sticky back plastic

Dead giveaway every time..

Hi Don,

I don't think you'll get it to work even with d cells. The problem is, and it only occured to me a few minutes ago, is that you're using a flourescent lamp. Although it will run at low power, it needs a bigger start up voltage initially, to get it going. This is almost certainly why the AA cells made it flicker. There just wasn't enough oomph in them to start the lamp up, it just kept trying to start, without actually succeeding.

If you have one, just put an ordinary household bulb in the lamp. Time how long you get with the AA batteries, and double it. This is very rough, but D cells should be about twice the power re: aH. It all depends on the ratings of all the various lamps, batteries etc. though.

With the LEDs, you can pick them up for a few pence (cents) each, packed loose. A soldering iron, and some wood, metal, sticky back plastic, and a battery holder, and you'll be done in an evening, with your own custom lighting setup.

Cheers

Liam

Nice shot Don,

as far as the maths goes, I'll attempt to work it out after a couple of cuppas.

Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

to follow on from George and Don, this thread proves one thing to me.. that I'd happily spend an hour or three propping up a bar with any of you.

To have such a diverse range of views aired on such a controversial subject, and to discuss them so politely and eloquentley, is indeed the mark of a gentleman.

I salute you.. and yes, in the absence of any of you, I took it upon myself to try out the bar, as mentioned above. If at any future point in time, you'd like to join me in such pleasures, you know where I am..

Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

As a confirmed (and proven with my pictures here ) amateur with no formal teaching, I thought I'd add my tuppenny worth.

I can see where the artistic influences can be seen in the images, although I too find bullfighting abhorent. They are a colourful, and thoughtfully composed series.. although to be honest I wouldn't have any of them framed and hung on my walls.

You can see from his other galleries that he obviously knows (in my opinion, anyway) how to use a camera with good results, which makes the claims that he deliberatley shot these for the exact effect he wanted to portray entirely beleivable.

I think that to be able to consistently get the images that you want, regardless of other's interpretation or admiration (or otherwise) of them is the photographer's art. To do this, you need to be sufficiently technically experienced, and that's what sets apart the good from the great.. although, the bullfighting images would definitely only be in the good category, IMHO.

To use as an example, does anyone remember Les Dawson's piano playing.. or the circus clown on the tightrope. To be able to do either convincingly badly, but still be able to entertain with it, you have to first know how to do it well.

I personally prefer a central focus of attention, rather than an overall collage of shape and colour, but that is my own preference. He could have maybe dropped out the colour on all but the bright pink of the cape, thereby removing the focus from the bullfight itself. If the idea was to highlight the cruelty, or even the magnificence; depending on Buhler's own feelings on the theme, then I think that the series doesn't work.

And now to the contradiction.. I've been flicking back and forth between this reply and the gallery, and you know what, I'm starting to form the same conclusion as Niblue.. not as definite yet, but getting there slowly.

Normally if you keep looking at a picture, or pictures, you'll see something else to add to your appreciation of them.. and these aren't doing that for me. They just give more and more, the appearance of a badly shot set of out of focus pictures. The cropping doesn't help either.

Sorry, I tried to be nice about them, but the more I look at them the less they do for me, either technically or artistically. Again, it's because a good image should grow on you, and these don't personally.

I'll stop there I think, and wonder if this was even worth writing.. I'm posting it anyway, so you'll still have to put up with reading at least some of it.

Just shows how subjective "art" is really.

Cheers

Liam

I second that with IrfanView.

As you may have read, I had trouble calibrating my monitor. When I finally got it right, I had hundreds of images that needed reprocessing. I took one (from a folder of the originals) and got that corrected, and then put the same settings into the batch converter, pointed it at a folder (in one case 360 odd images of Bruges), clicked go, and 10 minutes later, came back to a brand new folder full of corrected images. Repeat as necessary.

Obviously if you were to publish these then a little more care would be used to process them, but as passable snaps, they were just fine.. in 10 minutes.

I'm going to check out the web wizard though, George. I have a gallery maker that does that anyway, but if I want to use the images minus the formatting, I have to muck about.. this looks easier.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

are you viewing them direct from the card or after loaded to your hard drive?

Also, try using Irfan View, as opposed to window's own viewer. You can also select and rotate loads of images in one go, using the batch conversion tool. If that still doesn't work, although I see no reason why, open in Photoshop and rotate manually.

I use ULead to open from the card and to save to the hard drive, and although it can be a bit slow with lots of portrait shots to rotate, I've never had one that wouldn't?????

The only other thing I can think of, is that the cards both have a quarter of their memory corrupted.. which would be very strange indeed. When was the last time you formatted them (in camera). This is just phishing now..

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

I thought I'd start a thread, as a sort of index on who you can recommend as a fair supplier of photographic equipment, sales, service etc.

I'll sticky it, but obviously if John or Matt, don't want to leave it as such, feel free to take it down.

If you use, or have used in the past, a supplier that has been excellent (nothing else will do), then give them a plug, so that we know where to go. This can be online retailers, your local shop, mail order; or even someone you know that fixes cameras for a hobby!

I'll start off with uksoftwaretech from ebay. I buy my SD memory cards from them (1gb for £23.99 inc. P&P), and they have been faultless in every way, for three purchases, which is pretty darned good by ebay standards.

I know that there's a guy called Robin that is recommended here, for servicing, so post a link if you have it.

Next..

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

http://www.mobw.net/

a free bit of kit.. design, your buttons, stick the images in and hey presto. It generates the code for you to put up on the site.

I've used it, and it's pretty intuitive, after a little while.

Off topic, I know.. sorry.

Cheers

Liam

I like Irfan View for batches..

I've just corrected 90 odd images in around a minute. (We can forget the hour of learning I did before that, along with the occasional screw up.. restoring all the images from the Recycle Bin for instance. )

I found this while looking for an Irfan View FAQ. It's all the help file, laid out in alphabetical order.

http://www.gg.caltech.edu/~avalos/stuff/download/irfanview/alphidx1.html
For batch conversions go to err.. yeah, well, I'm sure you'll find it.

As my conversions were basically to reset entire folders processed on a badly calibrated monitor, and so should all need the same changes throughout, I took an image, corrected it, remembered the settings, and then just put the same settings into the batch conversion window, et voilà job done.

I'll be doing this on lots of folders now. Handy hint, create a new folder to export the converted images to, so you don't lose the originals.

Cheers

Liam