Category: photography

Talking cameras …

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July 9, 2024

10:30 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’m just looking at that title again and am now wondering about cameras that talk. Would they look at the picture you just took and start describing it like alt text ? Would they critique your style or make suggestions ? Could it say “Bright light bright light” if the exposure is too much ?

I think we need a picture …

Picture. We're looking at a brown dog, lying down on a sofa. He's looking up and left, with a very greying muzzle.

Aww. That’s lovely dear heart Ben who was with us for quite a few years. Always a little bundle of staffy bull terrier love, very inquisitive and deeply protective of his people. And the perfect model to start off the post with. Good to see the old chap again.

I was wondering about cameras and what to recommend people get. That picture above is with the ancient iPhone 5 camera, apparently downscaled to 960×720 from the camera’s native resolution. Bit fuzzy but still a nice picture there, if you ignore the crack in the lens :-D. The crack was actually the catalyst to me changing phones over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 which kept me going until I switched to the exceptional Pixel 4.

(side note – gotta admit I’m struggling for mental batteries at the moment although I was able to demolish a couple of books over the weekend, we’ll see where this post goes).

I didn’t have the Pixel 4 for that long before disappearing over to Canada for work … and then a pandemic broke out and I wasn’t taking pictures of much except for apparently my old sketch art.

Picture. We're looking at a fairly rough sketch of a green dwagon sitting on his butt. He's wearing a pair of glasses and has a book held open in front of him.

Hopefully the more processed version of that is visible at the top of the page. I should probably attempt the sketching again, I kinda moved back to more digital art and the photography stuff in particular.

Picture. We're looking at an enormous dark green 20 sided dice. Around it is curled the 3d printed rainbow crystal dwagon.

That’s a more recent one, taken on my desk. Yep, looks like I was using my little pen torch for extra illumination too. This actually gets me to a first point about mobiles vs cameras … usability !

I knew we’d accidentally stumble upon the purpose of this post eventually :-D.

I’d been thinking about whether it’s worth people getting a full sized camera these days, or if it’s ok to stay with a mobile phone. The phone cameras have come a long way since those early days. Ignore the number of pixels (although I’ll come back to that), just think about usability and how much the camera does for you.

In the case of the dwagon dice, that could have needed 3 hands because a phone is actually a bit awkward to hold as a camera. There’s no strap with them usually and you can’t be touching the screen. So you have to hold them by the edge and with a spare finger for the shutter button. Add a third hand if you’re using a separate light. However, you can get round that by using the timer. Sorted !

Depth of field can be a curious thing to play with as well … For this close work, I’ll traditionally hold the camera away from the thing I’m taking the picture of and cut it to size. Try it with your own cameras … see what you think. If the camera is close, it’ll all go a bit fish eye. If you hold it back a bit, then it’s a flatter image. Check it out ! Experiment, see what happens and enjoy learning how to get the best out of what you have. And there are so many pixels in our cameras now that we can easily crop out the extras (no one sees my desk 😀 ) and still have an amazing image.

I could use the R50 for these but … is it necessary ? One big difference is that with the strap to hold it normally, I can quickly pull that camera up with one hand and tap the shutter button. Maybe the left hand is operating the in and out of the zoom lens. The Ixus was a bit different there, as the zoom was on a ring around the shutter button. Actually physically moving the lens works better.

Proper camera time ?

Picture. We're looking out over a cricket field with the stumps in the centre. A wicket keeper is standing behind the stumps, gloves ready for the ball. The batsman has his bat held in front and they're about to set off to the right. The white ball can be faintly seen in front of the stumps.

There’s a cricket one taken by the Ixus a few years ago. One thing here is that the picture is taken with the camera braced on my knee, with it maybe being a bit too small to comfortably sit in an exact position. The picture isn’t quite centred there because it would move on the shutter. If you’re able to zoom in there, it’s a bit more mushy than …

Picture. We're looking at the cricket field again, with two players in the centre and a third player looking on behind. The white ball can be seen slightly behind the batsman.

That’s from the R50, taken this summer. It’s kinda night and day there with the sharpness, especially when you consider that it looks like the Ixus picture was taken in much better light conditions.

That gets me to another point ! Is it worth buying a cheaper digital camera in this technological age when mobile phone cameras are so incredibly good ? I don’t honestly think it is.

Let’s see :

Mobile phone camera – easy, portable, maybe a bit difficult to use one handed but includes a timer function that helps there. Huge amount of intelligence in the software tools to help make a perfect image. (Except for that tool that picks out different faces for people – I think that’s a bit of an abomination). You can take selfies with them.

Cheaper digital camera – don’t bother, they’re too compromised. It was exceptionally difficult to reliably get a good picture with the Ixus, although the image stabilisation has hopefully been improved. However, you can’t change the lens, you can only work with what’s been provided. Selfies were impossible with the Ixus (too blurry).

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – if you can afford them (and I got the second cheapest Canon), then they are massively worth the investment. The R50 has made it ridiculously easy to take snapshot pictures that have all turned out really well. Another one ?

