7 / 10 – two points for getting in two animal references. That is a bit shocking though.

It may have been said already – I’m not about to trawl through four pages of sauce angst, but…..

If I have a bacon roll, I want it to taste of bacon.
If I have a steak, I want it to taste of steak. Etc, etc.

Sauces are plain wrong on anything. All of them.

I’ve had both (still have the UK one). The German ones are far less bulky and the goretex is whisper quiet and quite thin compared to the UK one. It packs up MUCH smaller too, which is worth bearing in mind if you think you might need to pack it away at any point.

Wouldn’t use the UK one for biking – just too big and heavy but do use it for foul weather dog walking / hiking.

The massive aquarium at the waterfront is well worth a look. I went under duress and was blown away – huge tanks, sharks and all manner of weird and wonderful beasties.

mastiles – yes, I think there is a wee plastic box inside the housing – will investigate today. surfer – everything else on the circuit is working, oldgit – everything’s as tidy as a ham fisted Scotsman working over his head can make it 🙂

Please God he had a decent run up. Is the kid in the background commentating, singing karaoke or eaing a Tropicana ice-pop? Driveway needs weeding.

yesiamtom – Member
ffs cant they put decent tyres on boardmans????

mountain kigns are changing next year anyway so i doubt we will see production models of that with those tyres. The usual choice of speed kings (good tyre bad choice) would make more sense on an ultra light bike. You could knock a few hundred grams off there and make it silly light.

The second I bought a Boardman, I changed the pedals, tyres, stem and bars. I also added a saddlebag full of tools and (more recently) a DX Bastid light. It’s now a fair way heavier than it could be, but also much comfier and more practical. But then, it’s not made of carbon 🙂

The email thing is a clever tactic – means you can’t pass on the code to other (non-targeted) buyers like you can with Wiggle codes.

FWIW I got the email and have bought lots of low cost stuff over the last few years.

Whippets are very lovely animals but we plumped for a lurcher / terrier cross (rescue dog). Perfect size of a dog, shouts like hell if anything unusual happens near the house and after a lot of hard work is very well trained.

When he’s shaved, he’s like a large, well covered whippet. Has many of the sight hound characteristics combined with terrier / collie intelligence and thus far, never had a sick day in his life. Well worth having a look round the local Dogs’ Trust rescue centres.

mastiles – without opening it up again, I don’t know – it’s a standard hanging light fitting though…

Any ideas from the evening shift?

I got one for Christmas last year – fitted it, forgot it, love it. Still have to wear clear glasses for the odd bit of flying grock but if fitted properly, it does keep huge amounts of stuff out of your eyes (and headset bearings).

Next message will refer to a large cheque which he will send to you for a few thousand dollars more than the value of the purchase. He’ll want you to send the excess amount to his sister (who has terminal cancer) when the cheque clears. So you send off the excess $ only to find the cheque bounces retrospectively, leaving you massively out of pocket and with no car.

I think that’s how it works…..

Like many others above, I shoot film and digital, but treat them as almost entirely separate entities.

Anything I’m shooting for money (professionally) is done digitally; weddings, portraits, commercial work…. I shoot film for fun – all B&W and process and print at home.

I would absolutely love to shoot a whole wedding on B&W film using my F4s cameras – it would justify me having them (along with a big pile of FMs, FM2ns and F90s). The cost, time-wise would be large though, considering it generally takes me perhaps an hour to produce one fibre-based wet print. An album made from such prints would surely be a beautiful thing though…. Any takers?!

Also love IR film – still got a large stockpile of HIE in the freezer which I’m almost scared to use, given the price they seem to be fetching on ebay – £30 a film anyone!!

Would love to have a permanent darkroom setup – right now it’s the spare room with trays and enlarger on the floor. Long sessions leave me with super-stiff knees for a few days 🙁

Don bags! No, Dan bogs!!

The OS shop has a three for the price of two on waterproof explorer maps just now – fill yer wellies!

Whats with the arse stabbing?

