Latest Camera Stats

 

These are the camera stats thus far for 2022, not too shabby. The little pink slither at the far right of the tree visual is my 77D, just don't get the opportunity to use it much these days and reluctant to lug it about when I go out, now I have my mirrorless M50, which is almost a baby version of the 77D anyway.

I still enjoy using it although the change to mirrorless makes it hard to switch between the two, on the 77D I miss the instant EVF of the M50 and being able to view the playback images through the viewfinder! Also now I have the 77D set to a 16:9 format I have to keep an eye on the black bars to ensure I get what I want in frame whereas the mirrorless just alters the whole display to whatever you select as the aspect ratio, be that widescreen or 1:1 square. Perfect.

I think in many respects the mirrorless with its instant exposure simulation has made me lazy, I'm so used to just seeing what the camera sees before I press the shutter button that I expect the 77D to be the same, forgetting that the two are very different beasts!

Even the new TG-6 gets more of an outing that the 77D ;-)

Still now that things are relatively normal, Covid-19 wise, I'm getting more opportunity to get out with the camera, currently me and Dad are Bluebell hunting 📸 I've managed to get some of the ones in my garden but the pukka woodland variety are so much more delicate and photogenic. 

Disclaimer: Think my average images per month is a tad high as the calculation I've used in the background Excel sheet won't roll over to 4 months until tomorrow! Doh 🤣

Little Princess Trust

So Tuesday afternoon saw my gorgeous girl donating 16 inches off the length of her hair for the Little Princess Trust - a charity that makes real hair wigs for children with cancer.

Spurred on by the lack of access to a hairdresser at the start of Covid-19 she has continued to grow her already long hair and apart from the odd, careful trim to keep the ends in order, has allowed it to flourish unchecked until now.

James and I went along for moral support and he videoed it for a live stream on her Instagram channel whilst I took some phone snaps. All the ladies in the salon were in awe once they knew why we were filming and brandishing a tape measure about!

The main image shows the final length and some quick styling, the inset is the before image - you can see just how long it was.

I'm supremely proud of her for doing this and not only has she donated the physical hair but she has raised enough money on a Just Giving page to cover the cost of having the wig made plus the consultations between the wig makers and the child in question so that there is no cost to the charity at all. No mean feat when the costs up up near the £600 mark!

WELL DONE JULIA !!!!!

So here's the three pieces of hair alongside the tape measure - just need boxing up and sending off with the forms :-)

Bluebells in the Garden

 

So this afternoon, after some pottering around in the garden tidying up, I took the M50 and 18-150mm lens out into the back garden to snap some of my bluebells.

Been editing in Lightroom followed by Photoshop and the Topaz Buzz Simplify filters. This one is some sort of water painting filter within the Topaz Simplify collection.

Quite Impressionistic!

Still it's whiled away an afternoon before setting up the home office again for tomorrow. No peace for the wicked ;-)

Hybrid Working?

 

So the last two weeks have seen me finally return to the office "proper" for a couple of days a week after spending 2 years solidly working from home due to the pandemic.

Now I'm sure some out there who have pretty much worked through, or who returned much earlier are wondering what all the fuss is about, but I have to say that for someone like me who has felt safe here at home and managed to continue to deliver on my job with no issues whatsoever, once they got the IT sorted, it's been a huge challenge.

To say we're being coerced into returning is perhaps a tad overstated but definitely there's an edge of steel in the request. And yeah I get that hybrid working means being on site some of the time, but with little real notice to start lugging my crap back in via my wheelie rucksack, it's been a pain in the rear. I'm beginning to feel like a professional bag lady keep wheeling my life around in my large black bag 🤣 

The only upshot is that I still have a desk to return to, and it has literally just moved bays and so I can now avoid the constant glare on my keyboard from the overhead lighting - hooray! Yes there are perks to being able to socialise, especially with me being such a chatterbox, but I can happily do that over the phone. I get distracted when I'm trying to concentrate by background noise and generally it's all feeling a bit weird at the moment. So much so that now my WFH days seem too overtly quiet - there's just no happy medium.

And with folks catching onto the idea of hybrid working and expecting a flexibility that at the moment seems to be lacking we're already seeing people voting with their feet and leaving for pastures new. It also means that trying to get new people in the door is even less easy with a raft of choice out there they can afford to pick and choose their next employer of choice. I also have concerns that their inane worry over the whole concept of WFH will resurface and we'll suddenly be issued with an "everyone back on site" edict. Something that is likely to go down like the proverbial lead balloon.

I'm sure that with each passing week it will start to feel more normal, if I can remember what normal is, but for now it's still tinged with a degree of worry about catching something I'd rather not have 🤧 I'm armed with a pack of anti-bac wipes and hand sanitiser plus a stack of napkins so I don't end up placing any food items on the desk. Fortunately the volume of people in the office seems relatively low compared to the pre-Covid19 days and I can always hunker down behind my partition but I worry that it is only a matter of time before I catch it - as the Queen pointed out about herself 😱

Let's hope those 3 jabs give me enough of a Ready Brek glow to fend it off ;-)

Bluebells @ Ranscombe

 

So this Off Friday saw me & Dad go back to Ranscombe to try and park in the small car park and head off in search of Bluebells. Despite it being a working day for most people the little car park was still full so this time we used his sat nav to take us to the alternate entrance in Albatross Ave.