Picture. We're looking across the central hall of the Excel Exhibition arena at a motley collection of 5 characters in assorted fantasy style outfits.

That’s actually a resurrected one from Comic Con. The original saw the people there in silhouette due to the lighting behind them. You couldn’t really see their outfits. This is with a basic Auto – Equalise filter in GIMP which has started bringing out the colour again.

Whereas I’ve done that in post processing in GIMP, a recent mobile (my Pixel 4 is from 2020) will include similar enhancement abilities.

One issue though is the battery. I did a precautionary change of the R50 battery on the Lords day with over 294 pictures taken with it on the day with a bunch deleted because they weren’t interesting. If you’re looking to use a mobile phone as a camera, you’ll need a couple of power bank things to take with you and that leads to awkward when you need to charge them up.

So …

Cheap camera like the Ixus’s and Powershots – don’t bother, use a mobile phone instead (with a powerbank to feed the battery regularly). It’s just so much easier to do stuff with the pictures via the mobile, you can upload them direct to where you want to show them off.

Mobile phone – I’m really impressed with how much they can do now. However … they do have their limits imposed with the space they have to fit in to. It’s pushing the boundaries of the physics of how the light travels around. (And battery life is nasty)

DSLR or Mirrorless camera – I think they’re worth the investment if you’re going places with a camera and want to share what you’re seeing with people. The ability to swap over lenses adds a lot of flexibility there. The bigger R50 (compared to the tiny Ixus) is a lot easier for my suffering eyes to set up a shot.

I think that’s it for my brain for tonight. Hope this was useful for anyone thinking about cameras.

Just remember, it’s your money to spend, you don’t have any obligation to spend it if you’re not comfortable that it’s going to the right place. Check out what you’re looking at via independent reviews. I don’t count me as independent, even if I’ve had no freebies, I only have recent knowledge of the Canon cameras (haha, no free samples to test the opposition with!) and older knowledge of a massively battery hungry Nikon.

And if you do go to fun places and want to share, enjoy the day out, capture the memories and share the best ones.

Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week.

Up and Down week, plus castle

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June 25, 2024

9:17 pm

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Hello everyone,

Back at work after a week off last week, including a different castle to today’s castle … Where did I leave it last time ?

Picture. We're looking in to the back of my car, with a sad looking red plushie dwagon sitting on the rear parcel shelf above the boot.

After talking about the Nurburgring not-quite 24 hour race last time, weekend before last was the Le Mans 24 hours. We got a full 24 hour race in this time ! Hurrah. Whereas the Nurburgring circuit is up in the Eiffel Mountains, the Le Mans track is in a region of France with a kinder climate for racing … Good race, actually had Racing Dwagon there too.

Picture. We're looking at a screenshot from a web browser with the selected tab showing a purple racing car stopped outside its pit garage. It's taking on fuel via a couple of mechanics on the far side of the car.

There we are. That’s Spike the racing car dragon from the AO racing team. They did good this year, getting on the podium for the LMP2 class.

Whereas the Nurburgring race has a multitude of classes, Le Mans under World Endurance Championship rules has 3 … Fastest are the hypercars, which look like Spike above but a little bigger and with more power. That’s an LMP2 car above, or Le Mans Prototype class 2 which have open rules for the body and aerodynamics but a fixed engine and gearbox powertrain. We also see the GT3 cars racing here, which meant following the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan again. They did pretty well, staying up with the leading group and finishing 5th in class. I think they may have had a great chance for a podium here but I think they were suffering from one of the LMP2s attempting to demolish their car before nightfall on the Saturday.

I didn’t stay awake for the full thing this time, abandoning the screen for a nap after things got dark. Which was probably a wise decision because they were running for about 4 hours behind the safety car due to heavy rain. Not much to see there.

Castle ?

Picture. We're looking at an old castle on top of a grassy mound. The entrance way is to the right, with a larger tower to the left. A path is in front of us, going from left to right.

That’s me going back in time a bit to the start of June and me paying a visit to Chepstow Castle. Quite a bit surviving of this one as well. The upper levels of the gatehouse there were closed off but I was able to explore the ramparts and see what was left of the rest of the castle.

(Side note – I’ve developed extreme soreness and stiffness in my shoulders after a WoW session earlier and may have to bomb out of post quickly … let’s see how much I manage)

Pictures. This is a collection of 4 displays of the castle from just a rectangular building on the left, with further walls and towers being added on as we go from left to right.

That’s how Chepstow castle had evolved in its early years from the original Keep on the left, to the more extensive grounds on the right. There’s a decent amount to see at this castle and a collection of informative educational displays there too, so it’s well worth a visit to check it out. I’m not going to put the full info here but from left to right there we see :

1067-1087 (old!) The Original Great Tower standing on its own.

What’s not really shown too well there is the river to the right of the castle, forming natural defences for that side. Joining those was the Great Tower Surround, with curtain walls and a gate house surrounding a fairly extensive courtyard.

1189-1245 saw William Marshal and sons expand the castle further, with a bit more land grabbed plus defensive towers.

