Infinitely Pointless

I purchased this bag earlier in the year when it became apparent that the current back pack I was using (the lowepro fastpack 200) was no longer big enough to carry all the lenses I like to use on a regular basis.

The fastpack was my first camera back pack and I purchased it when I was mainly using my Sigma 18-250mm and my Tamron 90mm macro lens. These two lenses along with my Nikon D40 fitted easily along with the other day to day accessories I usually carry around. When I added the Tamron 17-50mm and Nikon 70-300mm to my lens collection it became clear I needed a bag with a little more space.

As I started looking for a replacement I considered what I needed from a bag. I didn’t need a large bag for all of my kit. I already own a Tamrac Expedition 6x if I’m carrying a lot of kit. I did consider a straight upgrade for the fastpack 250 or 300 but one of the things I didn’t like about the fastpack was the fact I needed to take it off to get access to the camera or additional lenses.  After a bit of research I decided to get the Slingshot. I had seen the smaller slingshot previously and like the idea of being able to simply slid the bag around on my shoulder and get my camera or spare lenses without having to take the bag off completely.

When it arrived it took some time messing around with the internal dividers to get them arranged in such a way that would accommodate the combination of camera and lenses I wanted to carry. Despite some of the user reviews stating that the bag would hold a mediam DSLR with a 300mm lens. I tried it with my D7000 and the Nikon 70-300mm zoom lens attached and found that the width of the bag wasn’t quite sufficient. I could however get my D7000 with a 17-50mm attached along with my Nikon 70-300mm, Tamron 90mm and Sigma 18-250mm all in the bottom section of the bag.

The top section of the bag is big enough to hold a filter case, charger, compact camera or any number of other accessories you need to carry with you. There is also a front pouch to hold spare batteries and cables along with two SD card pockets in the inside of the main flap. On the side of the bag there is a strap and foot pocket to attach a small/medium tripod.

When loaded with my kit, this bag actually gets quite heavy at around 10kg. Up until this last weekend, I hadn’t carried this pack around for any extended period of time. Over the weekend I’ve carried this pack for 3 days on average for about 6 hours of the day. I can honestly say it’s one of the most comfortable packs I’ve used. The main should strap is very well padded  and when the 3 point strap is clipped in to place, the pack stays securely in place and distributes the weight evenly over your back and shoulders.

If you need a new camera day pack, I would highly recommend this one.

I had the misfortune to be in London on a Cisco training course a few weeks ago and had a little spare time in the evenings. I decided to get out and about and take a few photographs around the Victoria Embankment area. Luckily the weather was pretty good while we were there so the light in the evening made for some good dusk/sunset photographs.

Below are a few of the photographs I took. There are more in the gallery.

With all the stuff I’ve got going on lately I haven’t had much time to get my camera out, so I decided to make some time last Saturday.

The sun was shining and the garden was full of interesting stuff. After a while of not taking photographs I was surprised by how many things I though I could make an interesting image out of. There was also no shortage of insects around.

There are a few thumbnails below, full size versions are available in the gallery.

This year will be my third South West challenge and my first shooting AFB. I have to say, I’m really looking forward to this one. Having completed both of the previous years, I know know what to expect and I don’t find the idea so daunting. The only thing I’m worried about this year is being able to complete the whole eight days with my flatbow. I’ve gone up a fair amount of poundage from the recurve I shot last year and sometimes find myself struggling at the end of a two day shoot so I need to make sure I keep the energy levels up this year and stay hydrated. I’ll probably take the recurve as a backup anyway.

For those of you outside the archery world that read this and have no clue what I’m babbling about, I’ll give you an overview of the South West Challenge.

The South West Challenge is eight days of field archery spread out over a nine day period. You basically shoot two two day competitions, have a day off and then shoot another two two day competitions. These competitions are put on by four different archery clubs based around the Devon/Cornwall area. For those that don’t know, Devon isn’t a particularly flat area so not only do you need to be able to shoot for eight days, you also need to make it over the sometimes difficult terrain of the courses. To make it just that bit more tiring, we will also be sleeping in a tent the whole time!

