Welcome one and all – welcome back.  I would describe my postings as ’scant’ in recent months.  Perhaps partially to my lazy, procrastinating nature, perhaps partly due to not having a lens for my D80 (regular viewers will remember the last image of the rest of my life incident) .  I have shot loads on film and all, but just haven’t had the time nor means to scan images and put them up (but I shall!).

So, after an absence for some time – what better way to start a come back post than giving it a riveting title like….

NIKON DX AF-S NIKKOR 18-135MM 1:3.5-5.6G ED

I am sure the photography geeks out there will be moderately interested in such a title, but normal everyday sensible browsers will not.  Its the kind of title that could divide a family.  So, for anyone interested in lenses and all that – here is my lens on the Nikon website with all the facts and figures you could desire.

Modeling shirt on Ebay!!!

THE FIRST TEST DRIVE

You may recall from the summer, I had a masterplan to raise cash for my lens.  However…a small amount of thinking made me determine it would take a long time from hair brained schemes alone, to raise the money I needed.  So, that side project should be reserved for getting money to pay for the rest of the stuff on my wish list!

Instead, I sold some stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Anything I could find in fact provided:

a) I no longer needed. it; or 
b) I hadn’t looked at it/used it in two years or more.

Its a good system and turned up a plethera of clothes, bags, photography stuff etc.  A couple of months later and I had enough cash.

As you can see to my left, I even had to turn my hand to modeling – rather successfully I think you will agree!

So, after a late night bidding war (which I won in fantastic bargain hunter style), my lens arrived last Saturday.

Luckily – that weekend happened to co-incide with a general plan to attend various events around Brighton so I had the perfect chance to test the lens out and see how it felt.

Barulho Prepare To March (2009)

BARULHO & THE PROTEST

My brother plays in a Samba Band based in Brighton called Barulho and they were playing at a protest on Saturday morning.

Can’t remember exactly what the protest was for – how bad is that!  But it was for something rather specific… Equality of rights for LGBT Mental Health patients I believe.  So went down to watch the band and got caught up in the protest while I was at it.

Check out the link to Barulho above, they are in Brighton and beyond a lot and hold open sessions regularly for any budding drummers out there.

Arch & Rust (2009)

CHRIST I MISSED MY CAMERA

So, I never thought I would utter the words – but I missed my Digital SLR.  A lot!

For years I held out from getting one.  For years I battered on about how it was as good as cheating and film (Medium Format specifically) was the best way to take images.  For years I spent thousands of pounds I didn’t have on processing and photographic paper.

Then – after my degree, I caved in.  I could no longer afford to regularly shoot film as the costs practically tripled without my student discount or darkroom access.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love film and for serious project work, would generally opt to use Medium Format.  But, for regular image making and the ability to take a camera everywhere and make images constantly – I love my Nikon.

Interestingly, when I first smashed the lens for it, I didn’t take any photos for about a month – I was too gutted.  Then, gradually, I started taking shots on my old Nikon FM-2 35mm.  Partially out of desperation and partially as it seemed appropriate to go from a fairly modern piece of technology to a fairly old and outdated one.

If anything I would say being forced back to 35mm and the constraints of a basic camera really helped me.  It made me more motivated to take lots of shots, made me think about my images in a different way again and I suppose I kind of fell back in love with taking photos just for the love of it and not always having to have a pre-defined goal to aim for.

Dawali Celebrations - Brighton Old Court House (2009)

DAWALI CELEBRATIONS AT BRIGHTON MUSEUM

Also headed down to Brighton Museum for the Dawali Celebrations.

Living in Brighton, it never fails to shock me what a white middle class kind of city it is.  Compared to towns I have lived in before, the ethnic population is very small.  So it was refreshing to find an event like this that celebrated another culture and one of it’s important days.

Much of it was aimed at kids, but it was an interesting event none the less with some interesting things to see.

I must admit to being very ignorant of the Hindu culture but learnt a bit more about Dawali and what it actually means.

Courthouse Portrait (2009)

MUSIC IN THE OLD COURT HOUSE

The best part of the Dawali celebrations, for me, was the music on the old court house – over the way from Brighton Museum.