1270-1306 saw further expansion to the far end, enclosing a little bit more private area.

That’s all to protect the town, with Chepstow being close to the mouth of the Severn Estuary on the border between England and Wales. Just had a curious thought there … nowadays, we have two Bridges that make the crossing between England and Wales there quite trivial. It’s a couple of minutes driving to cross the newer bridge. When these castles were built, there were no bridges that long and it would have been 1 or 2 miles (depending on where you’d cross) by boat to go from England to Wales.

Picture. We're looking out over a wide very brown looking river. In the distance, a far bank that is dominated by trees. There is a white painted bridge with stone pillars crossing the river. To the right, we see the walls of the castle extending down to a vertical rock that goes down to the river.

That’s from quite high up in the castle. As well as having that excellent natural barrier with the river, there are commanding views as well.

Good little wander at the start of the month. (May have been combined with stocking up on snacks too)

Picture. We're on the stone ramparts of the castle, with the walkway heading off on the left side towards a stone tower. To the right, an expanse of green countryside with a little bit of town visible around the trees. The sky is covered with light white cloud.

Great views too. I have to admit, when I went out there I wasn’t prepared for the day being a bit warmer than anticipated. I may have ended up getting a bit cooked due to forgetting to take a water bottle. So perhaps not quite as much wander as there might have been.

(I’m running out of steam and need to retreat into book, Batkitto streaming and not moving my arms much – ouchie!)

Other stuff as well as castle trip ? I’ve been struggling with a skin break out for about a month now. I was just about ok at Comic Con still but things were declining after that. I’m pretty sure it’s stabilised now and is recovering but as always with this thing, it always takes far longer to recover than it took to erupt. And I’m part of the problem there because I’ll set back the healing by attacking the damaged areas.

Warcraft has been happening … it’s been good being back in the game again, with my time so far being spent doing the quest running with 4 characters so far doing different stories. More on that in a later post probably.

I think I’ve done a little more damage to the car as well … the low tyre pressure light came on and I think that might be due to an altercation with a kerb in a car park. It’s the correct tyre. Only a slow leak but … gotta watch those kerbs cos they bite.

Picture. We're inside the castle looking towards a sunlit window. The walls are stone brick, with lovely arches above.

Last one. That’s one from the larder area of the castle and I’ve picked this one out due to how the camera has done with it. The R50 is being a lovely camera from just being able to be super lazy with setting up the pictures with it. I’ve been remembering things like rule of 3 (the 9 box grid for spacing) and trying to get myself into good places for taking the picture. But the camera is doing the rest with flawless detailed pictures on automatic all the way.

The pictures here (except sad dwagon!) are all reduced from the native 6000×4000 to 2000×1333 but the detail is still all there and I’m really happy with how the R50 is pulling all that detail into the pictures. And it’s on snapshot style picture taking too where I’m not doing things like bracing the camera at all.

I’ll leave it there so I can grab a snack, some more water (it be warm!), pay the lovely Batkitto the full attention this lovely Scottish lady streamer deserves while disappearing into book. I’m in book 3 of The Belt series (not the Expanse) which is a curious space scifi set of books. I’m curious as to where they will go.

Later everyone.

A rainy day at the cricket

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May 19, 2024

2:57 pm

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Hello everyone,

Time seems to be going whoosh at the moment ! Maybe that’s a sign that I need to step away and slow down for a bit. Maybe 😀 I do have a plan forming for that … Hopefully you’ll see some of that later in the year. The current plan involves a large island, a ferry and maybe even … beach.

First up – a review ? Devastating news for the gaming communities this week with the Insomnia gaming festival. I’m glad I got to one of these in March because it could well be the last one as the company running it collapsed. Hopefully all the people affected find places that will take full advantage of what they have to offer. Especially the ever lovely Tashnarr and her colleagues who would come in to her streams, join in the fun and be part of that community which, with Tashnarr being the focus, is one of the most chill, relaxing and great vibes communities on Twitch.

Work has been as busy as usual, not much to be said about that apart from it being one of those things. Would you prefer work to be busy and you’re getting things done, or would you rather it be too quiet ? Can’t talk about the work stuff much though, it’s not something for the internet.

In books, I enjoyed reading through Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a future space scifi where a near invincible enemy is menacing humanity. There’s an excellent variation of characters in there and the interplay between them is a highlight. I’m looking forwards to seeing how this trilogy unfolds. Latest book is A Fire Born Of Exile by Aliette De Bodard, which is the latest in her fantastic Xuya Universe. Well written, intriguing and huge intensity of emotions in the characters. Much recommend for both of these books.

But wait, where’s that traditional opening thumbnail pic ?

Picture. We're at ground level looking out over a green playing field, with white grey rain covers in a band in the centre. In the background, the orange brick and white balconies of the Lords pavilion. Gray skies are above.