A walk through the underpass and over the railway bridge and we were on the nature reserve grounds, but a while away from any decent swathes of bluebells it seems.

We did see a few here and there, hence the image above, but hoping that 3rd time is lucky and we'll perhaps try a Friday morning rather than mid-afternoon. Where we went in before, just over a year ago yielded a good crop of flowers and not far off the pathways, so a crouch down on the path led to the usual "sea" of blue.

I love these delicate blooms which are a far cry from the more traditional Spanish Bluebells we see in our gardens at this time of year. Along with the wild Primroses and Cowslips they are pretty spectacular. I hear there are some within Walderslade Woods which is again pretty much on the doorstep so that might also be a fruitful place to try. At this rate we are going to run out of Fridays before these flowers start to die off!

Oil Paint Filter in Photoshop

So this is a quick edit in Photoshop to apply the Oil Paint filter at its default setting, twice, to get this somewhat painterly effect. I love this filter but don't use it very often, usually it's almost always reserved for these Bluebell images because I never seem to think about using it on anything else ;-)

This was about as close as we came to a "carpet" of flowers and even this was a zoom in from the pathway and not the cleanest of sights through to the Bluebells. Still I quite like the balance of it. One has to take ones opportunities where one can find them. As amateurs we're not paid to keep trying until we "bag the shot" :-)

Leybourne Lakes

 

Sunday saw Dad & I head initially out to Ranscombe Park to look for some bluebells - unfortunately the small car park was full, so much so we had a job to get back out again! So we detoured to Leybourne Lakes instead. A few bluebells here and there in a new area they have planted up but generally more of a walk around the lakes snapping away at anything that took my fancy!

An Abandoned Hat!

This reminded me of a similar view @ Mote Park

Generally a warmer day today although after yesterday I did take the fleece just to be on the safe side! Ended up with it tied around my waist. The lakes are quite a large area to roam around and always something to look at. They are building a new sports centre come café which should be good, due to be open in the summer although it still looks like they have a fair way to go. Whilst waiting for the build to complete the little van café is still there so we stopped for a cup of tea and cake - lush 😋

English Festival

 

Saturday saw me, Dad & Tedster head to the Riverside Country Park for the English Festival. Interesting. Never been before, lots of stalls, old cars including this old fire engine, small steam vehicles, some fairground rides, sheepdog demos and shire horse demos amongst lots of other things.

A bit breezy at times, wish I'd taken my fleece jacket, especially when we thought of ditching the crowds to walk along the river pathway - Brrrr!

A good day out though despite it being fairly busy at time.

Sheepdog Demo

Shire Horse Demo

Watching some of the kids go down some massive inflatable slide was uber funny - their little faces, some in shock at just how tall the slide was ;-) Rather them than me! Mind you at £2.50 a ride most of the fairground attractions must have proved expensive for those with several kids. Maybe if they charged less they would make more money in the long run?

Still it was really good after 2yrs of crappy Easters to have something useful to do this year!

Hoppy Easter!

So today is Good Friday, more of a normal Off Friday for me! Weather is glorious so been gardening. Might even get out the garden decorations 😊 Already popped these bits in the porch, the little tree and bunting from Paperchase. Looks good. 

Shed Empty!

So this Off Friday, Dad came over after lunch and together, well mostly him, we emptied the old shed in readiness for its demolition as part of the garage refurbishment. Dad took all the shelves down too so apart from the four walls and what's left of the bench it is at least now, devoid of contents. Dad's currently sorting out the dross for two planned tip runs, although there's still some bits to go.

A surveyor from the garage firm rocked up early one morning in the week to measure up, so in hopefully 4 weeks time, or thereabouts, they should be contacting me again to arrange a convenient date for installation. He quoted that as being a days work but either way it won't be a massive problem if it runs into a couple of days. Looking forward to seeing it looking like new again, on the outside at least. We'll have some work to do inside, Dad's already removed the old shelving and most of the brackets, there's a few more stubborn ones to remove. Then we're going to paint the back wall with some sealant before I think about storage - for mainly the lawn mower and leaf blower. Exciting!

Tedster @ The Bus Festival

So Saturday saw Dad, me and Tedster head off to the Detling Showground for the South East Bus Festival and Heritage Transport Show. Good sunny weather albeit chilly with it. An excellent collection of vehicles, large and small, these being some uber expensive remote control trucks etc being driven around a specially prepared layout. It was good to be back at the show at its normal time rather than the postponement we had last year to October, better still than 2020 when it was cancelled altogether because of Covid-19. We bumped into a few people we knew from the old Invicta camera club, Neal from the Texas Moon club and Gordon, a new retiree from work. He's doing well and I can't avoid feeling a little bit jealous of having to keep working! Especially with pressure mounting to go into the office from people who wouldn't know if you were subsequently there - or not 😔