New Toy Time

It’s arrived, Yay…

 

Bluetooth keyboard & mouse

 

Having upgraded to a Magic Mouse 2, I went the whole hog & also added a Magic Keyboard as well. Specifically the the one without the number pad, and boy does it make a difference so much extra space on the desktop. So fully charged & now unplugged, lets see how long it lasts until it needs charging again.

OK so an update is in order, originally charged nearly a month ago, the keyboard is at 89% and the mouse 22%, quite impressed.

Whoops, A gentle reminder

I was shooting at football yesterday and noticed that the lens mount felt loose, with the 70-200mm on the camera, carried on shooting as I had no alternative with me, and in a couple of frames there was a definite alignment issue. As you can see in the image below, muzzy top right and bottom left.

Got home later that day & checked, and all four of the lens mount screws were loose, not just a little bit loose either. I usually remove and reinstall them with some thread-lock when I buy the lens, but I appear to have missed this lens. So tightened them all back up & then thread-locked each one in turn.  Whilst was at it I checked all of my other glass, without finding a problem, which is good news, as they are all transported and used in the same manner.

SO if you haven’t recently checked any screws that you can access are done up correctly, now is the time to do it.

Not too shabby

Not too shabby, considering it has taken 512,000 photographs in it’s life-time & still on the original shutter. Hope I am not tempting fate, but the camera still sounds and works as well as it’s much less used siblings, one with 90,000 frames & the other with 109,000

Wow, Just Wow!

Guildford City went to top of the league Sutton Common Rovers yesterday, after 28 minutes they were drawing 1-1, but down to 10 men. They went on to win 4-3.

It’s been a while…

It has been quite a while since I have printed photographs, most are shipped electronically, however as Guildford City have an end of season bash coming up, it seemed like a good idea to print some off for the players. Hadn’t thought that it would mean 22 A4 prints though. Anyhoo all done now.

Always nice

It’s always nice to be thanked for doing a job, today I received 12 of these from a client, thank you very much.

Been Playing Again

Sitting around whilst listening to Totteringham getting all “Spursy” I thought that I would have a go at a style of photography that I have never tried before, essentially floating product shots. I am not a huge fan of playing around with Photoshop, other than to crop/balance & other basic edits, but this type of work requires the building of images from multiple layers. This is a simple composite of two images, one the background & the other of the light meter. I certainly won’t be doing anything like this tomorrow during the football, as I will be glued to the Arsenal v Newcastle game.

Having Upgraded…

To a Magic Mouse 2, I went the whole hog & also added a Magic Keyboard as well. Specifically the the one without the number pad, and boy does it make a difference so much extra space on the desktop. So fully charged & now unplugged, lets see how long it lasts until it needs charging again.

New Mouse

 

Having had an old Apple Optical Mouse  (A1152) for a number of years, and on average having to clean the little scroll wheel every few weeks, I finally decided that I would go the wireless route again, (having had an Apple Mighty Mouse for a while but hated it) and purchased an Apple Magic Mouse 2 (A1657). The first impressions are very good, with luck it will have a long enough battery life to be usable. According to Apple it can recharge in less than five minutes to give enough charge for an 8 hour day. Pairing the device couldn’t be easier, plug it into a USB port on the machine you want to use it on, and  the Bluetooth pairing is done.

Great Location

What a great location for a job, the Oatlands Park Hotel in Weybridge.

Important job coming up

SO time for sensor & lens cleaning session, sensor cleaning is relatively painless, a quick wipe with Fairy Liquid & a pan scourer, obvs not the steel type, but the nylon ones. Lenses will be polished with windolene, the only downside is that it turns crusty & when wiping off and needs a lot of canned air or the close proximity of a powerful vacuum cleaner, the kind that the EU have now banned, so fire up the 10 year old “enry”.

On the other hand, seeing as I have some of this stuff knocking about …

Should only take about an hour to do three sensor cleans & 8 lenses (although only 4 will probably be used), including test photos & re-cleans. Then charge & condition the camera batteries (best do all of them) and charge the Eneloops and the Turbo also. Pack all the gear into the motor & actually do some work!

 

F*ck that was tough

That was bloody hard work today, with winds gusting at about a zillion miles an hour it made it very difficult shooting football, in a stadium it can be awkward, but when you have no shelter from the wind it is bloody awful. Probably shot the fewest frames in a football match ever because you simply couldn’t predict where the ball would land. If a clearance went 15 feet up, it could come down either where it was struck or 30 yards forward or back or to the side.

Found my old avatar

He has been missing for a number of years (probably more than 10) but he has been found, and cleaned up and may be re-used

Focus Stacking

Yesterday afternoon I decided that I would have a little experiment with Focus Stacking, to be honest, it wasn’t really something that was on my radar until recently, I it seemed like it was something rather complex & requiring of special software, but a bit of research & some experimentation and some trials (none too scientifically done, largely kind of finger in the air, seat of the pants stuff) but with a little practice I think that I can nail it. I have a project that I am thinking of using it on  in the not too distant future.