Thursday saw me heading off to Lords for the 2024 Interservices T20 day. I’d thoroughly recommend this event if you’re a cricket fan. The historic Lords stadium is always a great place to visit (although a bit lacking on concessions hospitality this time), you get a great view and they steadily improve the facilities. There’s been a number of changes since I started coming. Plus the cricket is usually ultra competitive with all the skills on show and the games are balanced. It’s always best watching a game or sport where you have no idea as to who is going to win, right up to the end.

But …

Picture. We're at mouse level looking at the concrete outsides of the stadium. There are a couple of manhole covers to the right. The outer wall is to the left with a black iron gate close and black bins in the background. The stadium hangs over on the right and a van is parked in the far centre. There is a puddle in front of us.

We did lose the morning game and half of the afternoon game to rain. Bit damp but it cleared later. Today was a day of playing with the new camera too, to see what it could do and how it would work. The angle above is courtesy of Geraldine, official photographer from the cruise, who challenged us to try and get interesting and unusual angles to take pictures from. How’d that one do ? I’m maybe 6 inches off the floor there. Maybe a bit more looking at the Shutter Priority mode it has to catch more of the rain.

Pictures. A block of 4, all in a watercolour effect filter. We're looking out over the ground, with the top two showing the far stands. Bottom left is the white and glass lozenge of the Media Centre. Bottom right is the ground with the Pavilion to the right and occasional people close in our stand.
It all went a bit watercolour

Spot me checking out more of the options that the camera has for taking the pictures. This is the watercolour effect, which adds a post processing effect. There is also a monochrome, fisheye, vivid, toy camera and a miniatures filter which I need to figure out how to use. Fun while waiting for …

Picture. We're looking over the lush green grass of the Lords playing surface, with the light brown of the cut surface in the middle. We have a scattering of players in red and light blue tops plus dark trousers. The red shirted bowler is at the end of his action and the light blue shirted batter to the right has just hit the ball.

Play on !

We lost the ladies’ game due to the rain, this was RAF in the light blue batting and Army in the red fielding. I started out playing with a Continuous Low Speed shooting option, where it was taking a picture maybe every half a second after pressing the shutter button. Here’s a great one :

Picture. We're looking at 2 pictures up and lower. At the top, a red shirted fielder is part crouched over dark blue stumps. The blue shirted batter is stretching out with his bat. An umpire in a hat is standing to the right. Lower, it's a frame on and the red shirted fielder is jubiliant as the stretching batsman failed to beat the ball to the stumps.

Happy with that :-D. One thing about the new camera is that with it having more megapixels in its sensor and the different way the lens works, it’s much easier to get shots like that going. So that’s … with the 55-210mm lens and the original was taken at the 135mm setting, so about the middle of the range. I’m not zooming all the way in that I can, so I have the option of cutting the outsides down if appropriate. And then I’ll take the resulting picture down from a potential 6000×4000 before cropping and scale it to 2000 pixels wide for the blog. Hopefully that works for viewers without losing detail.

(This is going to sound like a Canon ad ! Disclosure note – I bought all the bits in use here, nothing free by Canon) You change the zoom on the 18-45 and 55-210 lenses by twisting the outside of the whole lens, whereas the zoom on the Ixus is by a tiny addition to the shutter wheel. The R50 is bulkier but it’s far easier to handle. The response time on the shutter feels massively better, with a lot of the unused shots (can only show so many 😀 ) having the ball in shot still. And the image stabilisation is proper excellent.

I did have the usual buyers remorse after spending all the money but I think it’s worth it. The R50 is proving to be an incredibly massive upgrade over the Ixus and the various features included make Every picture good and usable, whereas I had to be very careful with the Ixus to get something usable.

Looking forward to trying it out at Comic Con next week. Actually really looking forward to Comic Con next week because Comic Con Friend will be there too this time and these things are much better in company. Still got the good memories from last time too with the smuggle for Tashnarr, it’s good seeing the FFXIV flower appearing occasionally.

More cricket ?

Picture. We're looking at two players. The red shirted batsman has bat in the air and is leaning forwards through his shot. The blue player is behind the stumps waiting for the ball with the big keeping gloves. 2 stumps are vertical, the third is bent backwards with the white ball in front. Two orange bails are in the air above the stumps.

I always loved seeing things like that as a bowler. Ball, stumps and bails in the air. The first game finished with a tight win by the Army, with it going to the final over.

Picture. We're looking at a bowler in a dark blue shirt, he's running through and his right arm is stretched out at the end of sending the ball to the other end. We see the umpire to the left, a fielder half crouched in the background and a light blue shirted batter.

Over to Navy vs RAF. This was a full 20 over game. It was getting dark towards the end but the umpires managed to keep the players on all the way. A good game too, the Navy batters were led by one of the guys getting the first 50 of the day with unorthodox …

Picture. We're looking at our dark blue shirted batter again as he has turned his bat around the wrong way to hit the ball to an unexpected part of the ground. The ball is above the stumps on the left. A light blue shirted fielder is in the background.

And orthodox hitting …

Picture. We're looking at the dark blue shirted batter stretched in mid shot. The ball is in the centre lower part of his bat, about to come my way in the stands. A light blue shirted fielder looks on behind.

