Plenty of rain today. As forecast, but not what I want at the weekend. It did give me a chance though to do some catching up on some of the more mundane tasks associated with digital photography. Like backing up several DVDs-worth of images (and that only took me to the end of August). While I was rooting around, I dug out a very old flash unit (a Canon 188A) which dates back to the early/mid 1980s. I'd been meaning to see if I could get it to work with my 400D.
After a little bit of checking on the web, I was confident that it wouldn't actually cause any harm to the electronics on the camera. So I gave it a whirl, setting everything to manual. It's not bad actually and one advantage is that it allows a faster shutter speed than the built-in flash (which is limited to 1/200). The first shots tended to be massive over-exposures but with some practice I was able to get it under moderate control. One particular gain is that the extra light means I can run macro shots at a higher number aperture (more depth of field).
I didn't have too much to hand to test it out on so resorted to the old game of a dripping tap!
There were many missed shots in the sequence, but the basic functioning was fine. I now need to try it out on something larger (if the foxes show up). The photos are in the Abstracts album.
Camera note: all shots with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro and Canon 188A flash unit
chthoniid
18 Nov 2007Nice camera shots- the flash should help a lot with macro-photography.
I always find the weather to be slightly aggravating. I didn't get the cooperation I wanted on the weekend- the day I scheduled to go up and take photos at sunrise was too cloudy. But the days I didn't schedule were brilliant blue…. 🙁
Words
18 Nov 2007Not much fox activity the past couple of days. I did catch a glimpse yesterday of the shy fox at the rear of the garden, but that's about it. Playing with the flash unit has encouraged me to dig out the old re-chargeables. These things eat batteries.
SittingFox
18 Nov 2007Lovely shots of the dripping tap! Looking forward to seeing the results on the foxes too. Though this isn't the kind of weather they seem to enjoy 😆
It was snowing here this afternoon; now just exceedingly damp :right: Just one of those days when the camera doesn't get outdoors.
Words
18 Nov 2007I know what that's like. Earlier in the year I would watch blue skies all morning only for them to turn to grey when I had a chance to go out.
Flying Red Fox Blog
19 Nov 2007Nice macro tap shots:D I have been backing up my photos too because i got told that if the computer should suddenly kaput and not work again then all images would be lost so i backed them up onto DVD's too. Used around 30 of the 700mb things:P
chthoniid
19 Nov 2007I've got an external hard-drive as well. It's a bit easier than just backing onto DVDs. But I do both 🙂
Plus, I'm exploring the delights of zenfolio. This is a separate web-hosting service, with unlimited storage. If you want to give it a try, use my referral code WQB-2ZG-X1R. It will save you $US 5.00.
You can preview my site at http://www.chthoniid.zenfolio.com
Words
19 Nov 2007Brendan, I've been thinking about an external hard drive (as well as DVDs). A 500GB drive would last just over a year I reckon, at which point I'd have a storage of hard-drives issue to deal with (aaargh). Slightly cheaper than DVDs though. The zenfolio site you've got is really cool. Nice skin and vey smooth navigation. I tend to upload a fairly wide selection of edited shots to various places: here, Flickr – also unlimited as I pay – and my website which has got about 50% of space left at the moment so should last a good while yet. But uploading RAW files isn't feasible. My connection is slow, slow, slow. 1MB download speed and only 256kb upload. It takes about half a minute in real time to upload 1MB, so a single 9MB RAW file would take over 4 minutes. 100 a day would be 400+ minutes (6-7 hours). It's not going to happen. Even if I could upgrade the connection, that would only halve the time (at best), but the high speed connection (all of 2MB download and 512kb upload) we tried was unbelievably unstable and we reverted to the slower fixed speed.
Words
19 Nov 2007Mark, yes it makes sense to get everything backed-up. I get even more nervous about losing things now I've written about it 😉 I must get some more disks! I'm running low…
SittingFox
19 Nov 2007I've got an external hard drive of 500GB that I used to back up my computer before its grand voyage to BC. I only keep a few photos in their RAW or unedited JPEG state. I'm more concerned about movies in my case, as they do get alarmingly large :eyes:
Flying Red Fox Blog
19 Nov 2007Hey Words in my aviation magazine it says, in a survey of many photographers who keep their photos on their computer, around 60% lose their images due to not backing up! :eyes: :no: So its a great idea to back them up, i tend to get the discs that will last a long time and making sure they dont get damaged by putting them in a disc wallet or album:)
gdare
19 Nov 2007Great shots, I like the second one, as it is made of glass :up:
Words
19 Nov 2007Mark, that doesn't surprise me at all. I back up fairly regularly but should be a bit more consistent. I hope to catch up with myself by the end of the year, but I've got most stuff covered, it's just the last couple of months that I'm behind on. I use those wallet/folders as well. They're fairly tidy and I can tuck them on a book shelf or in cupboard.
Words
19 Nov 2007Adele, video files :faint: I back up a heck of a lot of photos, mainly because I don't really have the time to sort them. I tend to edit a few down as a reference to what I got on any particular day, but only about 10% get edited properly. It's quicker just to back up.