It’s not perfect but this was my first attempt, gladly receive any pointers from anyone with some experience.

Finished Focus Stack

The final image is a composite of 22 images, whilst not perfect it is, I think close, I shall have another go later in the week. The images were shot on a Canon 100mm Macro lens at 39cm at F6.3, the amount of DoF at that distance at that aperture is very little. The image below is the first in the sequence.

Woeful Performance

Not a good day at the office yesterday as City lost 1-4 to AFC Hayes.

Just a few….

Just a few pics from a gig on Saturday night, when Five Chambers Full played in Guildford. Had to desaturate the images as the LED effect lighting was overpowering.

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Five Chambers Full

Chinese Imports

The power supply on my Old Apple Cinema 30 monitor went bang a couple of weeks ago & you can’t buy them from Apple anymore so it was either take a chance on ebay for a Power supply that is as old or possibly older than the one that has failed, or look further afield.

Today, my new PSU from China arrived & it is completely indistinguishable from the original supply, except for the tape hiding the Apple logo, plugged in & switched on & all is right with the world, except for the snow, outside, not settling.

It had to happen..

It had to happen eventually, last week I had my first ever SanDisk CF failure, first time in nearly 20 years since I moved from Lexar cards. The card was shipped  faulty, it formatted fine the first time, but couldn’t be written to in camera & wouldn’t mount on the desk top in a card reader, however myMemory turned around a replacement in pretty short order.

Another Good Win

Guildford City played Colliers Wood at the home of Frimley Green (as the Spectrum is still not available) City move up to 5th in the League.

Murder on the slow train

Police cordon was in place this afternoon at Horsley, a couple of train stops from Guildford. No one has been arrested yet, and there is a search on going in the Clandon area.

04/01/2019 Police Cordon in place at Horsley Tran Station after a man was stabbed to death on a train from Guildford to Waterloo

04/01/2019 Police Cordon in place at Horsley Tran Station after a man was stabbed to death on a train from Guildford to Waterloo

04/01/2019 Police Cordon in place at Horsley Tran Station after a man was stabbed to death on a train from Guildford to Waterloo

04/01/2019 Police Cordon in place at Horsley Tran Station after a man was stabbed to death on a train from Guildford to Waterloo

 

Christ

I had forgotten how shite floodlights at Non League level were, 12800 ISO just to get 1/1000 sec & F2.8. On a Saturday afternoon, guess I have been kind of spoiled by Premiership & Championship footy, anyone lend me an image intensifier?

Cold & Wet

Crawley’s Dominic Poleon fouled by Crewe’s Goalkeeper Ben Garratt during the EFL Sky Bet League 2 match between Crawley Town and Crewe Alexandra at the Broadfield Stadium, Crawley, England on 24 November 2018.

Cold & Wet for my last match of the season for Pro-Sports, simply isn’t a viable proposition to continue with them, when the brief turned up for this match it was “the straw that finally broke the camels back”, so whilst I love shooting sports, it simply isn’t worth doing if it doesn’t make a profit.

Wetter than an Otter’s pocket

Rangers Midfielder Eberechi Eze & Brentford’s Midfielder Nico Yennaris during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Brentford at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 10 November 2018.

F*ck  that was wet, this morning it looked like a beautiful day was in the offing, however at 3.01 it started pissing down & it still hasn’t stopped.  The two minutes silence passed off without a drenching, and the crowd were treated to the best rendition of the “Last Post” I have heard for many years, then as soon as the referee started the match down it came.

All the kit, the bags and the waterproofs are in the airing cupboard or scattered around or on top of various radiators, hopefully they will be dry by, I don’t know Christmas probably.

GOAL Brentford’s Defender Henrik Dalsgaard scores during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Brentford at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 10 November 2018.

I do have to say that I am quite impressed with the new Berghaus Deluge Waterproof over trousers, and a damned sight easier to get in and out of than my old ones. Also the Berghaus Deluge jacket did a great job of keeping the laptop & other gear dry.

Getting Old

Must be losing my mind, I left the Brentford match on Saturday convinced that I had picked up everything, until I got to the car & thought f*ck it I have left a 16Gb CF Card on the Electronic Advertising were I was sitting. Thinking it’s not worth traipsing all the way back to the ground to collect it. I wasn’t too fussed as I had already copied the contents to the laptop.

Checked everywhere when I got home, and next day I ordered a couple of new 32Gb CF Cards. No sooner than I had placed the order, I looked at the fleece I had been wearing the day before, which was sitting on top of my lens box, and I could see through the mesh on the breast pocket a shiny CF Card. Yep, daft old sod, I forgot to check that pocket.