When the RAF came in to bat, they started making the Navy score look small with some excellent hitting. I nearly touched a cricket match ball again for the first time in over 10 years as one of the ball in the stands moments ended up pretty close to my little corner of the ground. (I got beaten to it by a more nimble guy speeding across 😀 ).

But cricket has a habit of making games closer than they really should be and a spirited performance by several of the Navy bowlers led to a succession of wickets that nearly turned the result around. Fun game to watch.

The RAF won the last game narrowly but because all three teams won 1 game each of the tournament and Navy had the better overall run rate, the tournament went to the Navy this time. With a finish past 7pm, I didn’t go anywhere else in London for the day but well satisfied with a good day out at the cricket again.

Last thing … I may have resubscribed to an older game again … there’s a new Iceangel on World of Warcraft. We’ll see how that goes :-D. I did look at Star Trek Online again but while that game has the Star Trek setting, WoW is just a more charming accessible game.

Later everyone !

A castle for squirrels ?

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May 6, 2024

4:47 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’ve just been trying to figure out what I’ve been doing for the last fortnight … Yep, it does feel a bit like that :-D. I think it sums up as a lot of late finishing days in the office and topped off with a castles trip and a very late night research run.

Picture. We're looking at a red dragon, standing on 3 paws with the 4th front paw raised in front of them with outstretched claws. They are on a stone wall, with an old looking castle house behind to the left, with trees to the right.

Oh ! I was trying out another game …

Picture and game screenshot. We're looking at a photo of a computer screen with a fridge magnet held up in front. We see two characters. The magnet is a lady with straggly hair, staring eyes and a very wide jaw. The computer character resembles. Both are wearing viking style armour.

I’ve had the daft idea for a while to make a game character inspired by the fridge magnet character I got from Norway and Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord has what you could call the ideal character creator for the purpose.

And by that I mean it’s pretty crude and excels at making characters that most people would call cursed. But there she is, my latest Bashara character, all set up for forming a warband that will hopefully grow into an army fit to conquer nations. I think I got the eyes right ? (Unfortunately 😀 ).

Outside of that, another Deus Ex Mankind Divided run is finished, I think I lost part of a weekend by falling off the Little Big Workshop wagon again (great game, very cute much addictive). And I’ve been looking at Star Trek Online again. While enjoying reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Maybe a few starts of plans appearing as well too. Since the cruise, I’ve been actively wanting to take better pictures and the current thing is the night sky. A separate inspiration there is Wildbeare (youtube link) and how she goes out into the wilds and comes out with lovely stories for her watchers. And being out in the wilds away from city lights seems ideal for being able to see the night sky. I’ll come back to that.

In the mean time though, I was picking up some gear again with a side trip to see castles on Friday.

Picture. We're looking out over a wet paved part of Carmarthen town towards a castle gateway. Part of the castle wall goes to the left. A newer building is to the right. Wood benches with white umbrellas are scattered in front of the castle gate.

That’s the gatehouse of Carmarthen castle, which is sadly mostly just what’s left of Carmarthen castle. The main castle part has been displaced by the council buildings. There is a little bit left of the outer wall but no access to the top of those gatehouse towers. (More pictures on my Facebook than I’ll put here)

A side reason for going to Carmarthen outside of Somewhere New and castle was because they have what turns out to be an excellent camera shop there. Things may have been acquired … Picture later but I now have the bluetooth remote trigger (will be handy for star pics and tripod pics) and a way better tripod than the one I got last year. This one is articulated with a ball joint, the old one was on a couple of hinges which got incredibly stiff and seized. It was nearly impossible to point the camera accurately at the bridge when I took the old tripod to Portishead’s Battery Point in the last post.

2 pictures. Above, is a noticeboard showing historic Carmarthen with small buildings alongside a river curving off with sailboats on the river and fields to the bottom right. Lower, same thing with larger buildings on our side hiding the river. There is a line of cars where the field was. Sky is very cloudy.

Classic now and then shot. Carmarthen is on quite a wide river there, so when river and sea traffic was the main option it was a very prosperous market town. As trade moved to the roads and larger ports, everything moved to where things were a bit closer. Carmarthen is 100 miles away from where I live, which would have been even more of a factor in the days of sail.

So, tripod acquired, remote clicker acquired, tasty brownie acquired, off again. It was Star Wars day so I was drawn to Cardiff …

Picture. We're looking at a small old castle on top of a mostly conical hill. There are steps leading up to the castle tower. A white and green flag is flying, the flag has a red dragon flying on it. The sky behind is full of cloud.

That’s Cardiff castle. I went to Cardiff because it has the Lego shop (with offers for Star Wars day) and the Snack shop. At some point, I’ll go to more of the Welsh castles … although it was getting late on Friday and I just about only made it for both the snack shop (close at 5.30pm) and the castle (close at 5pm). There’s a bit more leeway for the Lego shop (close at 8pm).

Cardiff castle is one of very few to remain mostly intact, with the small bailey castle inside the surrounding curtain walls. It was too late for me to visit the museum part (again) but I’ll make it there some day.

