Dan recommended me a budget set of ND grad filters. They’re £16 so you would expect them to be terrible but all the reviews on Amazon spoke highly of them, so I gave them a go. I’ve literally taken a few photos out of my windows so far, and at 25mm I get some serious Vignetting, but at 35mm and beyond it produces good results.
The top image is taken without the ND grad and the details of the building faces and trees are lost. The bottom image is taken with the ND grad and has far more foreground detail while still maintaining the dark and stormy look of the clouds.
Is anyone else rather gutted that Jon Stewart is coming back?
Jon Stewart is a great host for The Daily Show and I enjoy watching him on it. I also blogged about it a few years ago.
But having said that, John Oliver is brilliant!
You might have already seen this…
The best was yet to come, though. When John Oliver took over as guest host for two months while John Stewart was away directing a movie, he truly came into his own. Check this out…
I’m going to go as far as to say I think John Oliver is actually a better host of the show.
Further to my rant about Bristol Cameras recently, the new new tripod is finally in my possession and seems to be holding up quite well.
I’m sure I’m that told on the ball head as it is more complicated than simply setting up and having a flat platform. It takes it easier on an uneven surface of course, but it still rather fiddly.
It has a lot of nice features though. All the legs work independently, and the foam padding really makes a difference in the cold. The feed unscrew so you can replace them with spikes (though you have to buy those extra) and there is a retractable hook in the bottom of the centre column for hanging weights/bags to. The legs also have three different settings for how far out they are.
The centre column itself comes all the way up, and then you can even swivel it up to 90 degrees out flat as shown in the picture. It has a pan-only mode too.
As mentioned I got the Giottos ball head version two with it that while fiddly, seems to do its job. It has a pan mode as well, a quick release head and two spirit levels, though they’re a bit slow to move and hard to see once you have the camera on there.
So far I’m pretty happy with it.
On Monday, we held our first meeting of Anxiety Leeds.
I’m pleased to report that it was a success. For a first meeting it actually went very smoothly and the feedback we received on the nigh was positive. We’re not waiting for formal feedback which should hopefully tell a similar story.
The group will be meeting every month on the second Monday. Our next event is on 14 October. The best way to stay in touch us to visit the website and sign up for the mailing list.
For the August meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Kat Ford presented her talk “The Modern Face of Physiognomy”. The talk looked at how we make judgements of people based on their face. Kat was an entertaining speaker and we really enjoyed hosting her.
The talk is also available to watch on Worfolk Lectures.
In August, I went to Goole for a speech workshop organised by Gillian. It was a highly informative day and should really raise the standards at contests in area 15 and 51. So much for any hope of retaining my trophy!
While there, I also took the chance to take some photos. Click for the full sized versions.
A few weeks ago we had a dinner party that was similar to the previous one, except with slightly fewer people and a little bit more food. Or so I thought. Turns out, I did a lot more food.
Thus leaving rather a lot of food left over.
Worked out quite well as I didn’t have to buy sandwiches for a week.
