Couple of Books worth getting

I was out in the centre of Birmingham at lunchtime today and needed to get hold of an OS map.  The main Waterstones in the City is great and I often enjoy a browse at the the books while I am there.

I spotted a couple that I though our blog readers might be interested in, and that I have now ordered for myself

Firstly, from a great photographer who does some fabulous wildlife and landscape work by the name of Guy Edwardes.  The link to his book is below and well worth buying.  great photography, but more importantly great tips and techniques or where when and how to do it.

Secondly, while I struggle to get to grips with the epic Martin Evening tome on CS5, I found another great guide for both CS5 and Lightroom 3 that I can recommend.  Much more skinned down and very relevant to the needs of photographers.

I shall look forward to my copies coming from Amazon, and much better rates than I saw today I hasten to add

So here are the links.

Martin

Canon Ink Prices - Shock!!!! Take 2

I popped into the main Jessops store in Birmingham yesterday to have a quick look at Canon Ink Prices.

£15!!!!

yes you read it right - £15 whole GB pounds - this really is quite scandalous, particularly when there are so many tanks.

Certainly makes our prices shown below even better.

Oh yes - and Canon - we still haven't heard from you yet. Come on - we know you read this blog.

Back with some more pics on my next posting to show you what the grass cutting idiots did to the Bee Orchids.

Martin

Canon Printer Ink Prices - Shock!!!!

It recently came to my notice on a thread on the EOS Network that Canon ink prices have gone through the roof.

I was well aware of what has happened with gear prices as a result of the poor exchange rate, with some gear prices having increased by up to about 40 to 50 % in many cases, but was seriously shocked by the rate of change of ink cartridges.

I used to use the Canon Pixma Pro9000 as Dave currently does. I have been using the 9500 since last November so have to use a different range of carts for that, and as a result of that changeover haven't had to buy any ink since before the prices went silly earlier this year.

I used to pay around £7 per tank for the CLI-8 range from places like 7dayshop or Inkraider but now see they are around £12 each.

This is quite frankly exceeding what is sensible from the exchange rate variation and think Canon UK or Canon Europe really need to sort this out. I know from the Analytics stats that you Canon guys in Stockley Park and Amstelveen read this blog - so how about it guys!!!

Let us know your thoughts and let us have your best defence - give us your feedback please and we will post it!!

Bet you don't!!

Anyway, the best prices I have found are shown below - so if you need some any that you buy through here goes to help support the site. All patronage is most welcomed.



Martin

Views - Where to find your subjects

I was browsing around the web and blogosphere late last week and read an article that got me thinking.

It was a request for the locations of a number of different species of wildlife for photography.

Now maybe I am being a little sniffy here but it did rather smack of laziness.

My philosophy starts with researching my subject first, finding out its seasons, habitat and then locations. There really is so much resource available on the web and in print that it really is unforgivable not to just carry out some basic legwork yourself.

Sites like The Gloster Birder in local terms for me and Birdguides across the rest of the country will tell you what is about. I subscribe to Birdguides and have email alerts, so when I go away I can either ping it to my netbook or Blackberry.

But there are dozens of great books available, some of which I have linked below. The 'Where to watch Birds in' series covers all counties of the UK and also pretty much the rest of the world.

The BBC 'Natures Calendar' also gives a seasonal glance around the sites of the UK.

Mike Lane has published a great little book called 'Where to Photograph wildlife in Britain' - a number of sites in here I have visited having bought the book.

Amazon is a great source and usually about the best value for most of these.

Then of course, there is our great friend Google, just type in what you are looking for and you will almost certainly find it.

Martin

A look back on the 1st Day of Spring

White Rabbits!!!

OK - so on the 1st day of the Spring here in the UK, I thought I would have a look back at the progress we have made with this blog after our first two months of writing.

Looking back at the stats since I hooked the 'Analytics' up in early Jan, we have had over 4000 visits, with just over 8000 page views.

You have visited us from 317 cities from 41 countries now. We are now looking forward to visits from South America, the Middle East and more of Africa, so if you know any friends in these countries, please spread the word, we would love to see them here.

On the technical front, the photographic community is a little more discerning when it comes to browsing habits, with 47% of you NOT using MS IE browser and 88% of you realising the benefits of 32 bit colour on your screen settings.

11.3% of you use Macs while the rest of us don't!!!

Peak visiting day is Thursday and Saturday is the lowest, as I expect you are all out photographing or on trips.....or doing chores in the house like me.

So thanks to all of you who have supported us, and particularly so if you have been linking through Amazon to make your purchases, it provides welcome support to the site.

If you have any great links, news items or things you want from us, then please let us know, we would welcome lots more comments and interaction from you. Particularly if there are any subjects you want us to write about.

I have added a Poll on the right hand side, so we would welcome your views and feedback on that.

Having spent yesterday in my garden doing various things, it is good to see new growth on the hedging, and at least four species of wildflower are in bloom from my planting last year.

Update: Make that five species, plus two lots of frog spawn!!

Another update: Nine frogs at it in the pond!!!

I am going to get on processing images now as I have to prepare for a photographic talk that I am giving on Wednesday week entitled 'Wildlife in the Highlands and Islands' at the Smethwick Photographic Society Nature Group as a practice run before I give it during Wild Isles week on the Island of Mull in May this year

Martin

Reviews - A good read for Photoshop CS4 users

If you buy the latest greatest Camera bodies you are normally forced to up grade various components to go with it. Like software and even your PC to work with the new programmes. This is something I had to do when I bought the Canon 1D3,To open the RAW files in Photoshop I had to buy the new CS3 as I prefer Photoshop to Canons DPP software, I could have opened the RAW files in DPP then converted to Tiff and then opened in CS2 but I like to work on a RAW not a Tiff so I purchased Photoshop CS3 and then found that my PC was too old for the new software so ended up with a new Dell-A lot of extra money on top of the Camera body, Now moving over to Nikons new bodies i purchased in advance from Adobe the new Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom programmes, CS4 is not that different to CS3 but it does have one or 2 nice new features tucked away in the ACR engine,The adjustment brush for one, Now I am the first to admit i am not really into processing and keep it to a bare minimum,I always try to get it right in camera so basically my workflow involves adjusting levels,Curves,Saturation and sharpening along with cropping and levelling if needed,So i have £500 software and use 2% of it, So i decided that now is the time to learn how to use the product more just in case I need to, After looking around the shops and forums one book kept coming up and that suit my needs-Photoshop CS4 for Nature Photographers-'A workshop in a book' By Ellen and Josh Anon, I purchased it from Amazon and for the last week or so have been going through it,The thing that I like is that it comes with a DVD that lasts about an hour and shows you how to set up 'Bridge' and runs through the new features found on CS4 over CS3,By watching the DVD you can clearly see how to do things and its done it a very simple manner-perfect for me as I hate it when people who know what they are doing write stuff like everybody would know how to do it,The book has lots of images of before and after and what the screen should look like as you are doing things-very layman's terms. It's priced here in the states at $39.99 but on Amazon its much cheaper-A good read and perfect for the Nature Photographer who is trying to get his/her head around Photoshop CS4-Now just need to get one for Lightroom 2

Dave