Castle for squirrels ?

Picture. We're looking into the distance at the slim towers and spires of a church, which are just visible above the much closer trees. It was a grim day so the background is grey with cloud.

They were clever centuries ago, being able to build miniature castles on top of the trees for the guard squirrels to help in the defence of the realm. (I swapped to the longer lens for this one).

Before I close up, this wasn’t the only trip of the weekend … The skies cleared on Saturday night and I had (somehow) enough leftover energy to try and indulge that need? to try and see the galaxy. I do enjoy doing that in Elite, although that’s suffered due to my arms being poorly and sore. So if I can’t go to the stars, can I get pictures of them ?

I didn’t get any usable pictures from Saturday night but I took away a good number of learning points …

First was – there are very few parking places open or accessible after dark around Bristol, located in places away from the city. I think I know why but won’t go into it here (they’re over wary about people setting up semi permanent camp). I think I have one now. The main criteria is that it has to have an open view to the South because that’s the part of the sky with the galaxy in it.

Second – need a good view of the sky with a parking place that you can get in and out of. The place I did take (bad) pics from has a car park resembling a moon crater. So I won’t go there again.

Third – bring Stuff. And by Stuff I mean light. And probably more things as well to add to the list which would strongly resemble things people would take when camping. That’s one reason why the camping option is really strong, because it means everything is set up well in time for the stars to show themselves.

Four – I learned more about the camera ! I did manage to take some pics but I hadn’t bothered setting up the tripod so they’re unusable. But what it’ll do when you persuade it to take a long exposure shot is turn off the display, have one ominous red light and be unresponsive. Cue me thinking that I broke it. Oops. But it was actually just taking a long 8 second exposure shot. So I have success there, switching it to Manual Focus is how you get those night sky pics.

Will have to be back for another attempt when timings allow and the skies are clear. The Lords trip could actually be a good option there. It’s not something I can really attempt with work the next day as it involves getting back in at 3.30 or 4am. I’d recommend a phone app called Stellarium there, it’ll show you the night sky wherever you are and show you what stars you are looking at.

Any more from Cardiff ?

Picture. We're looking at ... Lego box in the background with a couple of Star Wars things visible. On top, Lego box with red dragon and Lego bad with tank. To the left, a metal tripod folded up. In front, our red dwagon plushie and assorted snacks.

There was, of course, plunder. In the form of nice snacks, the Lego Pod Racing diorama, the tripod over to the left there and a Lego Dwagon. I’ll show the dwagon build at some point, although I do know that I’m way behind on a few build type posts (and the rest of the cruise) and actually putting some things together as well.

I think that’s my cue to disappear from this post though, have a lovely week everyone.

A life of pane ?

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April 21, 2024

5:54 pm

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photography

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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

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April 7, 2024

7:36 pm

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events, photography

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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).

Lunch is an illusion, time doubly so

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March 26, 2024

7:40 pm

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photography

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Is that how that one goes ?

Picture. We're looking at a cat, absolutely flag on a white rug with an electric fire behind. The cat has their legs out to the side. The captions are "I didn't choose the rug life", "The rug life chose me"

As it always seems, it feels like it’s been a long time since being off at Xmas. I’m off on leave for the pre Easter week at the moment, definitely need it, the tiredness has been sinking in for a little while now. And that manifests in not posting so much here. And I still have the rest of the cruise things to catch up on !

What’s been happening ?

Slowly finishing the last book – Velocity Weapon by Megan O’Keefe. I’ll be back for more there, the author set up a pretty decent space scifi universe. There’s some handwavingism in there but that lets them concentrate on a story that promises to develop nicely over the second and third books in the trilogy. Next up is Declaration by M R Forbes. It’s the last of a series of 5 books which haven’t grabbed me nearly as much as the Starship for Sale series. This one is darker, much less fun. But I want to know how it ends, so I’m back in there for the last one of the series.

Camera stuff – I haven’t had a chance or energy to do much more scouting with the camera yet. Part of that is the weather around here, things are warming up towards spring but … almost constant rain. No stars !

I have a new thing coming there. Soon. Hopefully. I’ve ordered a 55-210 lens to supplement the 18-45mm lens I got with the camera. What’s that for ? Let’s see if something will work …

Picture. We're looking at the Severn Bridge, from two zoom levels. The bridge looks further away in the upper shot. We can see two vertical spars in the centre. It's a grim, rainy day. In the foreground, is a circular stone seat.
Picture. Same as the first one, we're looking at the Severn Bridge from two different zooms. Top has the Bridge just about visible in the distance. Lower is a close up, we can see a tiny bus driving over the bridge.

One of those pairs is from the Ixus 265, one is from the R50. The zoom kinda gives it away :-D.

It’s curious seeing the pics side by side like that. This was from my first attempts with the R50. It definitely shows in me not getting the focus on the Bridge, the camera was wanting to focus on the foliage on the fence. Also curious seeing the difference in colour balance between the two. The mud path is much more mud like from the R50.