My brother (pictured) is a musician and was keen to check out the sounds and record some for use in his own creations as The Reverse Engineer.

Whilst I wont pretend to know anything about the music they were playing or the instruments it was played on…needless to say it was very enjoyable!

Do you know…I have just realised that this post has basically turned into one of those stories you had to write at primary school after the summer holidays…

“This summer I did lots of fun things.  I went to the zoo and saw an elephant which was good because elephants are big.  I also went to the park with my friend and we ran around a lot.  I like the summer because its hot”

Apologies if anyone else picked up on the rather bland formulaic approach I took when writing it, but there you have it – I am out of practice at Blogging!

I guess the point of this post, in summary, would be:

I got a new lens.  I tried my new lens out.  I was pleased with my new lens and pleased to have access to my digital camera again. as it will make keeping the blog up to date much easier. I also got to see a Samba band, a protest and some interesting music at the Dawali celebrations.  All in all, I am happy.

Which is better – the waffling story or the concise summary…you decide!

Digital Pinhole 1 (2009)

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A BROKEN DIGITAL CAMERA?

Just a quick post to update you on the digital camera disaster (see previous post).

So…the lens was ruined, but I had no real way to tell if the camera body was also damaged. I had managed to download the latest images off the camera – which was a good sign. But without a lens, I had no way to check the camera’s functions and sensor had not also taken a battering.

Sitting in my small technician’s room one lunch time – I wondered if you could create a digital pinhole camera. This train of though mostly came about through my frustration at having an expensive camera body but absolutely no way of affording a new lens to make the thing usable in any sense!

That line of thought lead me onto the most basic form of photographic image – the pinhole camera technique.

So, thinking that there was no reason it shouldn’t work, I set about turning the Nikon Digital SLR body into the most expensive and technologically advanced pinhole camera the world has ever seen!

So far – I have only done a basic test to prove the theory correct and the process would work. To do so, I just got a bit of black mounting card, poked a very small hole (a pin hole no less!!!) into the middle of it and cut the card to be slightly bigger than the lens housing on the camera body.

Digital Pinhole 2 (2009)

I then firmly held the card over the camera body where the lens would normally fit, and took a photo as normal (this has to be done in fully manual mode; otherwise the camera goes mental trying to find a lens). I also had to experiment with exposure times for a while to try and get that right.

However – I was quite pleased with the results – three of which are displayed here. I didn’t Photoshop them other than a very small tweak on the levels. So what you see is what I got.

I am quite excited by them truth be told! Think there could be some mileage in this ironic form of digital image making!

So – my next project will be trying to make a slightly more permanent lens attachment so I can use the Nikon as a digital pinhole camera until I get the funds together to buy a real lens!

Or perhaps it will change the way I take photographs for ever?!?!

I will post more results on the blog as I get them.

Digital Pinhole 3 (2009)

In the mean time – try it yourself! It will fill you with a smug satisfaction to use such expensive and advanced equipment for such a basic task!

Just Before the Lens Breaks (2009)

NIKON D80 LENSES ARE NOT SHATTER RESISTANT!

So…how much bad techno-luck can you have in a day?

In my case, quite a bit!  There is good reason for my lack of posts this week (apart from one I had already half finished, so finished up at work).

The tale begins last Friday – it was a glorious day.  The day before Hannah’s birthday.  I had the afternoon off and the sun was blazing.  So, we went to Stamner Park – our mission being three fold;
1) Have fun in the park
2) Go tot he nursery there to buy some plants
3) Have a walk and take in the glory of Spring

All was going well…very well…too well.  Took a few shots in and around the nursery and was thinking of doing a post about it on my return home.  Then went for a cup of tea and cake in the local tea rooms – again, thought I might mention it in the blog.  Post tea, we set off and after what can only be described as a camera bag malfunction, my digital SLR went flying through the air (in slow motion of course) and struck the pavement below.

