Live at the Apollo

 

 My God has anyone watched this recently?  I saw it last night, bloody hell it's shit!

 First off live at the Apollo isn't bloody live, it's recorded. Secondly it's supposed to be a comedy show... what I saw yesterday wasn't comedy.  It was about as funny as stepping on barbed wire with bare feet, then setting fire to your foot to take away the pain.

First rule of comedy, get the audience to laugh.  If you need canned laughter added then it's not funny is it.  It's not rocket science, audience laughing= funny.  Audience not laughing = shit. 

The so caled comic walked about the stage like he'd done too much speed, and told jokes like.  My wife said to me "the dinners ready" (wait for massive canned laughter and applause) carry on "my sons name is colin" (wait for massive canned laughter and applause) ect etc.

 I've had a funnier dislocated knee FFS!  

 Fair do back in the earlier days they had really funny comics on, Jack Dee for example, but now it's just terrible.  Sad really.  Dont watch it if you need a laugh, watch a horror film, it'll be better made, a lot funnier and you wont end up wanting to throw the cat through the TV to make it stop.

 Live at the apollo... Dead on arrival more like.

More food photos. Any busy time.

 

 This is the last of this weeks food photos.  Got a busy week again.  Got to finish editing a load of pictures.  Had my Covid 19 booster yesterday, now have a very sore arm, although the nurse did a great job of giving me the jab, hardly felt a thing.  

 Tomorrow I'm off to Cardiff Christmas shopping, something I di most years.

 This year Christmas is going to be different.  With Mum gone that alters the whole day.  Normally our day would revolve around going over to Mums to meet up for dinner and tea.  This year it's going to be different in many ways.

Leaves in the gutter

 

Leaves in the gutter.  Shot today on Sony ZV1 at f1.8 .

A few food photos

 

Some new food photos.

 

 

High iso dancer

 This is a cropped high iso shot of a dancer. Canon 5d3 2000iso about a quarter of the full image here.  Signa 24-105 art lens. Basic noise reduction in photoshop.

Train

 

 Got this the other day, shot on the TZ80 compact camera.

 

 

Bloody camera!

 

 While out walking the other day I spotted a sunlit leaf on a bramble, just caught my eye and I thought, ohhh a picture maybe?

 Whip out camera and zoom in a press shutter button.  Oh joy, No wait!  I've got a progress bar going across the screen WTF!  This is new. Whats going ot?

 Some time later and some playing with the camera I work out it's gone into 4k burst mode, this shoots a video clip in 4k and you can extract an 8np still shot from it.  Except I've never used it and have no idea how to turn it off.

 Much googling later I find it's a known issue, oh great, the button you press to review the images on camera also turn on 4k bust mode, so they used the button you'll use most often rather than one you wont press every time you use the camera.  Well done..

 After turning the bastard thing off I later go to take another picture (the lights gone on my leaf by now) and WTF!  Now I have a huge artifical horizon on the screen, honestly I could fly a plane with this.  The question is how did it turn on and more importantly as it covers half the screen how do I turn it off. 

 More googling and I figure it out.  But why?  This isnt a camera going into space, it's a cheap compact camera, why does it need so many complicated features?  Lets be honest it's going to be used by people at parties and the odd photographer like me for a quick grab shot while I'm out walking.

 Next time I go flying I'm taking this camera with me, if the aircrafts artificial horizon claps out we could use this, hell it's probably got an autoland feature in the menu somewhere, it's got everything else.

The picture, was it worth the hassle of extracting it?  Probably not.  8mp shot extracted from 4k video.

Busy time.

 

 I seem to be very busy again at the moment.  I'm just finishing the last wedding and I have another on firday for my mate (be nice to catch up on gossip)  Today I have my Covid 19 booster and shopping, and I need to wash clothes later if I get chance.

 Tomorrow it's sort out my camera gear for friday, clean it and charge up a load of batteries, and decide what I'm taking, that reminds me to charge up other batteries that need doing, plus I'll need to finish the wedding I have now and burn it to disk, got some cracking shots if I'm honest.  If I was doing weddings for a living like I used to these would be in my window by now.

 I found my light meter (it went missig recently) but some filters are still hiding.  Speaking of filters I've been thinking of buying a "black mist" filter, a sort of soft focus, I did look at buying a soft focus lens, but I dont do enough portraits to get the use out of it.

Avaition news

 

 It's been a bad week for skydive aircraft, one crashed after dropping the skydivers and sadly the pilot was killed.  Another made a crash landing in a field after loosing power just after takeoff.  This aircraft had 17 people on board, only minor injuries reported.  Interesting note that type of aircraft is only licenced to carry 9 people, or 14 with a special waver from the licencing agency, so it appears to be overloaded if the information is correct

Bloody car!

 

 Well with the days getting shorter and longer dark night my car decides to crap-out another headlamp bulb.  And I needed oil.  Not a big deal you say.  Well yes it is, it's a PITA!

 Pop up to local car accessory shop for oil and a bulb, trouble is my cars a Ford.  That means for my   model theres 4 different headlamp bulbs , typing it into a computer doesnt help as one side has different bulbs to the other.... BLOODY FORD! 

 Anyway get bulb and then go home and dismantle most of car to fit it.  Seriously, you have to remove the top panel over the radiator, remove the radiator grill, then remove the whole headlight unit, then take off back cover just to access the bulb.  This takes me about an hour-ish in a gale to do and fiddle it all back together.

 I honestly cant understand why any company would build a car in such a way knowing full well that the bulbs will need to be changed.  Wheres the logic?