The map below shows the location of the courses and the places we will be staying

The course this year are being put on by:

• Day 1 & 2 : Elmtree Archers
• Day 3 & 4 : Tavistock Company of Archers
• Day 5 & 6 : Ballands Bowmen
• Day 7 & 8 : Westcombe Field Archers

I’ll try to post some updates and pictures during the week but I won’t promise anything.

I’ve been moving my websites around servers recently to try and improve performance and response times. I’ve also enabled some reporting on the access log files to try and find out what particular stuff you guys are accessing. There were a couple of errors in those logs pointing to some wav files I had on the old version of my website. I’d forgotten about these and proceeded to dig them out. After listening to them yesterday they still make me laugh. If you need a laugh, go ahead and give them a listen, they never fail to cheer me up. Enjoy.

Armageddon

Things Yoda might say in bed

Due to a few changes in my personal life I’ve been looking for some new artwork to put on my walls at home. After shopping around for a while I was amazed how much you pay for some pretty average stock artwork.

I decided to try my hand at making some of my own artwork. I’d messed around with smoke photography a few months back and wasn’t overly impressed with my results. Having read a few more articles and with my D7000 in hand I set about giving it another go. I got better results this time but I think I can still get better results. I plan on trying again sometime soon when I have a bit more room to set up the kit. The images below were all captured with the entire setup on a desktop. The results aren’t bad though!

I’ve had these images blown up to 16″x12″ using PhotoBox. If you haven’t used Photobox before it’s pretty simple and their prices for poster sized prints are very reasonable. There are other online printers but so far I’ve received the best quality and service from Photobox.

I still have a few spaces to fill, so I’ll be trying some new photo projects in the near future.

After missing the 2010 3D champs due to competing in the IFAA European Bowhunter Champs I was quite looking forward to this years competition.

The 2011 3D Champs were held on the Okeover Estate near Osmaston in Derbyshire. Quite handy for me as it’s only about 45 minute drive from home. The 2009 3Ds were held on the same estate as this years competition so I knew how good the woodland was and expected two good courses to shoot.

Saturday didn’t get off to the best of starts. After arriving at the ground we found we needed to get our arrows checked before we could collect our scorecards. Returning to the cars we picked up our arrows an unfortunately Kay’s keys got locked in the car….along with our bows and the rest of our kit. After a couple of requests over the loud speaker system a friendly chap from Liverpool turned up with a piece of wire and kindly got us back in the car.

After the usual announcements we headed out to the courses. I was shooting the B course on Saturday wich was in the same area of woodland as the Duvelle course two years ago. I was hoping Pines Park had laid a better course. After about a dozen targets I realized I was going to be disappointed. Other than a few targets that were cleverly laid making use of dead ground, the rest of the course was bland. Most things were between 25 and 35 yards, ever the larger targets like the elk and stag. Somewhere on the course my brain switched off.

I ended the day with a half decent score, but no where near what I was capable of scoring. I expected to be about 50 points off the main group of people I was trying to compete against. After coming off the course and speaking to a few of the other archers my suspicions were confirmed. Most of my main competition had scored 50 to 60 points more than me. A little while later, I got a shock. The top score to come of the course that day was a massive 128 points in front of mine. At the end of the day I was sitting in 17th place.

My initial hopes had been to be in the top 5 at the end of the competition, at the end of Saturday I had to re-evaluate. Looking down the list of scores and those immediately above me I decided a realistic goal for Sunday was to get inside the top 10. To do this I needed to pick up around 30 points, not easy but not impossible. I was just hoping for a better course and some longer distance targets.

We arrived on Sunday morning and were very careful not to lock the keys in the car this time, I had also picked up the spare car key, I wasn’t taking any chances. I know if a certain someone reads this I’m going to get a slap!