Anyway, probably was about time to replace them as they have been on front line duty for a couple of years.

Home Win

Brentford’s Sergi Canos celebrates during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Millwall at Griffin Park, London, England on 3 November 2018.

Brentford won a tricky match against Millwall, typically both goals were at the other end of the pitch from me. 😦

Millwall’s Lee Gregory can’t beat Brentford’s Defender Ezri Konsa & Brentford’s Goalkeeper Daniel Bentley during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Millwall at Griffin Park, London, England on 3 November 2018.

Brentford’s Ollie Watkins during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Millwall at Griffin Park, London, England on 3 November 2018.

Poor Performance

Bournemouth celebrate their 3rd goal during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

I was at Fulham v Bournemouth in the Premier League game on Saturday, Fulham didn’t really turn up & were comprehensively beaten 3 – 0.

Bournemouth’s Defender Nathan Ake during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

Bournemouth AFC lead during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

Bournemouth’s Defender Charlie Daniels shoots during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

GOAL Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson scores from the spot during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

GOAL Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson scores from the spot during the Premier League match between Fulham and Bournemouth at Craven Cottage, London, England on 27 October 2018.

Another Good Win

Aston Villa’s Jonathan Kodjia challended by Rangers Midfielder Massimo Luongo during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Aston Villa at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 26 October 2018.

Friday evening saw me at the QPR v Aston Villa.

Aston Villa’s Tammy ABRA during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Aston Villa at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 26 October 2018.

A good Win

Rangers Tomer Hemed celebrates during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 23 October 2018.

Monday night saw me at QPR v Sheffield Wednesday.

GOAL Rangers Midfielder Luke Freeman scores during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 23 October 2018.

GOAL Rangers Nahki Wells celebrates during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday at the Loftus Road Stadium, London, England on 23 October 2018.

Disappointing…

GOAL City’s Midfielder Niclas Eliasson scores during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Bristol City at Griffin Park

I was at the Brentford v Bristol City match on Saturday, a disappointing loss by a single late goal.

GOAL City’s Midfielder Niclas Eliasson scores during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Bristol City at Griffin Park

Football Workflow

A couple of people have asked recently about my workflow, so here is an overview.

For my workflow I use a couple of applications Adobe Photoshop & PhotoMechanic, although at a football match I do everything from within PhotoMechanic.

First step in the workflow is to get the images from the camera on to the laptop, so plug in the card reader & CF Card, & fire up PhotoMechanic.

I have PM configured to automatically ingest any CF once it appears on the desktop, at this point I have the system add a basic IPTC caption to all of the images, I leave the file names unaltered at this point. The files are copied to a folder called Card Dump.

 

Once I have all the images on the laptop I scroll through the images in full frame (Click the “f” key to toggle between normal & full screen) preview mode and zoom in (click the “z” key to toggle zoom mode), I will make a selection tagging each (if you click the fullstop key it will tag the photograph) frame that I am going to wire, at the same time I will do any cropping & straightening of the images, (to crop hit the “x” key.

As part of this process I will also edit the captions to reflect the content of the photograph if you hit the “i” key it will open the caption dialogue box, then using a series of code replacements that I have already created I can add the players name simply by entering a code (in the case of QPR Defender Geoff Cameron I type \QPR05\ and it replaces it with the full name.

Having completed the edit I will the select all tagged images and FTP them direct to the client (click “u” to show the FTP dialogue box and away you go, it is at this point that the client naming protocols are used to rename & resize the photograph, as well as the actual cropping taking place, the sent images are then automatically saved in the Pix Sent Folder

GOAL Brentford’s Neal Maupay scores during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Reading at Griffin Park, London, England on 29 September 2018.

There maybe times during the match that images need to be moved rather more quickly, ie a goal & celebration pictures, I usually like to send as soon as possible, these I don’t tend to tag, but just go through them and caption, crop & send them individually.

 

Then there were two

Having upgraded one of my iPods to 128GB which now lives permanently in the car, it was time to upgrade the other one to the same spec, I had forgotten how bloody fiddly it was, all done now & will be used when I am not in the car.

Damned Wet…

Well that was fun, it peed with rain all bloody day, kit is now all in the airing cupboard and the camera bag is propped up in front of the radiator, hopefully dry for tomorrows job, or otherwise I will have to just travel light.

U

“U is for Umbrella, we use it in the rain, we hope that we shan’t want one, till we’re home again”

Photographing football almost certainly means at some point in the season you are going to get very wet, and as everyone knows computers & water don’t mix, so to protect the laptop whilst wiring from pitchside I have acquired a cover.

I have managed to put it up and fold it back into it’s case, I think that a couple of practice sessions with it are required before it goes used in anger (unless it pees with rain on Saturday).