I think, from barely remembered chapters of Midnight Cowboy perhaps, that is has something to do with what you can and cannot be charged with if caught – it’s a less serious crime than, say, stabbing someone in the torso.

Most macro shooters tend to use manual focus anyway, moving the lens backwards and forwards, rathe than adjusting the focus ring.

EDIT; just read your post again – ignore!

Lol! I do feel sorry for Ukranian cats though 🙂

The aperture varies with the available light just like a camera

Not sure about this – I think my eye’s depth of field is the same on a sunny day as it is in a darkish room. Off to ask optometrist friend >>>>

Agree with Barnes about the speed of eye adjustment to the dark – if I take my dog for a midnighgt walk, I stand in the dark with my eyes closed for about a minute (haven’t been mugged yet 🙂 ). When I open my eyes, my night vision is about as good as it’ll ever be.

everywhere I look is always in focus unless I forget my glasses

OK, but my point was that the human eye has a fairly shallow DOF (at a total guess, it’s probably quite close to f4?!) – have you tried the monitor thing?

I look like this 🙁

Mushroom head 🙁

Yes you can play about with DOF if you wish (yawn), add streaks or jimmy the exposure, but I prefer to be as true as I can to the original scene/subject(s), not try to add spurious “value”…

It’s not about recreating a scene falsely. If I use f2.8 to get a shallow depth of field, it accurately represents what the eye sees – look at the top of your monitor. Now look over the top of it, out of the corner of your eye – everything above the monitor is out of focus, no?

Very useful for separating your subject from a distracting background too!

As Graham S says, manual is often the only option. I’m just back from shooting a foster kids’ do – each pic had a kid shaking hands with Chris Cook (Olympic swimming chappie) and getting a certificate.

I wanted every single exposure (all 72 of them) to be exactly the same, so I don’t need to spend hours on the computer later. It also gives a nice uniformity to a set of images and there is less to go wrong.

So I set up my remote flash, camera in manual mode, apperture set to f2.8 and shutter speed to 1/200th. White balance set to flash too (usually I just leave it on auto).

Now it doesn’t matter if someone switches lights on or off, or if the sun goes down or anything else really, as I am controlling the amount of light hitting the subject with the flash and camera settings.

The camera’s almost always on apperture priority for weddings though, unless I’m messing about with flash, in which case it’s likely to be on shutter prioity.

Truly grateful for all the advice. As for timing, I’ll be staying very nearby with no real time constraints (as long as I can get the images within two weeks) but have no intention of putting myself at risk.

It takes me about 20 minutes to get the panoramic image on summits. From previous (bitter) experience I’ve learned to layer up as soon as the summit approaches and the wind starts coming over the top of the hill. It can feel very counter-intuitive to put on loads of clothes when you’re sweating buckets but I don’t move around much once I’m up there and it gets very chilly, very quickly. It’s also not-so-easy to control tripod-head movements / camera controls with mitts so fingers get numb pretty quick.

druidh – thanks for the offer – may well be in touch once I’ve confirmed details with the client.

cuckoo – it’s nothing that nasty I promise! BWD – I’ll go have a look at that – I need help and fast! Druidh – it’ll be during the first couple of weeks in November, weather permitting. As I mentioned above, I’m not really at liberty to divulge the peaks on an open forum – there’s no massive secrecy really, but I have to consider the client.

So it looks like I may need a longish ‘walking axe’ and perhaps a set of crampons? Down jacket would be nice but I do have a budget – base layer, fleeces, winstopper gilets and army goretex should be fine!

Cheers for the link Chris – I will look into that but time is pressing…. I usually carry a walking pole which converts into a monopod (for photography) just for river crossings, climbing, uneven ground etc.

I wanted an axe to stop myself unintentionally glissading down a munro but thought it might as well double as a walking pole, given the weight!

