Well had a really enjoyable day yesterday, met up with Martin Dyer & Jacqui Sissons, whom Ive been in contact with over the last few years. Had a good chat, laugh and spoke about forums, cameras etc. Right up my street. I think you can communicate over forums but you only ever get snippets and slight insights of feelings, experience etc, so it was really good to meet up with like minded people and talk face to face and learn something new. The 7D sounds like a really bit of kit and seeing as its the Bank Holiday weekend and Im out with the guys on Monday shooting at Oulton Park and will ask Ronnie if I can have a play with the 7D. It must be good if Martin will be ditching his 1D MKIII in favour of this and a full frame.

Seeing as the weather was'nt so good I decided to have a play with my lighting set up and took a few shots of Schumachers Chrome Ferrari helmet that I happen to own. I used a couple of strobes remotely fired with the ST-E2 on the 1D, its really interesting to see how moving the lights slightly make a huge difference. Seeing as Im backing off from posting on forums I popped a few shots on to promote my website which I had some decent feedback via Facebook! Here is one that was deemed to be one of the better ones.

Landscapes

Well managed to get to try my hand at landscapes again, not my usual barrow this one but a genre I like to try from time to time. I would have liked to have spent more time on the site than what I got but thats what happens when you cart non photographers around with you. I managed to shoot the waterfalls at Pistyll Rhaeadr in Wales nr Oswestry, reminded me of the time I spent up in Yorkshire at the start of the year with some of the members off the forum. This time I shot with two bodies the 1D MK III with the 24-105 lens on it and the 40D with the 10-20 lens. Im amazed at just how good the 24-105 is at landscapes, I primarily got this lens as a good 'walkabout' but this really gave me the flexibility on site to play with various set ups. Its quite odd going from the zoom to the super WA on the same shoot and it takes time for the eyes to adjust and especially composition.

Here is a shot taken with the super WA looking back from the waterfalls. I was in two minds whether to take out the bridge in CS5 using the content aware button but as ever I whats in the frame stays within the frame. I really must remember to get better composition using this lens in future but as with most things practice makes perfect.

On a slightly different note my understanding of Lightroom is improving and on my recent trip to Edinburgh with Jamie he has given me some killer tips which I used with this shoot - to that end my time at the computer has literally halved so all in all Im happy boy.

Scottish Premier League

Well I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend a pre season friendly in Edinburgh as a guest photographer at Hearts v Blackburn. What an amazing experience, guested into the ground, given a pro bib and told where Jamie and I could shoot. Got to mingle with the Press photographers, some were from the National Papers, it was really interesting to see how they work. Most shot with 1D and prime lenses and the other half with Nikon D3 again with primes. For the up close action 70-200 f2.8 seemed to be the order of the day. I can quite honestly say the time flew and the work rate is immense, towards the end of the game I managed to get to grips with using two cameras at once, I think a better understanding of the game would be a big help.

My shooting speeds for this were between 1/800th - 1/2000th the way the ball zips around both in the air and player to player is amazing. I now have a real admiration for these guys, some were even sending the images back whilst shooting the match. The way technology works these days still blows me away.

I now have a few more PP skills tucked into my belt thanks to Jamie showing me shortcuts and how to drop in Grad filters, a real boon. Still got lots to learn and I have to pinch myself I never thought I would find myself doing this with my photography work.