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Need to monitor those calories ..?

I needed to died and found this useful little site that helps me monitor my calories juring the week - it made me realise how much trsh I was eating!

Fat Fighter

Westcountry Photo Website Launch

Hi,

This is just to say the new stock image site www.WestcountryPhoto.co.uk will be launching soon. It will contain mainly images of the Westcountry of England (Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Cornwall) UK.

Images will cover:

Sport

NEws

Landscape

The Sea & Coast

Animals

Peolple

The stock images will cost from £1 and will be ideal for webites and printing.

D3

I have not got around to reviewing the D3 but will be shortly. If you want to find out more and can't wait I found this resource with info about the D3

Stock images for websites

I found this site, its good if you want to download cheap images for websites and presentations etc.

Cheap Stock Images

10 Tips for buying a new Digital Camera

Digital Camera Top Tips

Wedding Services

Although I am not an out and out Wedding Photographer many people have asked me and so I feel I can offer good standard wedding phots for £599 + expenses. I can also do short notice if you are desperate. Email: meATSIGNjulianmay.co.uk

Dorset Wedding Directory

Nikon D3

I will be writing some articles over the next few weeks comparing the new Nikon D3 with the D2X series of cameras.

In the mean time there is a site available with stats on the new D3.

Nikon D3

Black and white images

I do experiment with black and white images sometimes. To be honest there have been some images I would have thrown away if i had not tried them as black and white. Using just b&w means the image becomes less distracting. Also the effect b&w has on skin tones is very pleasing.

This next shot I took into the sun. I brought the sturation right down in photoshop so the figures are almost become silhouettes, this gives the image a much more dramatic effect.

Shooting into the Light

I've never been great at doing this and actually try and avoid it like the plague. But sometimes the only way to get the shot you need is to shoot in to the light. To achieve this I tend to fiddle around with the shutter speed and Aperture until I get a decent result. Kit used for these shots was Nikon D2H with Nikon 18/200mm Lens.I guess it depends on what sort of result you are looking for. Settings for this were F20 and a 1250 shutter speed. This shot was taken at West Bay in Dorset. i was lucky becuase I had time to play around and tweek the camera until I had shot I wanted. I was alos lucky that an individual just so happed to be having a thoughtful moment which I thought added to the composition.

This shot was taken at Lyme Regis. The Sun was even more intense than the above shot and I had to have the shtter speed at 2500 ish and F.22. Its a very fine line capturing the intensity of the Sun and not having a 'burnt out' image.

Again I was quite pleased with this shot. The lens flare adds to it. I should note that I spent about 30 mins in photoshop touching out lens artifacts that seemed to show up as dark blotches - a common problem when shooting into direct sunlight (with a dirty lens!)

Seagulls at Lyme Regis

Crap weather. Sun came out for about 30 secs then started raining so did not get chance to take many shots. This was quite interesting as the Gul's were playing suicide with waves.

Some surfers getting suited up - its amazing what people do for love...

Nikon 18 - 200 VR

I purchased this lens in 2006 pretty much as soon as it came out. I paid £549 from the London Camera Exchange. The Nikon 18 - 200vr is a great lens. I would probably say that if I could only have one lens for the rest of my photogrpahy days it would be this baby.

Its small, fast, powerful little lens that does eveything you want.

Beaminster Ladies HC vs White Eagles

Beaminster Won 2-1!

This image was taken on standard CH setting (no high speed crop this time!) Using the fullt12MP makes such a difference because I took this shot at the full 200mm and had to crop 75% out. As you can see a good quality, sharp image is still retained. I'm beginning to the appreciate the advantage of the higher resolution.

Stock Pix

My fist stock picture taken with D2X. Quite pleased with results. Am still wondering if images are as sharp as D2H or if its the extra MP i'm not used to.

This shot was taken with 4MP D2H - as good?

D2X High Speed Crop Calamity!

One of the main reason I choose this camera (D2X) when upgrading from my D2H was the high FPS. Indeed I choose not to save myself the best part of £500 by buying a brand new D200 mainly for the 6MPimages + at 7 FPS.So i've had my D2X for two weeks and only had a chance to use it twice, but maybe thats not an excuse to make the mistake I made th other day when I went to take some sports shots.I switched the D2X to hight speed crop relshing how great my images were going to be only to find that I forgot to take into account the crop factor that result from using the High SPeed Crop Function. Thus all my images were missing heads and feet - not good! TIP: Always read the instruction book!