We headed out on to the A course which was a bit of a longer walk out that the previous day and down a particularly long hill. I wasn’t looking forward to getting up that at the end of the day. We got out on to the pegs and I had an entirely new group for the Sunday and I set about trying to make up some points. It didn’t start well, I blanked the fourth target! Then it suddenly dawned on me, I was treating this course the same as yesterdays. Expecting all the targets to be the same distance and exactly where they appeared to be. That miss was enough to wake me up and make me think about what I was doing. Things improved from that point but no where near enough to get me the points I needed.The A course was so much better. A lot more though had gone in to target positioning and the course layer had used the ground to good effect. There were a lot of targets on the course that caught me out, hats off to the course layers.

At the end of Sunday I was around 60 points off the pace for the day, no where near what I was hoping for. I ended the weekend in 13th place, I’d managed to pick up 4 places on the Sunday but not enough for me to reach my goal. I was a little disappointed with my shooting over the weekend. I am capable of doing better but never seem to be able to do it at the big competitions. I need to figure out what’s causing this issue and work on it ready for the Nationals in September.  Still, I can’t be too disappointed. 13th is my highest finish in a Nationals or 3Ds so far, I just need to figure out how to pick up those few places and shoot as well as I’m able ready for the Nationals.

Recently I’ve found myself struggling for subject matter for my 365 project. We got a bird feeding station for Christmas from my parents as I was already trying to attract some birds in to the garden.

Having tried a few shots of the feeder from the house using my existing Sigma 18mm-250mm lens I was a little disappointed with the results. To get anywhere near filling the frame I was shooting at 250mm at f3.5 and the images were less than sharp.

I decided I needed a little more reach, something in the 300mm-400mm range. After a lot of research and review reading I settled on the Nikkor 70m-300mm f4.5-5.6. There are a lot of lenses out there at the 300mm focal length including some new lenses from Nikon including the 28mm-300mm. I settled on the 70-300mm for two reasons. Firstly the price. I picked this lens up for £364 from an Amazon trader called Bargains 2000 and secondly this one came out on top as far as picture quality goes.

After taking a few shots with this lens I’m pretty happy. The lens is incredibly sharp through most of the focal length and only softens at 300mm when using the widest apature. If you stop down 1 or 2 stops the sharpness is perfectly acceptable.

Given the choice, and if I’d had a little more cash available I’d probably have preferred to go for a 400mm but the price difference is quite a big jump from 300mm to 400mm. To be honest, there is nothing wrong with this lens I just wish I could have got that bit of extra reach.

I’m looking forward to better weather so I can see what the lens can do under good light conditions. I might also move the camera closer to the feeder in better weather and try to disguise it with some meshing.

You guessed it, 11 days after it was released I went out and got me one. I’d read numerous reviews and lab tests of this camera and couldn’t find one that had a bad thing to say about it. The price tag was pretty hefty for an enthusiast like me at £1099 but after a few days arguing with myself I decided to go ahead and buy one. The decision was made somewhat easier by the fact that Jessops were offering twelve months interest free credit on the purchase.

I’ve had the camera for a couple of months now and I’m very happy with it. I had a couple of small issues when I first got the camera, but they have since been sorted. The only one of these that caused me a problem was the lack of support for the RAW file format of this camera. I mainly use Adobe LightRoom 3 for cataloguing and post processing of my images and shoot in RAW + JPEG. At the time I got the D7000 LightRoom didn’t support the RAW files and I had to work with the JPGs. A minor irritation, but after a couple of days Adobe released version 3.3 RC1 which did have the support and have since released 3.3 and it should be a free upgrade for Lightroom 3 users.

There has also been a firmware upgrade released for the D7000, reading the release notes this fixes some issues with HD video recording so I haven’t bothered applying the upgrade yet.

I can strongly recommend this camera to anyone who is considering an upgrade. The camera feels solid and is easy to use with a specification rivalling the D300s and in most cases exceeding you won’t regret the upgrade. I know I don’t!

Looks like there will be another announcement from Nikon this evening (12am est/5am gmt).

Rumour has it they will be announcing the replacement for the D90, the new model being the D7000. The specs look good so far, maybe even a little better than the D300s.

Get the full lowdown at Nikon Rumors

Update: 15th Sept

It’s official. The D7000 has been announced and should hit the shops at the end of October. The full specs are available on Nikon’s site