Well, I’m not entirely without experience but am sensible enough to realise where my shortcomings lie…. And as I said in the OP I’ve just spent a week raking about in Scottish mountains so amn’t totally helpless 🙂

EDIT; and just for entertainment’s sake – I had a long chat with a ghillie about a photo I took of an odd looking, very fresh spoor I found on a rock up a mountain. It was larger than a human poo, very black and full of deer hair. I spent the next few hours looking over my shoulder…

I showed the pic to the ghillie and he spent over an hour telling me about all the big cats he and his colleagues have seen over the years. He did smell a bit of whisky though 😉

Some great advice, thanks very much. The pay does make it all worthwhile but not sure about naming peaks or hiring a guide (at least on the forum) as these projects can be quite sensitive. I’ve done all the peaks local to the development – the remaining ones are for the long view.

Having said that, the guide idea could be a good one – I’ve been at the top of Helvellyn in a white out and that was pretty terrifying. The only slight problem might be that I need 50 miles visibility (from the top of a Scottish mountain in November 😀 ) so I have to decide very early in the morning that the weather window will be there – very short notice for a guide….

Grum – it’s bl00dy hard work but when the weather’s good it’s a dream job. But that has to be balanced against the hours sitting behind boulders at altitude wondering if the horizontal sleet is ever going to stop – sometimes it doesn’t, and I only get paid if I get the shots!

catflees46 – Member
Can’t find the thread on deer skull, would love to

Maybe it was Harry’s local pub cellar I’m remembering – did you post pics of that HTS?

Wasn’t there a guy on here ages ago who knocked through a wall in his cellar and posted photos of the decorated deer skull (?!) he found therein? Was very spooky!

Drawing pins?

Grum – click on RP’s name. Glad you got your camera back BTW 🙂

Also good – but brides look bad with ocseT, dleifremoS, or even adsA written accross their foreheads 🙂

My D300 with either Sigma 10-20mm or Nikon 17-55mm comes on every ride with me. Lives somewhere in a backpack with lunch, jacket and tools, usually wrapped in a fleece.

As post on page one, insurance is the key. I have a backup at home in case I fall on the camera and ride in the full knowledge that I can creddly card a new body / lens for the weekend wedding and my insurance will pay out in the very near future.

Last quote I had (from Gibside, Gateshead) was £400 flat fee for a one hour shoot – and they wanted copyright for any commercial useage, meaning I couldn’t use the shots on website.

EDIT; nice cover shot richpips – my business plan (many years ago) was naievely based around such clients 🙁

Cheers also for the tips about remote strobes in sadwich bags 🙂

Read the whole thread, or at least a little bit of it, or maybe even just the OP before posting. GrrrR! Sorry, pet hate.

Anyhoo, yes, I’d offer to go halfies on a pop-lock. Cheaper than return postage (probably) and will put you safely on the moral high ground.

I’ve swallowed some awful cr@p from clasifieds over the years on the grounds that complaining is generally more trouble than it’s worth. But for a set of forks, I would probably feel a liitle aggreived if I couldn’t fit the forks and expect them to work.

If they’re sold with a piece missing which prevents their immediate useability, I’d be miffed unless it was made very clear in the advert.

Not surprising – try getting a tripod out in any Scottish National Trust property and the resident, fat, beardy photo-nazi staff member trundles up in his wee golf-caddy and lets rip with a tirade of abuse. They are very, very protective of their assets and usually have an arrangement with a few, carefully chosen photographers.

I’ve done a few ‘hit and run’ photoshoots with brides – shoot first ask questions later kind of a thing……

If shooting on commision, most companies wouldn’t ever ask for a shoot on NT SNH EH property as property release are almost impossible to negotiate.

Ah! Has started working again! Plugged the battery into the light, checked the two modes, sighed and plugged it back into the charger. I must have brushed the ‘touch-switch’ with my finger as it lit up and is currently displaying full battery and ‘7.8V’….

Odd. Thanks for the moral support!

Hmmm. My charger is red until I unplug it from the wall but it goes green when unplugged (but still plugged into the light). I suppose the truth will out when I first use the light and see if the battery is fully charged up or not. Blooming aggravating 🙁

EDIT: stuey – yes, the battery came showing three quarter full charge (the readout was working then!) so I may just have to learn to live without the readout…