Turimetta Star Trails

Joby Gorillapod SLR & Yongnuo MC36R Cable Release

Joby Gorillapod SLR & Yongnuo MC36R Cable Release

I love new toys 🙂 Recently for the trip to the snow I quickly aquired a Joby Gorillapod SLR tripod for the trip.. lightweight.. easy to carry and easy to adjust I thought this perfectly fits the bill! After much use, I think I have certainly found a winner… it is a great bit of kit.. moreso for taking shots of small things at close range. This makes a big difference for me as setting up my 190XPROB & 804RC2 combo can be tiresome and toooo much effort for a small shoot.

Ill do a shoot this week for Stormy’s adventure using the new Gorillapod.

Next comes to the new cable shutter release by Yongnuo. This factory is based in China and the ebay store is full of wonderful items at wonderful prices.. but is this a case of you get what you pay for? First impressions are, no.. infact you get a lot more for what you pay! They keep it simple, the KISS rule is great.. especially when it comes to matching the expectations of customers. Photography is no cheap hobby by all means, so any chance I get to save a buck or two (probably to go towards a beer) gets 10 points in my book. I mainly bought this for use to capture star trails but am definitely going to play with a few different styles that can use a tool such as this.

Im thinking ill write a review of both, with example shots as well as positionings and pro’s/con’s.

Anyway just thought I would share a new toy..

Till next time..

The Power of Technology

Polaroid Stormtrooper

It is not often i get to bring to the table new technology. My love of technology unfortunately does not stretch much further than what my wallet holds. Luckily for me, the cheapness of phone plans and available deals at the right time is almost like the moons aligning.

SO i have now aquired a new HTC Desire running Android 2.1…. my first thoughts are WOW. After passing on the iPhone bandwagon for sometime now I decided to take the route that has been less travelled somewhat for the time being.

As someone who is deeply interested into photography, the bane of my existence has been seeing numerous people do iPhone 365 projects… great i think.. as I take a pretty crappy looking photo on my old Nokia E63, I wonder how I can make my own phone into a Photo Project Machine.

So after unboxing the device and getting used to the new fandangled touchscreen and pinch techniques, my first point of call is camera apps. Played with a few before i stumbled on fxCamera, presets for Polaroid, Fisheye, Warholing, Symmetry and just regular shoot and process.

Im astounded and in love at the same time.. i simply just click share.. flickr.. upload.. and its done.. my photo is on my photostream and ready to go.. whats better.. its process and not looking half bad.

What i might do is have a go at writing a few guides to making the most of your cameraphone, i mean why not.. it can only get better from here? I feel like I am one step closer to being Maxwell Smart.. and if I pick up my game.. by the time im ready to take the next leap to the new phone generation.. I might just be James Bond.

Zeb Warholed

Photo backup solutions? Carbonite is one answer

Hard Drive Failure?

In a day and age where people now have terabytes of hard drive space.. how does one manage this massive amount of data?

For the majority of users, data can be easily replaced or backups are not thought of until the fatal clicking of a hard drive is heard.

So at what cost or price point is a backup solution? Well it can go from the few dollars a month, into the thousands of dollars a year. This can be home built raid arrays, NAS (Network Accessible Storage) or managed servers in a data center.

For someone who is an enthusiast photographer like myself, i prefer the former. I have process of backing up my photography drive every time i use it, to an external hard drive.. but what more can I do? and at what price point?

This leads me to Carbonite. I found this originally due to using it in my workplace. We have a network share drive which we automatically back the office local files off too each day, and every night Carbonite loads up and backs up all of our important data off site.

Advantages?
Well you can access your restorations/backups anywhere. You can set a time each day for backups to occur, this can be at night.. while your at work and it will upload your chosen directories with ease. Carbonite also creates backup points in case you introduce something undesired and it gets automatically backed up.

Disadvantages?
As i touched on the automatic backup will backup anything within the desired directory, this includes perhaps anything undesirable that finds it’s way into this directory. I am very strict with my computer usage, however I am also the primary (and pretty much only) user of my PC. This could be difficult in a share house, or with children around. Offsite means you are required to be online, a great solution if you have an easy to access internet connection and especially one with free uploads! This is not a solution for someone with metered uploads, or intermittent internet. This could cause an array of issues including going over download limit, getting charged extra on top of your monthly internet bill or having uploads to Carbonite fail consistently.

Is it for you? Well only you can answer that.. but with the Australian Carbonite offering a free 30 day trial at the moment.. can you really go wrong?

http://www.carbonite.com.au/

For a user who keeps the majority of their file structure on a PC, at a fixed address with unmetered uploads i think you would be hard pressed to argue against the small cost for protecting what you putting many hours of hard work into.

Hope this was helpful.

Till next time…