These were all taken with the cameras on the tripod, although I knew very little about the R50 at this point so it was on fully automatic settings and a focus that liked the foliage. I’ve reduced the quality as well there, so they’re a bit more bandwidth friendly. The R50 has just under 50% more pixels in there than the Ixus.

The Ixus was showing off its zoom range there though, with that being at its full 54mm extension which is equivalent to 300mm on the 35mm scale. The 45mm on the R50’s lens is equivalent to 72mm on that scale. It’s a nice range on the lens but I’ll be looking for a bit more when I go to Lords for the cricket. I do like to zoom all the way into the play. The 55-210mm lens goes out to an equivalent 336mm, so hopefully I won’t need all of that for Lords.

I definitely won’t need all of it for where I’m going at the weekend :-).

It’s Insomnia gaming festival. I haven’t been to one of these yet, looking forward to it. It’ll be a chance to meet a couple of creators I’ve met before … The wonderful Tashnarr and Billietrixx. I’ve enjoyed watching Tashnarr for (gosh) almost 5 years now. Lovely person, doesn’t stream as much now as before because a full time job happened but it’s a pleasure catching the streams when they happen. Same with Billie who is definitely a fun one to keep an eye on. Looking forward to seeing if I can say hi again this weekend. Tashnarr helps set up and run the events, Billie is going to be there as part of the Session Zero RPG group.

Also looking forward to bumping into DontRachQuit, Knightenator, Saffypie, Miyukipanda and I think there are some more I’m missing there too. Plus there will definitely be a few community meet ups as well. It’ll be a fun weekend.

Picture. Meme. It's a bright sunny day. We're looking at an orange triangular tent on a green ground sheet. I dog on a leash is in the tent, with their cage. The captions are "Relax", "And just camp!"

One of the things I want to see about seeing more and getting pictures of is the sky. And by sky, I mean the night sky and the stars. That’s coming partly from the cruise and finding out that the little Ixus wasn’t really equipped for taking pictures of the night sky. (There might be a setting I haven’t found yet). So that’s one thing I want to do with the R50. I think it’ll mean getting a decent distance away from civilisation though. Which is never a bad thing.

One new channel I’ve found over the weekend actually is Wildbeare’s youtube channel. I would thoroughly recommend checking out what she does. And that’s go off into the wilderness with a tent for the weekends, have a wander around and come out with simply wonderful videos of the adventure. She’s in her element as she shows off what’s out there and how she connects totally with that world of the wilderness. And I’m recognising the occasional “hello fren” “hello mushroom” as she spots something to show us. Yep, I think that’d be me doing that too and showing the pictures :-D.

I’d massively recommend checking that one out, it might ignite a little wanderlust as well as a healthy bit of respect for the conditions especially in the less hospitable times of year. It’s been a genuine pleasure finding Wildbeare, watching the adventures, listening to the lovely voice and how she perceives the world.

How do I perceive the world ? I think I’d like to get out there as well, although I have none of the equipment required and nowhere to store it. But I’ll look into that some more, maybe even come up with a Plan.

Tonight’s plan though is food :-). Gotta put the dinner on. Nite all, have a great Easter weekend if you celebrate that. I might be back later in the week with more castle pics.

Gotta go visit castle though …

A dwagon is allowed on the loose with a camera

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March 5, 2024

8:12 pm

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photography

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Hello everyone,

I bought a thing …

Pictures. We're looking at 4 pictures together. Top left, the red plushie dwagon is sitting on top of a box with my front door behind. It's almost as wide as the door. Top right, dwagon is sitting inside the box on top of a backpack and smaller box with an R. Bottom left, Dwagon is sitting on top of the box. It says "Canon Eos R50". Bottom right, dwagon is on the box surrounded by camera bits and the short manual.

Yep. Went for it with the camera. It’s the Canon R50 mirrorless camera in the package that comes with a backpack, 32GB memory card, extra battery and a 18-45mm lens. I ordered on the Friday afternoon and it arrived with me on the Tuesday afternoon.

Quick aside – I’m struggling a bit with the physical and mental health at the moment … I’ll be ok, just getting older on the physical side and I think I needed to go back on the multivitamins to help me out mentally. It’s almost certainly why I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like lately. Just so tired and mentally blasted.

So … mid last year, Doctor Sleepy was looking for an answer to tiredness. So Doctor Sleepy started taking Vitamin C/D supplements as well as the multivitamins and Magnesium (for cramp). However, I was getting increasingly savage cramps. When the cruise happened, I deliberately didn’t take the multivits and was just on the Mag and Vit C/D. And the cramps were almost gone. So I’ve been off the multivits since. I think that’s been starving me of some of the brain chemicals … And it’s been manifesting into snapping off at stuff that really shouldn’t get to me.

Like having a fraud check imposed on the buying of the camera. Yeah, I flared over that. I should probably be seeing an actual qualified Doctor about the mineral imbalances that I still have, instead of trying to go by Doctor Google and Doctor Sleepy. Cos I’m a techie and engineering geek, not a body or brain geek.

