A few images from Saturday’s Early morning trip to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Collection Centre.
I was very tired on Saturday, dosed off round Mom and Dads. Woke up, did my calf in. Think it’s o.k. now.
IE 6 Users……
……apologies but images are really broke for your browser. However I will not fix it as I can’t be bothered fixing something for an obsolete browser.
(only recently noticed it is knackered)
An update: why not?
News (or lack of)
No new cameras for me, Focus was disappointing for me. There was some real bargains, but I didn’t want the new 70-200 f/2.8 IS MkII. Well I do, but it’s not a purchase I was looking for. So in terms of camera no change.
New Exciting Purchase!
The HDD storage issue I’ve had for a while has been resolved. Instead of a new purchase (well it sort of is) I decided to upgrade the drives in both of my Freecom Datatanks. So 4 HDD’s later I now have 3tb storage available. 2 1tb drives have gone into the Raid1 Datatank and the other 2 1tb drives are backup (of Raid) and storage (General download/old files). The Storage volume is spilt in 2 (800/200) with the smaller volume being exclusively used as the Time Machine backup volume
I have acquired a 500gb USB device to backup the storage volume. This frees up one USB port as my old WD My Book can now be retired (probably given away). Other surplus storage is the 1.6tb (4x 400gb) of drives removed from the Datatanks.
New Venture?
During a quick visit to the Created in Birmingham shop I spoke to Pete Ashton about submitting some of my photos to sell instore. Nothing set in stone (they might not be good enough), but i’ve got the mounts and the photos. Just need to put them both together and see how they look (must get some decent conservation tape). Still waiting for the mounts for the 7×5 photos to arrive though.
So if you haven’t committed suicide after reading the second paragraph you may be able to purchase SCPhoto originals from the CIB shop (or not if they aren’t up to the grade). The images are a small selection from my old Bull Ring Collection. Aside from the pictures I may look to produce an old Bull Ring book if the interest is there (only pictures though).
Future Purchase?
Maybe it’s the thought of producing real prints that has go me thinking about this potential purchase. A Calibration device! Not a straight forward, go on spend £70 and you sorted deal. I could spend £70 but it seems the next model is £90 and the the better model is £124 (WarehouseExpress – Spyder 3 Express, Pro and Elite). The £70 express could be fine, and it’s cheap(ish). But will I find it limiting? I’ll investigate.
Old
Nearly 40, not entirely comfortable with this prospect.
To Do
Must get round to reading the 5 sealed copies of Amateur Photographer some time soon.
FIN
3 words……..
Steam, Valve, Apple
🙂
Focus is coming
Let me clarify one thing, I’m not buying a Ford. Focus on Imaging 2010 is coming to an NEC near you soon. Well an NEC near me anyway and as they’ve sent my free ticket it’s worth going.
So as I’m there already you know I’m looking to spend money. Targets for acquisition?
1) Canon Eos 5D MkII
It’s the obvious upgrade for me, I like the full frame format of the existing 5D so a bump in specs is nice.
2) Canon WFT-E4 Wireless Adaptor
I usually go for the battery grip, but I like the functionality of remote trigger and wifi this device offers. O.k. it’s around £600, but the battery grip is £250 so it’s not really over the top.
Costs are a big consideration, as mentioned before selling my old 5D will bring in around £700, the battery grip maybe £100 more. But I’m looking for discounts at Focus. After all the Eos 1D Mk III I bought a few years back was discounted by around £400, so I’m looking for around £250 off the 5D Mk II. Hopefully this should bring the price down to around £1,500. Leaving me around £700 short on the deal.
An incoming dividend (around £1,300) should help balance things up a bit. Though, hopefully the bottom hasn’t fallen out of the used 5D market yet.
Potential Stumbling blocks/issues:
- Batteries for the 5D MkII are around £60 each – no real cheapies (other than none smart ones).
- The WFT-E4 needs the same battery as the camera – Cheapskates at Canon don’t supply one with the device.
- 21mp Raw images means existing 4gb cards are now a lot smaller!, 2gb cards might as well leave at this point.
- HDD space, still an issue at the moment – I really need to resolve this.
- I’ll probably annoy more people with HD Video on YouTube