Nope – it really is broken

If this had been a film, I would have dived to try and catch it (also in slow motion) – but it wasn’t and I didn’t.  I think my exact reaction was to stop still for a second and then pick up the pieces of the lens and put them in the camera bag without looking.  Fuck it, I thought, wait till you get home.

So – I managed to continue the walk in the park, trying my best to keep my mind off the impending doom that would face me when I got home and opened my bag.

Sure enough, on closer inspection…the lens is buggered.  Royally buggered at that…in pieces buggered.  The sort of buggered that gives you a sense of relief at the fact there is no chance of it being repaired – so at least you know where you stand!

So…now I have a £700 piece of kit that is absolutely useless until I find £300 for a new lens.  On my salary – that’s about a year away!!! One useless camera….OR IS IT?  See my next post for perhaps an exciting revelation!

The image attached to this post is the last photo my camera took before doom struck! I was going to bang on about how one of my favourite things about the summer is clear blue skies criss crossed with aeroplane trails and the sound of light aircraft gently humming in the background – but that seems pointless now!

WHEN A MAC WONT START – PANIC

As if ruining my digi was not enough, there was also the matter of my imac.  Now Mr Mac had been doing me proud for the past few years.  It is only about 3 years old and prior to this machine, I had always used PC’s.  The conversion to Apple was a tough road, but I had gotten through it and was enjoying the results.

Friday evening, Mac went super slow…almost to a dead still.  So I did what all good computer owners do – I turned it off and on again.  However, in this case – it didn’t have any of it.  Now Mac decided to freeze on a grey screen during loading and show the spinning wheel of doom.  “Can this get worse” said I “yes” the Techno-Gods replied.

After many attempts at restarting…I knew investigation was needed.  Never having had problems with the Mac before, I was stuck however as don’t know how to get behind the scenes with them.  So after a good hour of searching blogs and forums, I had some things to try and some possible solutions…I sighed a sigh of relief – thinking after the camera incident, I deserved a break!

You know what gets my back up?

I was wrong!  My investigations showed there was a problem with the hard disc, which is stopping the computer booting up…or me accessing ALL my data. I checked when I last did a back up – it was a year ago! Basically leaving me in the position of loosing all my work for over a year, including thousands of digital images – unless I can sort the problem.

At the bottom of this post is a bit of dull technical detail of what happened and how I will attempt to fix the problem – so you may want to skip that bit! I am going to post it in case someone with a similar problem finds this post looking for some help!

So – that explains my lack of blogging and general internet time! I am hurriedly penning this entry at work during my break.

Tomorrow is the big day when my last ditch effort to save my hard drive will commence – I will let you know the outcome!

INVALID NODE STRUCTURE

So – the technical bit about the Mac. The computer in question is a 17” iMac, 2 GHz, 1mb RAM – Intel duo processor. The problem started with the computer starting to run a bit sluggish. Taking a long while to load things and shut down etc. I guess this problem built over the course of a couple of weeks.
The day it went wrong, I went to open a program and it froze – so I did a hard re-boot to try and kick it into life. However, it never re-loaded, just stopped at the grey screen with the apple logo and a spinning wheel.

I did a bit of internet research and did the usual tricks – starting it in safe mode, resetting PRAM, running fsck etc etc. Do a quick google search and you will get many links to many documents about these processes. Nothing worked, so I booted the computer from the OS X instillation disc and then ran Disc Utility on the hard drive.

Disc Utility looks for errors and tries to fix them. In my case, it stated there was an Invalid Node Structure which could not be repaired. After more research, it seems that running Disc Warrior 4.1 on my machine is the best hope. You can buy a version that has a bootable CD, so the computer can be started by booting from the CD (holding C whilst turning the machine on) and then you can run the repair utility. I have ordered a copy of the programme and it should arrive tomorrow, so we will see then if it works or not! Apparently Node Failures are often not the hard disc going wrong in a hardware sense, but just some of the header in the catalog tree for the data has been written to the disc incorrectly. Disc Warrior can often (but not always) fix these issues.

If Disc Warrior does fail – then I guess I am screwed! I will put comments on this post with my progress tomorrow. Until then, fingers crossed!