, photography

,

Hello everyone,

I’ve been off to another of those gaming festival thingys … This time it was a fun weekend in Birmingham at the Insomnia Gaming Festival. It’s been going a few years now, starting form humble beginnings of a LAN* party, growing a bit by happening out of I think it was Coventry football stadium and they now run the show out of the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.

Picture. Meme. We're looking at a white dog and a black dog, in an inflatable red car floating in the sea. The captions are "In life it's not where you go" and "It's who you travel with"

(Urg – looks like they’ve changed the image linking / insertion thing, if it goes funny I’ll fix)

* A LAN is a local area network, it’s a term from the olden days where we’d need to bring computers together in the same location and wire them all together with cables in order to play the multiplayer games. That’s like … before broadband internet, before wifi, before online servers. Insomnia still does the LAN area, it’s their own dedicated area off to the side of the main show where people can take their gaming rigs and play together. You can read more about Insomnia on their site (Linky), next show is in September.

I was hoping to meet up with a few more people in the streaming world in and around the show (spoiler – that happened, made me happy) plus there’s usually lots more to see around shows like this.

Picture. We're looking out from a hotel room over the car park half in shadow. There are trees with brown leaves below a horizon filled with dark cloud, with a double rainbow emerging from the centre

Friday saw me settling into the hotel before planning munchies … One thing I’d like to do with these events is to link up with more people for dinner afterwards but for this one, it was good to take myself off somewhere on my own around Birmingham. (The Fort shopping centre has some good eating places) And … Barr Beacon gave potential for testing the camera out at night, which was maybe a bit too much adventure. Let’s see :

Picture. It's full night time and we're looking out over the varied coloured dots and lights of Birmingham. Above, we see a dark night sky with a few white clouds

That’s a … handheld shot. At night. The camera was saying no to taking pictures of the stars (think I know why) but on the way out of Barr Beacon, I thought I’d try seeing what one of the automatic settings could do. And there we go. Even on the full resolution, the dots are pretty sharp. Happy with that. The adventure was supposed to see me drive all the way up to the war memorial up there but, the gate was shut (it shouldn’t have been) and I only walked a little way up there. There was one car parked off the path, plus more vehicles active further up too. I didn’t want to get anywhere near them cos I like life, so I set up with the tripod safely away from them.

A good little adventure but it seems quite tough to get to places with a good view of the sky at night, partly due to the parking areas being closed off, partly due to Safety. I didn’t go all the way up to the war memorial due to feeling unsafe and this was repeated by tales from one of the streamer people trying to get to their hotel. Gotta take care where you’re going in the cities these days.

Picture. We're looking between two leaf less trees at a lake. There is a fountain between the two trees, with a dark green lawn in front.

My Insomnia day was the Saturday, lovely sunny day too. I was on a priority ticket as a bit of learning from MCM – priority entry means less queue, which gave lots of time to wander around the show. And there was a little chilled out munchie before going in. One side note there, it’s really important to have your fluids with you at shows like this. The atmosphere can be really hot so it’s important to stay hydrated. I must have gotten through at least 3 refills of the bottle that my Comic Con friend bought me (more than!) a few years ago. My legs survived too (after extreme bad cramp at Comic Con) and I’d note that there were very visible first aiders standing by in case people got into trouble, that’s definitely appreciated.

Picture. We're looking out over a crowd of people inside the hall. In the centre, a lovely smiling lady in a red apron representing Yorkshire Tea.

Yorkshire Tea brought the sustenance. Free tea ! Much appreciated. My highlights of the day were getting to meet Tashnarr (twitch link) again, not just once but three times ! One of which included a lovely natter from this wonderful individual. She is working for the people who organise Insomnia now, so was being a busy bee on the day.

The other massive highlight was seeing Session Zero on the main stage doing a live Dungeons and Dragons style role play show. They are Josh Strife Hayes as the Game Master, plus Ragedarling playing a barbarian and Billietrixx as a sorceror. Pictures ?

Picture. We're looking at the Insomnia stage with two people with right arms raised exhorting the crowd with their fists. Josh is in a white shirt, light blue waistcoat. Rage is in boots, with exposed thighs below a belt with a red cloth with a waistcoatted top below bright red hair. She has a massive war hammer

There’s Josh and Ragedarling …

Picture. We're looking at the Insomnia stage again. Back and right is Josh again, Ragedarling is on a sofa in the background. Centre stage is Billietrixx looking down at the crowd with left hand outstretched, with a staff held in her right hand. She has a full length dress, with a superb bodice completing the look.

And there’s sorceress Billietrixx looking resplendent (with shiny new outfit upgrade too).

