Changing lenses - Part III

Heh, I just keep prattling on about this eh :)

Well don't worry we'll get to the end of the saga soon, I promise. I've ordered my Canon 24-70 f/2.8 and Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS now from my favourite eBay seller [Kerso] for a total £1750 [including paypal & shipping fees etc] which is an absolute bargain. Will also get £135 cashback from Canon for the lenses :)

Will get the lenses mid next week now and will post some shots of the new kit as well as some taken with them for you lot :)



H4rri
~~
w: www.randomphotos.net

Animals - Not just a food source! </contraversial>

Thought I'd give you a couple of shots of the animals sharing both my home.


This is Precious, she is a little timid and loves to hide in those pipes :)




This is Roger [original I know *sigh*] he is much more outgoing and loves to play




This is Gemma, she is again a little timid but she loves the rabbits to bits :)




And this is George, he is dumb as dishwater but loveable all the same LOL







H4rri
~~
w: www.randomphotos.net

New Experiences - Part II

Thought I would re-visit this while I'm in a blogging mood. Work is quiet, weather is awful and I'm giving up smoking. Hmm had better days all in all.

I tend to blog sporadically in that I will post all the info in bulk, I guess this makes for a dull blog so I must try to visit this more often. The whole idea of the blog was to promote the new site [yep I'll give it another shameless plug www.randomphotos.net] and get my name out there. Now I'm thinking it should be more than that, it should be a collection of my thoughts and idea's. It should reflect who I am and why I do what I do. With that in mind;

I work in IT for a very large ISP. I work to live and although I love my job it's not my world, that position falls to my gorgeous partner and my little girl. Neither will be showing their face here anytime soon, I am fiercely protective of their privacy and *never* post photo's of them to anyone but family.

I work to buy us nice things and as a friend and colleague once said "you are here for a good time not a long time". That mantra has stayed with me and right now we're enjoying life's offerings and getting out there while we can :)

Some of you out there probably think me irresponsible but I honestly don't put much thought into what other people consider me to be. Of course it matters but my choices are my own, opinions can be invited and often considered but the end choice is mine all mine ;)



H4rri
~~
w: www.randomphotos.net

Woohoo !! - Part II

Well I managed to find some un-processed raw's to upload so I'm now in excess of 2400 images totalling a massive 4.6Gb. I am seriously impressed with SmugMug [www.smugmug.com] their pricing, policies and general business practices are outstanding.

If you fancing signing up then use my referral code [ZvRLxwKenKGYA], you get a few $'s off and a I get a few $'s for your sign-up. We all win :)



H4rri
~~
w: www.randomphotos.net

Must get out more

I was just saying to my shooting buddy this weekend, we must get out more. We haven't been out for a shoot for a month now and we are wasting the good weather. We both resolved to head out more this coming week and continue after that.

Lo and behold, it's now raining here :( I doubt we will get out much this week now due to the awful bland skies and the mist which is lingering. We could head out early and get some shots of the mist with the lovely soft light first thing but then it's a risky move :(



H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

Changing lenses - Part II

Well after careful consideration I have decided not to sell the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6, my missus just doesn't see the point of selling it. I'm not unhappy with the results or the lense itself so why risk missing it and having to buy another. I guess she's right it will just stretch the budget a little further than I wanted to ;)

So the 24-105 has now been sold and the Canon 24-70 f/2.8, Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS combination is now being sourced. I have some good prices lined up so it won't be long now :)

A colleague did suggest a weekend break to New York to take advantage of the current exchange rate but to be honest I will be saving a great deal on these anyway [compared to MRRP] making the trip an expensive solution

I will upload some shots of the lenses and some taken with them for your viewing pleasure as soon as they arrive :)


H4rri
~~
w: www.randomphotos.net

Some photos for your viewing pleasure

I thought it was about time to share some photos with you, brighten up the old blog and all that :)

Here's a small selection of the shots I have on my site [RandomPhotos]

This was part of a sunset series, I love the depth and definition in the clouds here. If you want to take a look at the rest of the series have a look at 'Sunsets & Skys'. This one is from 'Location Unknown'.


















This next shot is from the 'Around Lancashire' gallery from the 'Morecambe Bay' series, I love the colours and simplicity of this shot. Have a look at the rest of the series for some more shots of the area. I picked up a new Canon 17-40 f/4 L when I was there and this was it's first outing. I must say it is a superb lense :)















And finally one from a series entitled 'Abstract' from the gallery 'Macro'. This was a look at the way in which over-exposing an image with both flash and longer shutter speeds and when this works for you.