The TLDR though is that the online Canon store did a cracking job getting the camera to me in very quick time and they dealt very professionally and courteously with the email comms with my angry email about the fraud check. Would totally go back to them again and not just because they gave the best deal this time. (Disclosure note – I bought all this stuff and went back to Canon because while the Ixus has limits, it’s a great little camera)

Camera ?

Picture. We can see two cameras, a phone and a small green dwagon sitting on top of one of the cameras. They're all on a black chair.

There we are. I’ll hopefully get chances to do some comparisons of all 3 cameras I have available to me now. In that pic, we can see the R50 pointing at us. That’s it without a lens attached. The Ixus 265 is behind and to the right. It suffers for stabilisation and low light but they pack incredible zoom capability into the tiny pocket package. And there’s my Pixel 4 sitting in front.

That’s from the first out and about and it’s taken from a camp site that will hopefully offer good views of both Severn Bridges. I hadn’t used or investigated the camera much but it was good to be out and about. I’d been suffering from an increasingly painful back at work (I think one of the chairs violently disagrees with me) and heading out over the bridge to find a little place called the Black Rock Picnic Site. (Link) There used to be a service station that offered incredible views of the Bridge (and was accessible) but the prime location got bought by a company that locked off the access … and have since moved out. Looks like it might be accessible again in 2026. (Handy Linky)

Anyway, that’s from the R50 on a tripod. It was steadily drizzling, so I didn’t want to venture out too much into the open with the new shiny … so the tripod was a bit too far back meaning the camera’s focused on the foliage instead of the bridge. Next time :-D. The little Ixus was able to zoom all the way into the vertical spars of the bridge and focus into the cables.

Picture. We're looking out into a dark and (not so) stormy night. We're looking towards an avenue with lights down each side. There is dark green grass down the middle and to the side. The foreground is steps with wooden fencing.

First attempt at a night time shot. Not sure what’s happening on the left there with the lighting. Maybe something was being sprayed. It was a bit of a fight making the camera take the shot, I think it was demanding a flash. I do like the definition there though, this was with the camera braced on a fence. I wasn’t going to stick around to figure out what was happening with the lights on the left, by this time I was massively tired (first day back on the multivits) and while my back had freed up a bit, it was still Angry. I’d gone partly into survival mode by this point (and annoyed at pizza shop guy attempting to clear up uneaten pizza while trying to rush me out of the Hut) and needed to get home.

Picture. We're looking at a pair of towers, forming the gatehouse entrance to a ruined castle. On the right, a bridge crosses a deep moat. In front of us is a fence with a display board.

Friday saw me getting out and about again. First up, Cardiff to have a quick look around. I’ll likely acquire a longer lens for the R50, especially for the cricket in the summer. I’d like to see what it can do there and I’ll have the tripod along as well. I might pick up something from the Cardiff camera shop, as it’s really handy to be able to check the sizes of stuff before you buy them. However, it’s also really handy to be able to check the prices of what you’re looking at.

There’s a saying “if you need to ask the price, you can’t afford it”. I prefer to go by “if you’re not showing me the price, you’re planning to rip me off”. I could look up the price online … but that’s not the same as actually displaying it. Anyway, Cardiff let me look in the model shop (where I got put off a bit by them talking disparagingly about “over educated student types”, Sleepy will remember that) and the snack shop. More on that later. I didn’t have too much time in Cardiff though because I wanted to try and look at the castle before it was too late in the day …

Picture. We're looking at the inside area of the castle. We can see the two towers of the gate house in the centre of the shot, with castle walls stretching to left and right. There is ruined stonework outlining the castle buildings, the rest has gone to very lush green grass.

There we are. This is Whitecastle, in the depths of Wales near the border with England. Nice little castle … not much left of it though. I managed to completely blow someone’s mind by saying that this castle was rebuilt in 1260. Here’s the wiki link. There isn’t much left of this castle and to be honest, the nearby Raglan castle has much more to see and is in better condition. I didn’t stay here too long, you’ll probably see how lush the grass is there. The ground around here has been treated to a Lot of water from the sky and wasn’t in great condition. I could see a slip and fall and lots of mud in the immediate future of my jeans :-D.

So I moved on and had too much fun on the roads on the way back, letting the car make very nice brum brum noises on the tight and twisty roads. I may have to do that more often. Setting the satnav for “short” instead of “quick” makes it avoid the motorways which are just set cruise control to Snore. Tight and twisty roads with no one else on them are more fun.

Snacks ?

Picture. Our "feed me" dwagon is sitting atop one of 6 packets of sweets. They're all stacked on my chair.

Snacks ! That’s the haul from Wally’s Delicatessen in one of the Cardiff arcades. Good place, nice people, great snacks. And a tasty haul of (back row) candy mice, pineapple chunks and cola bottles plus (front row) fudge, fruit jellies and chocolate coin things.

Time to hit post though and get tonight’s dinner in the oven. Nite all 😀

PS The lens cap survived 3 days before I lost it … I realised before leaving the castle though and spotted it, lying on the path where it had been dropped. Will have to figure something out there.