[slowvoice]okaaaaaa-aay[/slowvoice].

Is that normal? In your house? Do you know the child?

Ah sorry – thought you were inferring a lack of snow in the pics…. It's around Warden Law / Herrington, between Durham and Sunderland.

Errr – it's that white stuff ^^^

Not strictly speaking a power station, but close. And I did take it mesel'…..

Also near Sunderland and thinking tomorrow's ride at Hamsterley might be snowed off.

Only up at this time as ver', ver' drunken wife phoned to beg for lift back home from sodding dinner party affair – just back and the roads are in absolute chaos.

Mostly rear wheel drive cars in trouble, but also loads of ****ts in front wheel drives spinning in first gear. Result = queues of sideways cars in the middle of the road on slight inclines, blocking the roads for those who aren't brain dead.

GRRRRR!!

Hamsterly tomorrow, so having a few glasses of red to ensure a good night's sleep :-)

Prescription swimming goggles arrived yesterday….

Don't get this whole footpath / bridleway stuff – born and bred in Scotland…. I cycle respectfully and will slow down / stop / dismount if necessary. I now live in England and cycle wherever I like, but with care and respect for other users….

Lightweights. Fell well over 100 feet from a conifer tree and didn't die.

Fell off my bike in front of the same cop car TWICE and didn't get arrested.

Best is Harrison from Dirt forum and he won't thank me for sharing this…. Poor b@stard got very drunk, very quickly at a Sheffield party. Waited for 10 mins to get into the toilet, got fed up, kicked the door in and pissed all over the poor hippy lass s(h)itting on the toilet.

Quick kick-out.

BB King? Not sure…. Nice vid – the guy losing his shoe made me titter.

If you want to justify to yourself (you wife?) spending an extra £200 odd on a lens, then good for you. Just don't keep spreading the misinformation.

The 1.8mm lens is perfectly adequate. Not as specialised as the 1.4 in terms of bokeh but having owned both in the past (I kept the 1.8 if it matters) the pretty background baubles matter in only a handful of shots IMO.

And I also don't think lenses have progressed much since the '80s. AF has become more intelligent, and as was mentioned earlier, lens coatings have come on a little, but right now, we're limited by the optical qualities of glass. Ceramic lenses may be on the way, but not for a good while yet at consumer friendly prices.

Don't believe the hype.

Ian Kerso?

here's his ebay shop

Curly – I was thinking exactly the same thing!! :D

+1 on Riddley Walker. Also, Eric Shipton's Six Mountain Travel Books – what an amazing read – hard going occasionally, but that just suits the subject matter.

IGMF

I'll Get My Flowers.

I am David Niven. And I have no mates and too much time on my hands.

Another of Kasper taken about an hour ago, for my 31 day photo challenge. Sleepy dog….

Kasper – came from teh Dog's Trust. Similar to above, was a nervous wreck when we got him aged six months. Now nearly four and a proper rascal.

Has he failed 'cos he's a ginger, or because there's a small weed growing on his driveway?

Where can I buy a jacket like the one Ray's wearing? WANT!

LOL

Literal lol at Binners' joke. Small guilty chuckle at rhe others……..

I learnt to unicycle years back, on a uni bought from a guy called Haggis the Clown. He was a raging alky and needed the cash (all true!).

Hadn't been on one for about 12 years – went into LBS with some mates, saw a uni and said, "I can ride that!". Got on, did a length of the shop and ditched into a large display of kids' bikes :oops:

Mates haven't let me forget it….

+1 for locking the door and going to the pub.

Ti29er – I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but I'm really struggling to understand what you're saying. Since when has a lens got "legs", and why aren't the f1.8's legs long enough?!

Also, why isn't it "good enough"?

If you're trying to say that it lacks a large enough apperture to throw a background out of focus, on a crop sensor camera, then I repeat my above comment. Tosh. There's also absolutely nothing wrong with the build or image quality.

To the OP – get the Sigma if you do go for an f1.4 – it looks much more impressive :-)

Forget the f1.8, it's not going to be good enough.

Tosh. Nothing wrong with the f1.8 at all. Especially as the OP suggests he'll be using it at f4 – 5.6.

We got married in Loch Lomond youth hostel. Beautiful building and grounds.

Up until last year, that was run by my mate Davie Watt. He's now at the Pitlochry hostel. Once a year, he used to block book it for members of the ephotozine photographic forum – ah, happy days….

Smile and lean forward. Smile a lot. Nod a lot. Positive, positive, positive. Keep your hands where the interviewer can see them. Hidden hands suggest the interviewee has something to hide.

It's a source of constant surprise to me (as a wedding photographer) that often the weddings done on a bit of a shoestring (apart from the photography, obviously :-) ) are often far more memorable, fun and photogenic than those on which tens of thousands of pounds have been lavished.

I had two in December, back to back. The first was in a very upmarket country house hotel with beautiful architecture and grounds. Next day's wedding was held in a local cricket clubhouse and the second set of pics was far superior. I guess it all comes down to who you invite and how much fun they have…

user-removed – Member
I shot a couple's wedding at Woking Town Hall last Summer. I'm guessing it was cheap – they hired in their own caterers, but you might think it's a wee bit 'nasty' – go have a look…..

Posted 1 hour ago #

Sorry, just checked, and it was actually Worksop Town Hall :oops:

To be fair to the venues which stick an £800 surcharge on at the mention of the 'W' word, you have to think of the extra costs involved. If they book a company meeting, they just stick out some trestle tables and cloths, a few pens, some mints and some jugs of water. Job's a goodun.

If they book a wedding in the same room, they'll need a dozen staff to wait tables / set up / take down / clean / cater etc etc. On top of that, there'll be days of to-ing and fro-ing with two or three anxious women all changing their minds about chair-cover colour every two days. So a lot more time and prep.

Also, there's huuuuge expectations these days, that a wedding venue must look absolutely amazing. If you want perfection (and most do), it comes with a price tag.

I shot a couple's wedding at Woking Town Hall last Summer. I'm guessing it was cheap – they hired in their own caterers, but you might think it's a wee bit 'nasty' – go have a look…..

Wouldn't a corrupted earth wire from the battery cause these symptoms too? Might be worth checking…..

Well they could have chosen somewhere away from the busybodies but in spirit, +1 to TC's post.

We used to get out to the fire roads round Aberdeen, tie a log to the back of my mate's Passat and get about four of us towed along at 40 mph. It's OK though, we all had leather jackets so we didn't get injured…

The Taking of Pelham 123 (original – no idea what the new one's like).

Stealing Beauty – bit of Liv Tyler in her youth…. Lovely stuff.

Eraserhead is well known amongst my generation, but the younguns may not have seen it.

"….for a crime they didn't commit"

Long exposures will also add noise, whatever the camera. Most will have an inbuilt feature to automatically reduce it (my cameras take about 30 seconds to process a 30 second exposure, for instance).

I dread going baldy – my head's a really bad shape for an all over shave. Reckon I'll probably just buy a nice selection of Trilbies and Homburgs.

Back in the day (90s!) you could buy a product called Billy's Bones or somesuch. These were flat steel bars with a loop at each end which you slid onto your D lock. The idea was, it would stop folk using a car jack to bend the sides of the lock out, popping it open.

Someone tried the car jack thing on my £9.99 no-brand D lock a few years ago, but it held out!