Be Excellent To Each Other

Amazing mushroom pics there Mimi.

I'm no expert, but there's certainly no mistaking those glorious crimson and speckled white caps: Fly Agaric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria

Apparently these archetypal 'toadstools' are quite common, but I've yet to see one - awesome. They're pretty poisonous, even deadly apparently, but with halucinogenic propertlies also, if you really know what you're doing that is. Not that I'd recommend trying this!

Apparently they way oldy-timey pagans used to get freaking high off them was to have someone else ingest them and then drink their urine. I'm not sure I'd recommend that approach either.

Meh, interesting... now that'd be what I'd call 'getting pissed'.

That's where the term originally came from don't you know?

Malc

Have you just made that up?

From what I heard they either drank deer pish, which contained all the good shit. Or they cooked them for an hour or so to alter their chemistry & get rid of the poisonous stuff then the heidy fella ate them & everyone else drank his pish as it still contained all they good shit. Then they raped villages & pillaged wimmen

Yes, very much so.

Malc

How do you get hold of deer wee to drink? Do you follow them around with a bucket or something?

Catheter? Presumably they herd the fuckers as cattle (is that the right term?) & then it's easier to chase them around with a bucket, rather than chasing wild deers

Some Eskimi groups still do this. Reindeer have a natural tolerance to Fly Agaric and in fact find them delicious. If you collect and drink the reindeer urine you can experience the hallucinogenic effects of the toadstool, but the reindeer digestion will have rid it of the toxins that human bodies find poisonous.

I love the way they look, as Cavey says they are so reminiscent of Northern European fairytale and myth. I must have seen about 300 of them the day I took those pictures.

In actual fact there were only two, but then you ate one of them

When I say I'm 'getting fucked tonight' its in reference to being sodomised by a deer and absorbing his psychedelic spunk through my arse membrane.

Uggh, cheers Zardoz.

Back to photos!

Woke up at 5:15 this morning intending to photograph sunrise over Cardiff Bay. Caught the 5:50 train to Cogan Station, got off there at 6:00 and walked down to Penarth Marina for the best vantage point, aiming on silhouetting the bay barrage and locks and bascules against a vivid sunrise.

There was no sunrise. Just blanket cloud. The joke was on me. So I decided to make lemonade by shooting stuff in black and white against the grey cloud - mainly heavy industrial architecture of the bay barrage gate apparatus and such. Anyway, shot in colour for this one and thanks to some cunning spot metering and stuff got this weird result where the background sculpture is colourless but the foreground light loses none of its vibrancy. I'm quite chuffed with it. Here:



(Full thing here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/99176172@N00/4057144506/)

I got about five more distinct subjects over the hour and a half I worked before headed back up to work along the barrage and through the city, with lots and lots of angles. More to come once I work out how to properly use Photoshop Elements...

Ooh. Very nice!

That's excellent Pete. Really like the composition on that aswell as the colour.

Ta for the comments guys, I was a bit worried that I should have flipped it so it read left to right, but I felt it should go as shot.

Just got my 40 free Boots photos in, and they look a treat! I'm reet happy with the look of them. Great vivid colour and tone range, but still looking natural. Bravo, Boots.

I award their Photo Department this:



Now lower the prices on frames, you bastards.

Good pic. Autechre should have it as an album cover.

Some amusing graffiti one of the computer labs.

Monday: Sunrise over the Royal

I love this time of year.

Mmm. Quality of light.

Here's another two from me:



Taken down the lane on the way back from Shot in the Dark. Creepy. Look close.



Cardiff Bay barrage machinery, early morning. These pumps are located above 5 sluices that control the water level of the bay, Over a quarter of a million litres of water per second can flow through each sluice gate. Crumbs, eh?

Attention! YET MORE PHOTOS.



'Starmen'

Cardiff City Centre, decorations going up in November. Boo-urns!



John Lewis Centre, next to where I work, out of shot. Good luck filling your shiny new department store with shoppers and shops this recession, boys and girls!