There were too many pictures to post here but the better ones are all on the Session Zero Twixxer thread (Linky). It was a massively fun show to watch, there was massive audience involvement, much daft, much enjoyment and I’ll definitely be looking out for when they’re doing more shows.

Picture. This is the meet and greet area of Insomnia, with the Session Zero people posing for pictures. Left to right is Ragedarling, hefting her hammer, Special Guest, Josh and Billie is on the right.

And after the show and a lovely little natter with Tashnarr on the way (there is a selfie, it’s not for the internet :-D), I had a chance to say hi to them after their Meet and Greet. There’s a fourth person there, their name didn’t lodge in my head but they were a wonderful special guest for the show. I’ve met Billie before at Creator North, was great to see them here again.

And they all loved the pictures too. That gives me a happy buzz too. This was the first time I’d taken the new R50 camera out to a show like this and I think it did really well. It’s almost an entry level for the higher class of cameras (it’s a mirrorless) but what it gave me on the automatic settings and mostly handheld (or braced on the knee) were an absolute revelation compared to what I was getting from the Ixus. I think the pictures look amazing, hopefully I’ll see them again if people think they’re good enough to use for later material.

But … my social batteries were hitting their limits later on in the day so I disappeared before the end. It was a lovely weekend. I’ve been struggling with my mental health lately (mostly from being worn down) and meeting the following gave me a very happy buzz that kicked me back off into having a much more positive mental state :

Tashnarr – as always, lovely bean. She helped organise a wonderful show and I should be back for the next Insomnia.

Billietrixx & Ragedarling (and Josh!) off Session Zero – the show was huge fun to watch. I’ve been watching Billie for about a year, Rage for about a month or so. They have a lovely energy that comes through their streams and it’s infectious. They’re good people to watch.

MiyukiPanda – a first surprise running into. Miyuki is a huge fan of racing and will often be seen streaming games like the F1 games or there was also the Lego racing game. Miyuki has a selfie of me too which is on her discord but I got this pic of Miyuki with the show mascot :

Picture. We're looking at the Insomnia show floor. Standing on a blue carpet is a very cute lady with red/brown hair with a yellow cap, smiling off to my right. She's standing beside a purple hexagon character with a bit eye.

I also ran into Saffypie, Peachypixel8, Josh aka Gamingftl and Bentham aka Mangledpork after the show. I’d met Josh and Bentham before but this was first time seeing Saffy and Peachy. And got hugs. They gave me the idea of heading to Nandos … Hope they enjoyed their dinner as much as I did mine :-D.

I did miss running into one little group though, which was Dontrachquit heading round the show with a few of her community. There will be a next time there :-D. Rach is another fun streamer lady from Scotland who I’ve been enjoying watching again lately. I missed spotting her at the show but was enjoying seeing the little updates that were popping up on discord.

I’m now looking ahead to the Summer events … I’ll be taking the camera to Lords for the Interservices T20 in May, looking forward to that, plus maybe MCM Comic Con at the end of May too. However, the general buzz from enjoying Insomnia has me turning the maybe maybe not for Twitch Con is turning into a lot more interest. Hopefully I’ll be able to tag along with some of the communities for that, as that would make that experience so much better. We’ll see. Current plans are a road trip and a ferry. I’m not a fan of air travel, seems like a lot of restrictions and a definite too many people in the airport. Ferry would allow for a nice bit of chill out time in the middle with more room and very few restrictions.

Loot ? I did take away a bit of loot …

Picture. We're looking at a shop window. In the centre, there is a metal dragon figurine sitting on a shelf. He has his front paws folded in front of his chest and is wearing an expression translating as "Humph"

Not that fella, although it was a very close run thing. (Too late in the day so Brain was a bit fried, plus I don’t know where I’d put something that size) Nah, I came away with these :

Picture. We're looking at a set of pink orange dice, on top of a presentation box. A card saying "Trayed and Tested" is to the left, our dwagon is to the right. The background is light blue above my wooden desk.

The dice are from Trayed and Tested and there’s a link to their Etsy shop. So all in all, wonderful weekend. It was great to get away for the Insomnia show and I’ll definitely be looking to do that again. It would be good to be in with more community next time but it was lovely seeing the shows and meeting up with the people I did see (including a random oneOnline!)

And it gave me a reset for my mental state leading to a very happy buzzing, especially hearing that all the people got home ok ! I do worry about the good people and it was good to hear they all returned safe and sound.

I’ll leave it there, I dropped more pictures on the Session Zero Twixxer link above. Time for me to put some dinner on while enjoying chilling to Tashnarr painting a miniature (Peachy is on as well at the moment, in Cities Skylines).