Peters Blog

Teds Update – 24 July 2011

Posted by Peter Killey on July 24, 2011
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We have had Ted now for just over a week and what a week it’s been with him, Ted’s first few nights were spent howling through the night as he was missing his mummy 🙁 however Nicky bought him a hot water bottle and a igloo bed which helped him feel secure and safe and stopped Ted howling 🙂

Ted has learnt so much this week, especially how to climb the stairs, knowing full well that someone will have to go up and get him and he has taken to barking as well! Especially when Nick goes to feed him.

He is such a charachter and we cannot wait to get out with him when he has had his final injections 🙂 – (click any of the images for a bigger piccie).

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A Busy Week….

Posted by Peter Killey on July 23, 2011
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Well what a week at work, I have been so busy that I have not had chance to get out in the evening for a walk and of course to take some images for the website 🙁

Hopefully now the weekend is here and as I am typing this, the sun is shining so were hoping to get to Yn Cruniaght this afternoon 🙂

Peter

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Ted on the 16 July 2011

Posted by Peter Killey on July 16, 2011
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Ted has been absolutely fantastic yesterday and today, apart from howling though the early hous of this morning (Sat 16 July 2011).

He has been so funny today, we think that he thinks he is a little spring lamb because he runs and jumps quite regularly like a new spring lamb.

Up to now he is fantastic and loves to play and is so affectionate as well, he has spent quite a bit of his day sleeping as well, it’s obviously been all too much for him 🙂

Here are a few piccies taken today of him 🙂

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Ted the Border Terrier – DOB 19 May 2011

Posted by Peter Killey on July 15, 2011
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On Thursday 14th July Nicky and I  popped over to Blackpool to pick up this little fella 🙂 His name is Ted and he is an eight week old Border Terrier Pup.

The reason we named him Ted is because we recently met a gentleman out walking his Border Terrier which was called Ted, he was gorgeous and really prompted us to get this little fella, ironically when we eventually found our new puppy his Dad was also called Ted, so we thought it was just right to call our new puppy Ted. (Hope that makes sense)!

Here are a few pictures of him, and I will add some more as time goes by 🙂

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My Cameras and Kit (Updated Jan 29th 2012)

Posted by Peter Killey on July 11, 2011
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My Present Cameras and Kit

A lot of people ask me what cameras and lenses I have so I thought I would add as section to my blog showing you what kit I own and my views on them!

My Fuji X10

Christmas 2011 and I received this little Fuji X10 Retro Digital Camera which I have been using for the last month or so and I am very impressed with the results!

Here are a few of the fantastic features that this little X10 has to offer;

Key Features:
4x manual optical zoom featuring Fujifilm’s new Intelligent Digital Zoom technology that doubles telephoto capabilities and provides up to 8x zoom.
Fast power start-up; the X10 is fully ready to shoot in approximately 0.8 seconds using the on/off power switch built into the lens ring (must be in Quick Start mode).
High-contrast and wide viewing-angle 2.8” 460K dot high contrast LCD screen that provides excellent viewing even outdoors and in bright sunlight.  Diverse manual shooting modes that can be selected according to scene type (Program / Aperture

My Fuji X10Priority / Shutter Speed Priority / Manual).
Four diverse auto bracketing functions for exposure, ISO sensitivity, dynamic range and film simulation RAW shooting and in-camera RAW processing (SilkyPix RAW conversion software supplied in-box).
Best-in-class3 1080p Full HD movie recording capabilities.
Film Simulation Modes (eight setting are available, including Velvia / PROVIA / ASTIA).
Manual pop-up flash with a range of 7 meters (approximately 23 feet).
Electronic horizon leveling gauge to ensure that the camera is being held level, and histogram display to check image gradation and a Motion Panorama 360° for seamless 360-degree panoramic shooting

My Nikon D80 DSLR

My D80 DSLR with double battery grip.

My main Camera is a Nikon D80 DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera with a D80 double battery grip that allows shutter use in landscape and portrait mode, the battery grip excepts 2 x Nikon batteries which when fully charhed will last for days of constant use, the DSLR provides me with a lot of highly functional features and it is a lovely camera to use.  The lens which spends most time on the camera is an Nikon 18-135mm F3.5/5.6 G AFS DX IFED lens with a lens hood, I also own a Nikon D70 DSLR camera and that one was my first introduction into DSLR cameras, I don’t really use this camera too much now but bring it out for special occasions!

At present I have the following DSLR lenses which provide a variety of differing varieties of photography scenarios;

My Present Lenses

  • Nikon 18-70mm ED Kit Lens (fantastic all round lens).
  • Sigma 70-300mm APOms Lens (great zoom capability with a great macro ability as well).
  • Sigma 105mm DG EX Macro Sigma Lens (nothing can beat this lens for its macro capability).
  • Sigma 18-200 F3.5 – 6.3 DC lens (another great all round lens that stays attached to my D70 most of the time).
  • Nikon 18-135 F3.5/5.6 G AFS DX IFED
  • Nikon 18-105 F3.5/5.6 G AFS DX IFED (this one has just been bought (July 2012) and is stuck to the D80 at the moment).