Very nice Pete. Especially 'Starmen'.

Please continue.

I really should get around to posting some pictures from my holiday.

Anything but the mankini.

Mankini? *Shudder*

I'm going to buy a tripod after work today. (Cue Casualty-esque theme tune sparked in Chinny's mind) I'm currently torn between:

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/cat ... /Show.html

Or -

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/cat ... /Show.html

The only difference really is that the second one is £20 more, a bit heavier but - BUT! - the central column can be swung 180 degrees or something to really low angle shots and macro stuff. Which seems very neat. But is it £20 neat? Hnnngh. Tough call.

My Manfrotto 055XPROB does that, and it's a brilliant feature. I don't know if it'd be worth £20 to you, but I've used it countless times.

Gosh, I'm tired, the skin of my head is stretched taut with sleep deprivation and my mind wander so much that merely spelling this completely pretentious missive is a painstaking labour of squint and tapping.

But all in a great cause! Early this morning I arose at 6:00 and proceeded to get my new tripod, filters and camera together. It was time for yet another trip to Cardiff Bay. Catching the train at 6:25 from Queen St Station and getting off at Cogan I walked along the lane to the marina and wharf. Would that I had followed the road, like a sensible fellow! Instead I chose to take a shortcut and follow the path through a little park common. The path settled into deep puddles half way along, forcing me to carefully skirt one particular patch of deep water. Yet not careful enough, for my feet flew out in front of me and I fell onto my back in the mud. Fuckle-sticks! At least my tripod bag took most of the mire, and I managed to whip my hands out to keep most of me above the goo. Still, unpromising start, and worse still, when I got to the marina ten minutes later I found that I had left my red scarf back at the puddle. I pondered returning for it, but the light demanded action and besides, in the fierce winds it had probably whipped away. I had three other scarves at home besides.

So I took photographs out into the bay and across the sea, of a dredger and the pink lifeguard station. I'm immensely pleased with my new Giottos 7251 tripod, easy to set up and contract in a jiff. I also tested the graduated filter that darkens skies. Unfortunately, there was no red to the dawn, but with the filter I got some wonderfully oppressive skies. The wind was meddlesome however, and I was nearly blown over at points. It was doubly difficult keeping the lens free of droplets, and I had to retreat into a shelter at one point as a squall blew in and the heavens opened with fierce downpour. Sheltering from the rain I struck up a conversation with a good old Norwegian cove who'd settled in Cardiff after many years sailing the Atlantic and the Newfoundland Coast. We discussed Deadliest Catch, the Norwegian chapel, the history of Cardiff as a port, his days at sea and sunrises. He lit the most beautiful pewter and oak pipe and tamped it, offering great wisdom and banter. After a good twenty minutes of memorable conversation, he deigned to allow me to take a photo of him, and then cheerfully cycled off.

Back to the photography, and I got a few more great pics in and then walked back into town, feeling a bit cold and blown about. An hour and a bit was enjoyably passed with two black coffees with some Patrick O'Brien in Coffee #1 near the station. Now I've bought a ticket for a tenner for a Dvorak, Berg and Tchaikovsky concert at St David's tonight, and now hope to get a couple of hours sleep to punctuate this day of culture and refuel me for the night ahead. Yes, me am cultured! Applaud me!



Life Guard Station



Oppressive Cardiff Bay



Cardiff Tugboat



By Dawn's Early Light

Here's the Flickr Photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99176172@N00/

Great pics Pete

Pete, you have quite an eye for a shot. I do enjoy looking at pictures you have taken.

Yes, nice stuff pete. Though it bugs me somewhat that that lifeguard station is toppling into the sea.
Also, with regard to tripods, sometimes it being a bit heavier can be of benefit for stability purposes. I have cheap tripod I bought from Calumet and it can barely cope with my D2X

ta-da

Ooh, ta. I haven't tried the correction tool yet, and I forgot to. I'll get that seen to now.


(Fiddles about a bit in Photoshop Elements 8... fails)

Um, how did you do it?

