Whilst working today a couple of packages arrived, including an absolute bargain from Ebay, an Canon ST-E3-RT for remote control of the 600EX-RT flashguns. Absolutely mint & fully functioning for not much more than pocket change.
Super Car Day
So today was mostly spent shooting some impressively quick hardware including Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Audi R8s & a brisk Ford Focus RS
Minor repairs
I have had to carry out a few running repairs in the last few days, including bonding a monopod grip & foot in place. The foot is now securely in place & when it needs to be replaced then a Stanley knife will remove it easily. The Grip on the other hand has been a pain in the ass, every few months it needs to be readjusted, so a couple of drops of CA and that should hopefully be it.
ZAP-A-GAP is brilliant, probably the best CA glue I have tried, and I have tried a great many over the last 20 years.
Upgrade Time
Time to replace some old 580EXII flashes with some newer 600RTs, I don’t use flash very often, if I can help it, preferring to use my studio lights whenever possible, but sometimes it has to be done, so the 580 will be retired (or stuck on ebay).
New Toy Time
Having had a Manfrotto 055 since about 1981 with the standard 115 Junior 3D head, I felt that it was time to upgrade, I don’t use tripods very often, primarily because the 058 TriAut that I purchased in 2001, is fooking heavy and because the 055 had the horrible 115 head. Anyway doing an interior shoot recently reminded me just how bad the 115 Junior head was, so I have replaced it with a MH804.
The Manfrotto 058 will likely as not remain mostly at home during shoots, but the new head means that the 055 will live in the boot of the car.
Initial thoughts on the MH804 is wow, that is so much better, but then it didn’t have to do much to be an improvement, not as solid as the MH229 that my other ‘pod has, but very definitely an upgrade.
Interior shoot
Interesting shoot today up in Essex, for a company that supplied a lot of the fixtures & fittings for an indoor crazy golf course. Huge variation in light levels so needed several images composited to give a wide enough range from shadows to highlights.
New Graphic
This week was different with jobs in Littlehampton & Portsmouth & then finish work on a new graphic for the Guildford City FC bar. The only problem was that the largest Guildford City crest that I obtain was only 1000 pixels high and needed to be resized to fit the new graphic which is 1300mm x 1000mm, at which point it was full of jaggies (artifacts caused by compression & resizing). So lots of work to get rid of the artifacts & then off to the printers to be printed on 3mm PVC with a matt laminate.
So the good news is that I collected it today from the printers and it is ready to go up on the front of the bar. Looks good. Hopefully get installed tomorrow.