Nikon Speedlight SB 800

I have a Nikon Speedlight SB 800 flash system which really is a must if you intend to take images in difficult light conditions i.e. Wedding Photography, Portraiture Photography and christenings etc.

Nikon SB 800 Speedlight Flash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Manfrotto PRO B Tripod and Manfrotto 322 Grip Action Ball Head

MANFROTTO 190 PRO B TRIPOD

MANFROTTO 322GRIP ACTION BALL HEAD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Lowepro AW Mini Trekker and my Billingham 335 Canvas BagLOWEPRO AW MINI TREKKER

A camera bag is an accessory which is often ignored yet provides fantastic benefits to its users. The main function of a camera bag is to protect your camera from external aspects such as the extreme heat of the sun, rainfall, dust, and most importantly scratches. Moreover, a camera bag safeguards your camera from the possibility to incur heavy damage if you accidentally knock into something or when the camera has been by chance dropped 🙂

 

BILLINGHAM 335 CAMERA BAG

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External Hard Drives – Backup Strategy

Posted by Peter Killey on July 7, 2011
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A lot of people have recently asked me about what size of external Hard Disc Drive to buy and what sort of strategy to adopt in backing up your valued digital images, I therefore recommend you read the below information;

Seagate External Hard Drive...To be honest there is no real excuse for not backing up your digital image files, however if I am to be honest, I speak to quite a lot of photographers who sometimes forget to back up their digital images as they see this as a bit of a boring task, whereas they would prefer to be out there taking piccies.

All of my own photos are backed up at present. I have over 3 terabytes of personal storage. This sounds like a lot, but as personal storage devices or external Hard Disc Drives are so cheap you really cannot afford to be without one or even two.

Even with very large 10MB huge RAW files from my Nikon DSLR a 1TB external HDD will hold about 100,000 images. Most people don’t have 100,000 images so a drive like this is more than enough.

In fact, I would recommend that you actually buy two of them, use one as a constant back up at home, and use the other for a back up to your back up so to speak!

I have tried many different external hard drives, Maxtor, Cobra, Western Digital LaCie (LaCie’s are the worst) and Seagate’s have always performed the best for me.

The hard drive you have your photos on now *will* fail. Guaranteed. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. So do yourself a favor and if you’re work is not backed up, start backing it up.

Some people have said, well why not just back up your images onto DVDs or CD’s. I personally don’t like this strategy because it’s too much of a pain, because of that it doesn’t end up getting done as often as it should. With an external hard drive it’s portable and you can just drag and drop whenever you want to back things up. I organize my photos by day, so I can just drag over each day’s photos onto a back up drive.
You have been warned; get yourself a decent sized external Hard Disc Drive for your treasured digital images NOW!

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Sensor Cleaning

Posted by Peter Killey on July 4, 2011
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I thought I would spend a little bit of time today cleaning the splodge on the sensor of my DSLR, there are a couple of methods to do this, one is to buy some sensor swabs and some sensor cleaning fluid and soak the swab then run it over the sensor!  My preferred choice is to lift the mirror and blow the sensor with my rocket air chamber which is free of charge.

Anyway after I had cleaned the sensor and the mirror and the lenses, I proceeded to take some pictures of the blue sky with the lens fully open (best way to check for bugs and splats on your sensor), much to my surprise it was clean again.

My advice is to clean your sensor about once a month and make sure your lenses are cleaned every time you have been out taking piccies 🙂

If you have any tips or tricks on sensor cleaning feel free to write a comment 🙂

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Were Back

Posted by Peter Killey on June 4, 2011
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Well I am very happy to say that after a number of years absence with my photography website www.manxscenes.com I am back.  I am writing this very first blog up whilst sitting in my motorhome whilst on holiday in Derby and I am pleased to say that it was in early June 2011 that I regained my desire and ambition to get out there and get snapping and sharing my images again with you all.

I have also found a new WordPress (webpage) theme that allows me to easily add pages and posts and images very easily that also allows for anyone visiting my site to easily get in touch with me or leave a comment on any of my images.

I will now endeavour to add at least one image every week, my former site really was to much for me to keep up to date, I just never had much time to do anything else, so hopefully the new look site will be more manageable for me from now on!

I do hope that you will like the new site, and I have even branched out onto Twitter where I will tweet any follower to my Twitter feed @manxscenes all the latest images and information that I have added to the site.

I hope you like the new site and I look forward to adding many more images from now on.

Enjoy…

Peter Killey

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