According to Neilsen ratings, Women spend more time than Men watching television, watching online videos and visiting social networking sites! Neilsen has recently rebranded those previous referred to as “Generation Y” as “Generation C”, with the C standing for “connected”. In the same report it appears Men only outnumber Women in one digital category, the number of people who are tablet owners. On the basis that I am within the ages of 18 and 34, own a tablet and spend little time watching online videos or visiting social networks it would definitely seem that I fit the criteria of Generation C Male!

According to Neilsen ratings, Women spend more time than Men watching television, watching online videos and visiting social networking sites!

Neilsen has recently rebranded those previous referred to as “Generation Y” as “Generation C”, with the C standing for “connected”. In the same report it appears Men only outnumber Women in one digital category, the number of people who are tablet owners.

On the basis that I am within the ages of 18 and 34, own a tablet and spend little time watching online videos or visiting social networks it would definitely seem that I fit the criteria of Generation C Male!

This is Moo, the unloved kitty who found a new home on Flickr.Via Flickr: This is my cat. I’ve deliberately not posted too many photos of her on Flickr, partly because she’s so cute that I fear someone may steal her, but mainly because on the Internet if you continually post pictures of your cat some people may think you are weird. We call her many names but at the moment she is Nana Moo. We rescued Moo from the RSPCA centre local to where we live, her previous owners had recently divorced and neither one wanted to keep her, so she was abandoned. She was 16 months old at the time and had already had a litter of kittens. We were told that she would find it hard to settle in a new home and that we shouldn’t expect too much physical attention as she was not used to human contact. That was 4 years ago last month. Now Moo is the most caring and inquisitive cat you could ask for, in her new home she has everything she could want and more, including her new baby brother, our son Tom.

This is Moo, the unloved kitty who found a new home on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is my cat. I’ve deliberately not posted too many photos of her on Flickr, partly because she’s so cute that I fear someone may steal her, but mainly because on the Internet if you continually post pictures of your cat some people may think you are weird.
We call her many names but at the moment she is Nana Moo. We rescued Moo from the RSPCA centre local to where we live, her previous owners had recently divorced and neither one wanted to keep her, so she was abandoned. She was 16 months old at the time and had already had a litter of kittens. We were told that she would find it hard to settle in a new home and that we shouldn’t expect too much physical attention as she was not used to human contact.
That was 4 years ago last month. Now Moo is the most caring and inquisitive cat you could ask for, in her new home she has everything she could want and more, including her new baby brother, our son Tom.

1 Notes
Sunburst through the trees on Flickr.Out on a walk recently I noticed the sun had dropped well under the tree line. I had read recently that you could acheive a “sunburst” type effect by stopping the aperture right down so I decided to give it a try. The end result was a little diffcult to guage at first, as reviewing the shot on camera it looked very underexposed. When I got back home though I managed to recover some of the detail in iPhoto and the end result seems to work out. Definitely not one of my best, but it’s all a learning curve and trying something new definitely seems to be the way forward.

Sunburst through the trees on Flickr.

Out on a walk recently I noticed the sun had dropped well under the tree line. I had read recently that you could acheive a “sunburst” type effect by stopping the aperture right down so I decided to give it a try.
The end result was a little diffcult to guage at first, as reviewing the shot on camera it looked very underexposed. When I got back home though I managed to recover some of the detail in iPhoto and the end result seems to work out.
Definitely not one of my best, but it’s all a learning curve and trying something new definitely seems to be the way forward.

It’s been a while since I shared one of my photos so today we have one I took recently at the Christening of my first niece. The day was unusually bright for a cold January afternoon and the light felt extremely harsh at the time. The original straight off the camera looked incredibly flat and the quality of the lens (18-55mm IS kit lens) was very apparent with very harsh edges of the building against the sky beyond. Luckily iPhoto stepped in to save the day and I managed to recover a lot more detail than I expected, bringing back some of the shadows and highlighting the detail in the stonework. It’s been a couple months now since I’ve had my SLR and I’m still finding my feet. I’ve yet to work out where my photography niche will be, and so recently I’ve been franticly trying everything I can think of including long exposure, macro, landscapes and portraits. I’ve still got a lot to try and I’m looking forward to trying out high-speed when the weather warms a little and I can get hold of some water bombs! Combe Martin Parish Church on Flickr.

It’s been a while since I shared one of my photos so today we have one I took recently at the Christening of my first niece.

The day was unusually bright for a cold January afternoon and the light felt extremely harsh at the time. The original straight off the camera looked incredibly flat and the quality of the lens (18-55mm IS kit lens) was very apparent with very harsh edges of the building against the sky beyond.

Luckily iPhoto stepped in to save the day and I managed to recover a lot more detail than I expected, bringing back some of the shadows and highlighting the detail in the stonework.

It’s been a couple months now since I’ve had my SLR and I’m still finding my feet. I’ve yet to work out where my photography niche will be, and so recently I’ve been franticly trying everything I can think of including long exposure, macro, landscapes and portraits. I’ve still got a lot to try and I’m looking forward to trying out high-speed when the weather warms a little and I can get hold of some water bombs!

Combe Martin Parish Church on Flickr.