 Old cars you took out one screw, removed the chrome ring around the light, then baynet twisted the whole unit off and took out the bulb.  Took about a minute and you could do it anywhere, and yes Ford used that method as well.  Why change what works you dozy fuckers!

Random pictures

 

 A couple of random shots.

 

 

Difficult week.

 

Not having a great week.  My moods are all over the place, and I'm fairly busy sorting stuff out.  Ialso  need to get a bulb for the car and keep forgetting, and I need to check the oil.  Might just get it serviced and save the time.  Add in I'm really tired and I'm getting a grumpy git.

 Not only that I think the bloody poltergeist has hidden my light meter, just when I wanted to use the sodding thing (which I dont often) still if it doesnt turn up I'm not buying another, a good meter isnt cheap.

Fungi

 

Spotted this yesterday, no idea what fungi it is I'm afraid.

 

 

Apples

 

 Maybe not the best apples you've ever seen,

 

 

Leaf 3

 

 The last in the three leaf series.

 

 

Mia the dog.

 

Shot on my phone.

 

 

Leaf 2

 

 The second in a set of three.

 

 

Leaf 1

 

This is the first of a series of three back lit leaves.

 

Haunted castle and earthquake alert app.

 

 First the picture a claimed haunted castle Craig-yr-nos.  And I've actually had some weird stuff happen while I've been there in the past.

The earthquake app.  A few days ago I found out my phone came with an earthquake alert app built in.  very handy.... except it's not.  You see earthquakes come in two flavors.  Those you feel and those you dont.

 Now pretty much anywhere in the world there are minor tremors going on all the time, it's the ground moving,the plates shifting deep under ground..  Those you dont feel and dont need to know about.  Some places may have dozens a day.  Not a need for a warning our alert.

 The major quakes are different.  Those you will feel, depending on the power it might shake a few cups, or tower bloks will fall down  The point is you'll know.  trust me you'll notice whan your house starts moving.  Thats the flaw with the app.  the ones you need to know about you feel, the others dont mater really.

 The big problem is science has yet to come up with a reliable earthquake prediction system.  yes there are a few that can give a rough idea a quake may happen in your county sometime in the next month or so but an alert is no good for that.  You can hardly run outside and wait for it.  And frankly if my house is shaking and things are falling over I dont think I need an alert to let me know.

Bubbles

 Took this a few days ago.

Two more Swansea black and white shots.

 

 Another two shots from my Swansea vist a few days ago.

 

 

Whats your angle?

 

 Whats your angle?  No I'm not talking  Pythagorean theorem, I'm talking photography.

 If you go to places like the grand canyon or Sailsbury cathedral you'll find a crowd of people in one place, often queing to take the same photograph.  Many years back Kodak actually supplied a Kodak photopoint sign (free advertising) which tourist hotspots bunged at a good viewing spot.  Indeed some places actually had a path to a small circle viewing spot (with the Kodak sign of course).

 So what I'm getting at is while it's fine to take the same picture as 23 million other people, walk around your subject, look at it from higher or lower. Often theres a better shot.... and you'll be the ONE with it.  Look up and look down, who knows what you will see.

 Here I've taken a few local shots to kind of show you what I mean, you dont have to take pictures at eye level.  All shot on the TZ80 compact.

Swansea castle

 

 Swansea castle. Founded in 1107 and first attacked in 1116 and totally ruined by Swansea council ever since.  Note the horrible tower block behind and the even worse chrome 12th centure benches and recycling bin in front.  Yeah, way to go.  Bet Windor castle never looks like this.

  Indeed it was such a mess yesterday I decided to give it the heavy handed HDR treatment, lets face it I cant make it look much worse.

 

Bloody poltergeist!

 

 My bloody poltergeist has started playing silly buggers again!  

The day before yesterday I was cleaning and sorting out camera gear ready for  a shoot on the weekend.  While doing that I swopped my 6d2 from one bag to a slightly bigger bag (new bag) to make room for a flash.  Now this isn't the camera I'll use on the weekend, it's a wander about camera.  It has three lens and a flash in the bag, it did have two lens and no flash thats why it got a bigger bag.

 Anyway also in the bag were a couple of filters that came with a bag I bought a few months back that fit one of the lens in the bag and a set of neutral density filters I bought for the same lens.  Well the neutral density filters are still there but the other three are missing!

 Now they are only used with the 24-85mm lens in this bag so they stay with this camera and lens.  I havent used any of them recently so they "should" be there. But they are not.  Nor can I find them in any of my other bags.

 Not only has this happened but my youngest son dropped an earbud earphone thingy in his bed (he listens to music in bed) but now he cant find it.  He's pulled the bed apart and searched the floor. No earbud. Yesterday he lost the remaining one downstairs.  Later he goes up to his room and finds both on his desk.  WTF!

 Now I havent played about with his stuff, and I honestly cant see him taking a few filters out of one of my camera bags and hoping I'd notice for a joke.  First off he's not a joker like that, and secondly it would have been a lucky guess to know what to take that I'd be looking for, when theres a lot of other stuff I use more.

 Theres nobody else here to do it.

I've mentioned before the weird stuff that happenes in my house.  Now it's not totally poltergeist type activity but it's close enough.   It's not the end of the world, it's just a bloody PITA.  I was fancying a few soft focus portraits on the weekend, so I've dug out another soft focus filter, it's just not the one I wanted to use.

Two random black and white shots

 

 A couple of randon black and white shots.

 

 

Rain on a wire, and leaves

 Just a couple I took yesterday while going through my cameras and lens cleaning and sorting stuff.  Both shot on a Canon 7d with a Sigma 18-250mm lens at some fairly high iso, around 2500 ish I think, so not great.