H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

Changing lenses

Earlier this year I had an issue with my copy of the Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS I bought with my Canon EOS 5D. I eventually took it into my local Jessops [whom I purchased it from] and they agreed it wasn't upto scratch. They changed it on the spot and I thought all my issues were solved. Well they weren't :(

I don't know about you but when I lose confidence in something try as I might I just fail to get it back. The faulty copy of this has 'tainted' my experience with this lense and I feel I need to change it. Couple this with my lack of use of the Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS I currently have and you can foresee an expensive change. I would be looking at the 24-70 f/2.8 L to replace the 24-105, now this would leave a hole in my focal range from 70-100mm and this is something I find myself using alot.

With this in mind I am also considering swapping the 100-400 out for the 70-200 f2/8 L, as of yet I am really undecided about whether to go for the IS version or not [an extra £400]. I don't really use the 100-400 so I'm unsure whether I would miss the IS until it's gone, and then it's too late.

So watch this space, I might just have 2 spanking new lenses and a 1.4x TC :) Or I might keep the old 100-400 and just buy 2 spanking new lenses, either way it's all good :)


H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

Woohoo !!

Well at last I have managed to get all of my shots on-line, thats a total in excess of 2300 images available through my website [www.randomphotos.net].

Now all I have to do is get the shots from this weekend on-line and I'm upto date again ;) It's a never ending job LOL


H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

Lost kit

Following on from lost moments, I was reading with interest a thread were a fellow photog inadvertently damaged a lense. This got me to thinking, is my kit covered under my insurance? Is there a maximum value?

I had photographs of the previous kit should the worst happen, when I updated the kit I didn't update these photo's. *note to self* Call Insurance!

I will be photographing the kit later tonight and ensuring it's covered under my house insurance, and if not getting sufficient cover.

Here's a list of my kit for those interested with replacement costs:

Body & Lenses:

£1500 Canon 5d
£479 Canon 17-40mm f/4 L
£639 Canon 24-105 f/4 L
£69 Canon 50mm f/1.8 Mk II
£365 Canon 100mm Macro
£1049 Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L

Subtotal: £4101


Flashes:

£169 Canon 430EX
£620 Canon MT-24EX

Subtotal: £789


Tripods etc:

£170 Benro C228N6 - Legs
£75 Manfrotto 808RC4 - Head
£30 4 Section Monopod
£35 Velbon CX560

Subtotal: £310


Bags:

£120 Tamrac Expedition 7
£75 Lowepro Stealth Reporter D300AW

Subtotal: £195


Filters:

£11 Cokin P filter holder
£8 58mm Cokin adaptor ring
£8 77mm Cokin adaptor ring
£12 Cokin Warm-up
£12 Cokin Red
£17 Cokin Filter Wallet
£16 Cokin ND2 Grad
£16 Cokin ND4 Grad
£27 Kood Pro Dark Sunset Grad
£27 Kood Pro Light Sunset Grad
£12 Kood Pro ND4
£64 Kood Pro Circular Polariser

Subtotal: £230


Odds 'n' Sods:

£20 Stofen Omni-bounce
£85 Canon TC-80N3
£170 Canon BG-E4
£50 Hoya Pro SMC1 UV filter [x4]
£13 Manfrotto spare plates [x2]
£50 SanDisk Extreme III 4GB CF cards [x2]
£17 Canon ES62AD Lens Hood
£24 Canon ET67 Lens Hood

Subtotal: £642

So that totals a whopping £6267 in gear i'm lugging around, kinda makes you think eh :|



H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

Lost moments

Having had to recover a couple of my machines twice in the last month I found myself 'missing' alot of photo's. To say I was miffed would be an understatement :( I took great care in backing them up to remote drives but not to a DVD, I put this down to the time it would take to backup in excess of 20Gb over USB1. In the restoration process I must have simply become confused and dropped the wrong folders thinking I had copied them meaning they are gone forever.

Some of the shots weren't an issue, I still have the low res' ones on-line but a couple of galleries were very important to me and a sad loss. I will never have the chance to re-take these photographs and I'm annoyed my backup regime [or lack thereof] cost me these moments.

In future [hindsight is wonderful] I will be taking full and incremental backups of my shot archives weekly, hopefully there will be no more 'lost moments' in future.


H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

New site, new photographs .......

Well my new site is up and running and all the photographs are available to view and buy :)

Have a looksie and let me know if there's anything hinky on there :)

www.randomphotos.net is the new URL


H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net

New Experiences

Well, here we are. My first ever blog!

I have a great deal to write but you know how it is I simply can't put it down in a way which looks right :( I guess this will be a short & sweet post, more later when the creative juices have begun to flow again.


H4rri
~~
www.randomphotos.net