Another draw

Lots of cards including a red one, not a lot of goals, another disappointing draw.

 

 

Disappointing Draw

I went to Brentford yesterday for the match against Reading. There was not a lot to report a 2-2 draw, but one moment made me chuckle when Yoann Barbet, legged it to the dugout & came back with a bit of paper that he showed other team mates, whatever it was must have worked as a few minutes later, he equalised.

Backing Up Again

Remember if you only have one back up, you don’t have a back up plan.

Poor defeat…

Rangers Tomer Hemed shoots during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City at the Loftus Road Stadium.

I would like to say that I enjoyed my trip to Loftus Road today, but I didn’t, it peed with rain for the duration and a piss poor performance from the Rs. Not content with that the rain killed my laptop, fortunately not my new laptop, as I am still working through some issues with it.

22/09/2018 Queens Park Rangers v Norwich City at Loftus Road Norwich’s Teemu Pukki scores

Good Home Win

Today I was at Brentford v Wigan Athletic. Good home win for the Bees.

 

Brentford’s Neal Maupay celebrates first goal during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Wigan Athletic at Griffin Park, London, England on 15 September 2018.

*** during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Wigan Athletic at Griffin Park, London, England on 15 September 2018.

Brentford’s Neal Maupay scores second during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Wigan Athletic at Griffin Park, London, England on 15 September 2018.

Brentford’s Neal Maupay celebrates second during the EFL Sky Bet Championship match between Brentford and Wigan Athletic at Griffin Park, London, England on 15 September 2018.

Better Late than….

Looks like my football season is about to kick off, hey ho, better late than never, thought that I had better get my code replacements sorted out ready for Premer League & Championship, that’s an hour that I won’t ever see again, but at least it should need very little change until the new transfer window.

The Joys

The joys of upgrading OSX when you have a non standard Graphics card, bloody thing, disconnect graphics card, install original, do firmware upgrade, several times, then update software, bloody faff, but at least it’s not Windows!

Relieved

Relieved to  get my car back from the bodyshop, after yet another visit to correct their work, still not right, panel gaps are horrendous, paint colour match is poor. But at least it isn’t the death trap Mercedes that they lent me.

Quiet Week this week

City celebrate winning goal against Spelthorne Sports

Only a couple of jobs, so i ended up at the Guildford City game. On the way back from Farnham during the week, I also did a picture of Guildford at night.

 

Yesterday…

At the Farnborough Airshow yesterday whilst I was shooting the static displays, I was  asked why I was shooting with two similar lenses on separate bodies. I had a 14mm on one & a 15mm on the other. However the results from each are very different.

 

Farnborough International Airshow

Bloody hell that was warm, next time I must remember that the media facilities are not the best place to shoot from. Anyhoo here’s a few pics.

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Breitling Wing Walkers

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Red Bull Collection Alpha Jet

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Red Bull Collection Douglas DC-6B & Alpha Jet

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Spitfire

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Bristol Blenhiem

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Airbus A350-1000 Xtra Wide Body

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. F16

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. F16

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Harrier

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Red Arrows

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Airbus A350-1000 Xtra Wide Body

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. HM Coastguard Helicopter takes off

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow. Crowds

21/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

Upgrade time

Having been a user of PhotoShop CS5 since it’s introduction, I have decided  that it is time to bite the bullet & upgrade to the current version, as it was only £79.99 for a year subscription I have updated both the Desktop & the Laptop to PhotoShop CC 2018.

There appear to have been a few changes in the  last 8 years or so, but the most immediate change that I spotted was the Camera RAW screen, which offers quite a few more options when processing RAW images, including profiles including “Landscape”, “Portrait” plus others including my new favourite “Vivid”.

 

First of 2…

Today was the first of a couple of days at the Farnborough International Airshow, started off nice but was pretty much 100% cloud cover by lunch.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

17/07/2018 Pictures from Farnborough International Airshow.

 

A long hot day…

Sunday was a long hot day at the Nick Compton testimonial cricket game at Weybridge Cricket Club.

15/07/2018 Weybridge Cricket Club v Middlesex Cricket Club, for Tom Compton’s Testimonial Year

 

An uncomfortable evening

Yesterday saw me at the Guildford Town Cycle Race over Guildford’s brand new setts (or cobbles), having already decided where I was most likely going to shoot from, I probably should have taken the Pelican Case that the 400mm lives in with me, but I didn’t so an uncomfortable few hours was spent sitting on the kerbstone outside  the Three Pigeons. Additionally as I was on the right side of the road photographically speaking, it was the wrong side for the pub.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

04/07/2018 Guildford Town Cycle Race.

Hot Work!

Two differing jobs in the diary this weekend, Cricket in the sunshine, followed by sitting next to a pond whilst photographing the Elstead Paper Boat Race.