I did that in PS10 but I suspect the same tools are available in elements. It's filters/distort/lens correction. Took about ten seconds - essential tool if you're shooting anything on a wideangle lens especially if it's not an eye wateringly expensive one.

edit: it's vertical distortion you need to play with on a shot like that.

FTFY.

Hmm, I'm having trouble.

I go - Filter - Camera Distortion

And then I drag the slider towards the expanding pincushion, but although I can straighten somewhat the station, the rest of the picture distorts around it making it look like the fence is curving around and up. Did you adjust extra sliders?

Do you have perspective sliders or just camera distortion? It's the vertical perspective that needs adjusting, not the image distortion one.

edit: there's always the possibility elements doesn't have the feature set, which would be a shame. I'd recommend visiting Mr B Torrent and acquiring a copy as PS is a complete and utter rip off in this country unless you can get access to a heavily discounted version or you use it to earn your living.

Ahh, fixed it. Ta again. Went to Transform - Perspective and dragged around at the corners until it was right. Uploading revised effort now...

Happily my tripod is a little heavier, it's 2.1kg and is pretty stable. It's a Giottos 7251, a marked improvement on the old hellish device I used to use.

Feexed! (I think, is that right?)



Now for a nap.

The rails to the left are still slightly off, but it's by the edge of the frame so it's very obvious.

Cracking photos, Pete.

Ta mate. Thanks for kind comments and advice, y'all. Reckon I've tapped out Cardiff Bay for now, next projects will be the refinery at Cadoxton on the Barry line (like a mini Blade-Runner!) and Castle Coch in the early morning.

I'm also intrigued by macro photography after looking at Meem's mushrooms and other nice macro jobs. Anyone recommend a good lens for a Nikon D40x, preferably AFS?

Also, DBSnappa (and others), I keep hearing I should try out a 50mm lens, but no one ever says why. What advantages would it have over my 18-55mm kit lens? I hear they're good for portraits and for blurred backgrounds. Any good for macro too?

Thinking of joining a camera club in Cardiff anyway, and seeing what's what. Anyone else shot anything nifty recently?

They're incredibly cheap lenses by their own standard, but you get to have a fairly large maximum aperture for low-light and great depth of field at barely any cost. As a brilliant bonus: because it's a prime lens, it forces you to learn to move with your feet to nail your composition instead of relying on the lens's zoom. Also, also: they're small and compact, so easy to take around with you.

How dare you!

That's one of the things I like about my camera, the lack of zoom means I'm getting closer to people to take their picture & it requires a bit of lateral thinking to photograph far away stuff

Not to mention that the Nikon 50mm primes offer some of the finest picture quality available in lenses at that price point and for quite a bit higher, from what I've read.

My 50mm f/1.8 prime is certainly noticeably better quality than my other lenses.

Although of course with most Nikon dSLRs having the 1.5x crop factor it's a 75mm lens. I'm toying with the idea of a 35mm prime.

They're simpler constructions, so I imagine it's easier for them to maintain quality without the moving pieces of glass and optical wizardry associated.

Neat. Very tempting then, though my option is limited to one lens with AF-S internal motor. The 35mm looks pretty tempting too. I'm not sure what the difference between them would be though, anyone?

I've just ordered a Canon SX20. Wanted something for work purposes (publicity photos etc) so was hard to justify a DSLR but it sits somewhere between the DSLR and the compact cameras. Also has 720p video which will look crap compared to my video cameras, might serve well as a "crashcam".

Bit more than I wanted to spend but Canon are giving £50 cash back which equals it all out:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172815

Of course, what'll happen is that I'll still end up wanting a DSLR because I'm so used to big lenses and manual focusing on my video cameras. But I have to be sensible.

I take more and more photos now Baba Z is here, and I keep thinking about getting a DSLR. I still absolutely love my Fuji F30.

I did see an Olympus in Argos for £299 that I thought was a good price but I really don't know if my money would be better going towards something else. Any good models to keep my eyes on around the January sales?