Category: Uncategorized

Still searching for that good light. I liked the transparency here, but I’m not to impressed with the sharpness from the new Panasonic 45-200mm lens. Will hopefully get a chance to test it more fully over the weekend.

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I just missed the good light. That’s what you get for doing the dishes at the kitchen window. You see a lovely lighting effect, but by the time you grab your camera, change the lens and get outside, the really good stuff is gone. Not to be outdone, I started messing around with Photoshop and Lightroom to see if I could get an impression of what I saw. I think I’ll keep my camera handy tomorrow night just in case the good, golden light returns, because I couldn’t find it in PS or LR.

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We went to Embra today to witness the madness of the Embra Festival.  One of the great things about being retired is the ability to travel on the less-busy weekdays rather than the mental weekends.  However you have to remember that Scot Rail will try to screw you up at every opportunity.  So, today, mid August, festival in full swing, do Scot Rail put on longer trains to Embra?  ‘Course they don’t, they put on the standard 3 unit train, which means there were folk standing everywhere.  What did we do?  We just sat in First Class and pretended we had FC tickets, knowing there was little chance of the conductor making it through the crowds to chuck us out.  Result!

Had lunch in Valvona Crolla in Embra and had the worst (and most expensive) lunch we’ve had in a long time – we won’t be back.  Only pizza napolitana I’ve ever had without anchovies.  “Oh we’ve got an apprentice pizza chef on today.  Sorry.”  Not the best way to encourage return custom.

Photo of the day was a juggler whose patter was even better than his juggling.  Just one of the maddies we saw today.

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It is one of my favourite subjects, the centre of the rose without its petals. Sometimes the centre is more colourful than the full rose and often it is more detailed. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the basic shot, so I decided to do some ‘shopping.  I started out in Lightroom 5 more of which later.  I exported it to Photoshop and made a copy of the layer in Photoshop and blurred the lower layer.  I then changed the layer type of the top layer to Overlay and then returned the image to Lightroom.  There I trimmed it and lightened the shadows and then removed some of the noise.

To install Lightroom 5 I had to upgrade my mac to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard.  I object to this as it would appear that on a PC, LR5 will work quite happily on the aged XP.  Is this another case of designed obsolescence on Apple’s platforms?  Having said that, the upgrade went very smoothly and LR5 seems to run very well.  Shame Adobe make it so difficult to find a stand-alone version of this great program.  Why are they so determined to sell us the ‘cloud’ approach?  I suppose the short answer is money.  I hope LR6 when it appears will still be available as a stand-alone, but I doubt it.

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nearly trod on this wee ladybird and it was only when I was processing the pic that I noticed it was ladybird lunchtime.

10mm extension tube on a 20mm lens.

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It was one of those “will I, won’t I” sort of days. Weather was threatening, but not actually doing anything about it. Eventually decided that a walk would be safer than a cycle run because the stiff westerly was going to be a headwind going out. As it happened, it didn’t rain, but the westerly continued to be problematic even when walking into it, so probably the best decision in the end. The wind did give a bit of texture to the sky but I just couldn’t catch the fleeting sun on the hills.

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It was one of those days when we couldn’t decide what to do with the day.  Our visitors left in the late morning.  So what should we do?  Stay in? Go out?
Go out we decided.
Where to go?  Stirling or Glasgow?
You know the script.  Went to Glasgow, decided we’d rather have gone to Stirling … or somewhere else.

Couldn’t find anything I wanted to photograph either, so when I saw this cold looking crow against a heavy looking sky this evening I had my photo of the day.  Tomorrow can only be better.

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We went out with all the visitors to Inchcolm Island in the Forth Estuary. Unlike last time, the weather was kind to us with very little wind and no rain. Spent the afternoon walking round the east of the island after we had investigated the priory. It’s so much nicer to be on Historic Scotland sites where you are encouraged to look, touch and photograph to your heart’s content. Things are so different in National (dis)Trust, with it’s matronly don’t touch, can’t go there, cordoned off ‘treasures’. We were even told in Culross that we couldn’t photograph inside one of the buildings because photographs damaged the fabric of the rooms! What? Did the photograph steal its soul? Anyway, I digress as usual. The only problem with the trip was that, as usual, the boat was late coming to take us off the island. Half an hour late. We were a bit concerned that the car park at North Queensferry would be closed by the time we disembarked. Not to worry, it was still open.

I saw this opportunity when we sailed under the Forth Road Bridge. You don’t appreciate the scale of these constructions until you see a person, or in this case a cyclist on the top.

All in all a great day. Not so for one unfortunate person who parked their car on the slipway and found it half submerged when they got back.

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Lazy day, beginning with a long lie in, then a visit to some old friends for a coffee and a catch-up.  Then the dreaded visit to Ikea.  Now, there’s only one thing that gets me going to Ikea and that’s the Swedish meatballs.  I usually manage to buy a box or two of the frozen meatballs to take home.  For some reason, there were none to be had at Braehead.  What is the world coming to – no Swedish meatballs at Ikea.

The rowan berries are beginning to turn bright red on our tree and lit up beautifully in the early evening light.

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