Not long back from Kasper's walk in Hawthorn Dean, during which I rediscovered the joys of the compact camera. Usually, I'll have my Lowepro AW Rover II (massive photo rucksack) with me, stuffed to the gunwhales with D300, lenses and a massive tripod.
I recently bought Clare (fiancee) a Pentax Optio A30 compact camera. When a friend at work asked me to buy him a camera, I thought the Pentax was still the best beast for the cash - around £100 if you look around. Said friend then found out his wife had bought him a Sony for his birthday, so I'm lumbered with it now.
All being well, you should see a pic of Kasper on the left....
It's a great little camera with 10MP, a huge, clear review screen, burst mode (takes several pics in quick succession), image stabilisation, facial recognition and loads of other clever stuff. You can set it to shutter priority (called TV in the menu) but unfortunately, not apperture priority, so far as I can tell.
There's various other very silly shooting modes, including 'dog' or 'cat' - what a load of humbug - and you can do the usual 'hilarious' frames thing. Its most appealing feature has to be the ability to shoot video clips - youtube here I come!! This has Clare and I falling about in hysterics as we review clips of Kasper doing something side-splittingly funny, like, say, fetching a stick or digging a hole. As a newcomer to the whole moving image thing, I'm still totally enamoured of it - I'm sure it'll wear off in time.
Below, you should see my latest masterpiece, imaginatively titled, "Kasper Comes Back".
I'm rather afraid this new found ability will lead to my publishing numerous, tiresome, didactic 'tutorial videos'. I'm already imagining videos on subjects like processing infra red film, setting up a Nikon D300 for various light conditions and so on and so on..... Apologies in advance! I'll have to get to grips with some editing software first though - for instance I was very keen to add motorbike noises to "Kasper Comes Back", but sadly, lacked the wherewithal to complete my vision.
Other than acquiring yet another b****y camera, things continue apace. The wedding photography continues to come in - finally getting more word of mouth work than any other sort - this is fantastic for many reasons - not least because it means I can think about lessening my scary-big marketing spend! It's also a sign that past clients like what I do. Grand!
For those looking for info on infra red film ( Kodak HIE, Maco, Ilford SFX ) my sincere apologies - you can blame the weather. I haven't shot any of the 'fore-mentioned films in the last few weeks but will get round to it soon.
For those reading in hope that I will divulge some morsels regarding my personal life, Clare and I are still looking forward to getting married in October - I spent an entirely miserable afternoon in Newcastle yesterday, hanging around waiting for Clare to have a wedding make up makeover in John Lewis. Never in my life have I drunk so much Starbucks coffee. Yuck.
Anyhoo, cheers for reading.
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