Nikon D70

The Nikon D70

My first 'proper' DSLR was a Nikon D50. I quickly realised that this camera was limited.

The D50 6MP sensor produced great colour in my shots, but I wanted to do sport and was finding the 2.5 FPS too slow. I decided to trade in my D50 and purchase the older but 'high spec' Nikon D70!? The D70 had 3FPS the same 6MP sensor. Plus it was bigger and I though this would equate to being more professional - very silly.I was dissapointed with my D70 straight away. The images required far more post porcessing to get the same vibrant results the D50 created internally. The higher FPS and a larger buffer made a slight difference for my sport but it was still too slow. This was beginning to get expensive. When panning the autofocus did not seem to be abe to track. All i wanted was a camera that would allow me to take sports shots.

ISO Nightmares..

I actually hate taking photos in bad light. I admire anyone who can seem to get great photos in bad light, its just something I can't seem to get right. If possible I like to use strong natural light on my subjets - It just can't be beaten im my opinion. Obvously there isnt always good light around so you have to make do.

Took this photo in very low light (Dusk) the other night at a local footy match. Whacked the D2X up to 800 iso and was using a Nikon 70-200mm F2.8 lens but could not put the shutter speed beyond 320 which meant things seemed to be coming out soft - Tip if you got a few minutes of light left use it wisely the difference in have some light and pitch black is massive. I am not happy with this image. It seems when banging up the ISO the picture quality goes to pot, yet people bang on all day about how you must put the ISO up all the time when light goes. If this is the result of higher ISO's then i'd rther not bother. The only positive thing I noticed is that having to use a slower shutter speed meant there was a quite a nice feeling of 'movement' to this photo - where his body is in focus and the ball and right knee are slightly blurred - interesting..

Nikon D2X Test Shots

Playing around with my new D2X, tbh I am not that happy at moment as images arn't coming out as I liked or hoped.

I should't be too hasty - trouble is I do expect instant results! Comparing to my old D2H the FPS seems slower, the auto-focus does not track as fast, hmmmm - need to master and spend more time learning camera.Also the images seem to be bit softer, might just be the extra resolution im not used too. I have 'in camera sharpening turned on to +2

Took a few action shots at weekend with 'High Speed Crop' to try out.

(this image has been resized in photoshop)

I normally turn off all in-camera sharpening and do any tweeking in photoshop afterwards, I am now turning in-camera sharpening off to see if that helps.

Nikon 70-300mm G Lens

This is a great lens. You will not get much better value for money than this baby. If you are on a tight budget its an ideal first zoom or backup lens. This lens is great between 180mm and about 230ish. At 300mm its a bit soft but still useable. Looking around the Nikon website I quickly realised that I would be looking at the wrong end of 3/4k+ for a serious proffessional bit of kit. Looking around the best price I could find this 70/300mm was £120 - enter ebay! I got mine for £79 inc p&p. You will get it a lot cheaper. I have taken some good shots with this lens with my first proper DSLR 'Nikon D50.

When I bought this lens I did not even know what the term 'focal length' meant - all I new knew is that I needed a 'zoom' lens on a budget for some sports photography. I specifically wanted to photograph football, field hockey, cricket, rugby etc.

Julian's Digital Camera & Photography Review Blog!

Hi, thanks for stopping by to read my blog.

This blog is intended to offer some unbiased information on digital photography, buying digital cameras and lenses. It is based on my experience only with this items. I have been interested in cameras and aspects of digital photography for years and about three years ago decided to stop messing around and getting frustraded with my 4.1MP FUJI Finepix s3500 and bought my first 'proper' DSLR the now discontinued Nikon D50...

I had some fun with this camera and remember thinking it was physically massive when I first bought it. It cost around £270 from argos which in 2004 was a lot of money for a camera - it still is now.

A bit about me

I would describe myself as a semi-professional photographer. Web design & consultancy is my main thing. I sell images to local and national newspapers, I sell stock photography online each day. I have done contract jobs for mobile phone network o2, and last year had one of my stock photos used on AOL's website (a woman using a mobile phone - not very exciting but it did the job for them) maybe not great claims to fame but it highlights to me that some how I must be doing something right.

That 'something' can always be improved but my main concern when I got into digital photography was to get to a level where people would pay money to use my images (so I could recoupe some of my camera expenses back!) seriously - if you can do that in my book you have probably reached a 'minium level' of technical skill and should be already well on your way to becoming a great photographer!