Wonderful capture of some kind of dog howling at a street lamp in the snow. Found via StumbleUpon

Wonderful capture of some kind of dog howling at a street lamp in the snow. Found via StumbleUpon

Cherry Tree Bud on Flickr.Another of my recent photos today, this is the frozen bud of a cherry blossom tree in my front garden. It was taken two weeks ago after a particularly cold night, so cold that the spiders web attached to the tree had frozen over with ice crystals. This is the first time I’d been out in the garden with a macro lens, this particular shot was taken with my Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens with a +10 close up filter screwed on the front. Focussing was particularly difficult so I ended up setting the lens to manual then adjusted to the distance from the camera to the bud to get it nice and sharp. Since I took this shot I’ve now acquired some macro tubes for my m42 lenses so next time I’ll be trying these shots with one of my Helios lenses.

Cherry Tree Bud on Flickr.

Another of my recent photos today, this is the frozen bud of a cherry blossom tree in my front garden.

It was taken two weeks ago after a particularly cold night, so cold that the spiders web attached to the tree had frozen over with ice crystals.

This is the first time I’d been out in the garden with a macro lens, this particular shot was taken with my Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens with a +10 close up filter screwed on the front.

Focussing was particularly difficult so I ended up setting the lens to manual then adjusted to the distance from the camera to the bud to get it nice and sharp.

Since I took this shot I’ve now acquired some macro tubes for my m42 lenses so next time I’ll be trying these shots with one of my Helios lenses.

3 Notes
M5 J25 (Taunton) Northbound on Flickr. Today I’m sharing a much more recent photo, which at the time I wasn’t that fussed about but looking back I think it’s actually not bad. This is the first time I was out with a “proper” camera, my Canon 450D that I recently purchased. Taken from a small bridge over the South-bound carriageway I was here for about 20 minutes snapping on the way home from work. A good combination of low ISO and long shutter speed has left me with the motorway just lit enough to see the road markings and barriers, with a nice set of light trails over the top.

M5 J25 (Taunton) Northbound on Flickr.

Today I’m sharing a much more recent photo, which at the time I wasn’t that fussed about but looking back I think it’s actually not bad.

This is the first time I was out with a “proper” camera, my Canon 450D that I recently purchased. Taken from a small bridge over the South-bound carriageway I was here for about 20 minutes snapping on the way home from work.

A good combination of low ISO and long shutter speed has left me with the motorway just lit enough to see the road markings and barriers, with a nice set of light trails over the top.

9 Notes
Frozen Spider’s Web on Flickr. This weekend we had our first hard frost of the year, which made a perfect reason for me to get outside and test out some of the news lenses I’ve acquired over the last week. This photo was taken with a Jupiter-37A which is a 135mm f3.5 on an M42 screw mount. This particular lens dates from around 1991 so it’s over 20 years old and yet to look at you could mistake it for brand new. I’m having great fun with my collection of vintage lenses and the Jupiter-37A is quickly becoming one of my favourite, with a beautifully engineered 12 blade aperture that closes down in a near perfect circle. Using these old lens with their manual focus and apertures has taught me much more in a few weeks about taking photos than years of digital AF point and shoot. I’m planning to share some of what I’ve learned later this week when I finish writing up my beginners guide to shooting with vintage lenses.

Frozen Spider’s Web on Flickr.

This weekend we had our first hard frost of the year, which made a perfect reason for me to get outside and test out some of the news lenses I’ve acquired over the last week.

This photo was taken with a Jupiter-37A which is a 135mm f3.5 on an M42 screw mount. This particular lens dates from around 1991 so it’s over 20 years old and yet to look at you could mistake it for brand new.

I’m having great fun with my collection of vintage lenses and the Jupiter-37A is quickly becoming one of my favourite, with a beautifully engineered 12 blade aperture that closes down in a near perfect circle.

Using these old lens with their manual focus and apertures has taught me much more in a few weeks about taking photos than years of digital AF point and shoot. I’m planning to share some of what I’ve learned later this week when I finish writing up my beginners guide to shooting with vintage lenses.

1 Notes
Windmill, Gran Canaria on Flickr. Today I bring you a photo from my 2006 holiday to Gran Canaria. This shot of a traditional windmill was taken up in the hills away from the usual tourist spots and commercial delights of the coast. We were lucky/clever enough to book a car while we were over there and took the opportunity to tour the island on our own terms, rather than being at the mercy of our tour operator or even worse being victim of the sporadic public transport network. Our holiday was probably the worst we’ve been on, but only due to bad luck and not due to the holiday itself. While we were there for two weeks we only had a few days of sunshine, although we were grateful for that as the heat in the sunshine was unbearable at times. My partner (now wife) got ill a few days into our trip and spent over a week stuck in the villa, limiting our enjoyment somewhat. When she did finally get better it then rained for two days! Perhaps the Canaries were trying to tell us something. Our previous trip to Fuerteventura had been perfect, so maybe next time we will try that again or maybe even Tenerife?

Windmill, Gran Canaria on Flickr.

Today I bring you a photo from my 2006 holiday to Gran Canaria. This shot of a traditional windmill was taken up in the hills away from the usual tourist spots and commercial delights of the coast.

We were lucky/clever enough to book a car while we were over there and took the opportunity to tour the island on our own terms, rather than being at the mercy of our tour operator or even worse being victim of the sporadic public transport network.

Our holiday was probably the worst we’ve been on, but only due to bad luck and not due to the holiday itself. While we were there for two weeks we only had a few days of sunshine, although we were grateful for that as the heat in the sunshine was unbearable at times. My partner (now wife) got ill a few days into our trip and spent over a week stuck in the villa, limiting our enjoyment somewhat. When she did finally get better it then rained for two days!

Perhaps the Canaries were trying to tell us something. Our previous trip to Fuerteventura had been perfect, so maybe next time we will try that again or maybe even Tenerife?

10 Notes
Another find from StumbleUpon

Another find from StumbleUpon

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