Review of the Year - Part 10 - October

Just a quick look back at October in the Review of the Year series.

The main story of the month was Dave's acquisition of the Nikon D7000 fresh from the launch.  As a result of a number of posts, and the subsequent links to other forums visitor numbers to the blog started to go up at the end of the month as the new camera body generated huge interest across the world.

Dave's first impressions, a comparison with the D300 and the sharpness were all reported.

I took a trip to Gigrin Farm to see the Red Kites , the 'White Kite' and other birds, and Dave also went across to the Smokey's with reports here, here, here and here. 

With Autumn in full swing, a few trips to the woods were taken to photograph  fungi, my garden Sparrowhawk continued to feed, and Dave answered a few questions on the blog that had been put to him.

934 of you visited us a total of 2212 times from 58 countries

Martin

Review of the Year - Part 9 - September

September was a mixed and varied month, with our blogging content covering a wide spectrum from photo techniques like this one from Dave on backgrounds and the need for probably the most important quality we need as wildlife photographers - patience and some great images here of the racoons.

Here in the UK, there were still plenty of moths and a few butterflies around still.

Pricing policy  particularly for the UK market vexes us frequently and I set out a couple of though provoking blogs here and here on Canon prices and insurance replacement costs.

Dave took a quick trip to the Smokey Mountains and shared the experience here and here.

On the gear front, Dave flagged up some Nikon news and I shared how I used the C1 to C3 settings on the Canon 7D to show how you could quickly switch from different subject modes with a bit of pre-programming.

705 of you visited us a total of 1968 times from 50 countries

Martin

Review of the Year - Part 8 - August

What with one thing and another, it is taking a bit longer to get through the 2010 review this year.  But maybe a bit of variety of other posts is a good thing for our readers.

Dave started the month off with a weeks trip to California and reported it in a five part series here, here pt2, pt3, pt4 and part 5

The Pond Life series continued from my garden with egg laying Hawkers, and I closed down Frog Blog with it's final part for the year.

On more Tech Stuff, there were a couple of articles on External Hard Drives here and here.

Dave and I gave you the views of our respective experiences of using 10 stop ND filters here and here.  Different types - square and round, slightly different experiences.

New species of moth were caught in my moth trap and photographed.

Dave tried out and reported on the Nikon 105 VR macro lens and I finished the month up with a
story of more new life in the garden.

The full archives of our 36 posts can be found here for August.

A total of 744 of you visited us 1,974 times  from 43 countries

Martin

Review of the Year - Part 7 - July

With an extremely busy weekend just past, I have not had time to get any more processing for the blog done, so the Norfolk Grey Seal Pups will have to wait for a blog or two yet so onto a look back at last year as we move into the second half of the year.

The early part of the month kicked off with a great objective review and demonstration from Dave how critical the lighting on our subjects are, and how it can totally change what we are trying to portray and I shared a tip on how not to store your hot shoe spirit level here.

Here in the UK, it was a busy time as I finished up the last of my North Uists posts with flora, landscapes and my outtakes.

One of the perils of blogging about wonderful places like North Uist is that it makes other people want to go there.  Looking at the accommodation we had last year, which we book in the Christmas period twelve months ago, was that all the key dates for this year were gone by last September.

It might be a bit arrogant to suggest that the blog helped with that, although I do know from some comments that folks have booked up to go there off the back of the blog.  I guess it was really the Monty Halls BBC2 effect from last year that 'sold' the place to so many.

Locally things were quite busy in the garden pond with Pond Life series continuing to report progress.

Dave reported further ongoing success with his Deer project, mentioned in Part 6 of this review of 2010 and also the wonderful Hummingbirds in his part of the world.

One of the many (surely that should be few!!) construction projects I did last year was to build my own Moth trap.  I set out a full article here and followed it with some images here and here.

Dave found himself in some sad circumstances which he reported here and here.  I was grateful to be able to get to see Dave while he was here but would have preferred it under different circumstances naturally.

Finally it was a busy time for butterflies here and here in Warwickshire.

651 of you made a total of 2016 visits from 43 countries.

 Martin

Review of the Year - Part 6 - June

At the half way point of the year, the main theme of the month from me were my reports from my Scottish trip to North Uist on the Outer Hebrides.  In a nine part series, I reported and shared images from our week there with images from each day.  Best link is probably to pick up the full archive of June and take it from there, or just click on any of the North Uist tags at the bottom of a contribution.

It was probably the best wildlife trip I have ever made to Scotland, with the diversity and frequency of the wildlife. 

Dave moved across to the Nikon D3 S and reports on it here and here and also gave some views based on his use of the D5000.

Meanwhile, Adobe launched Lightroom 3.  The new processing engine in that for RAW images making a much better fist of it than any previous Adobe RAW processor  and my favourite camera strap maker, Op Tech launched a whole range of camo straps (shortly after I had bought another couple of green ones.....Grrr!)

Dave started a new project concentrating on Deer with contributions here and here as well.

I started monitoring the progress with the local Orchids and reported from my final day in Scotland with a day over at the Cairngorms

494 of you visited us exactly 2000 times from 37 countries around the world

Martin

Review of the Year - Part 5 - May

May is a very busy time, or at least it is here in the Northern Hemisphere for wildlife.  I usually make a trip to Scotland around this time, and last year was no exception.  Moving further north this year, I went to North Uist on the Outer Hebrides, but I reported the trip in June so you will have to wait for the next part for those links.

Frogblog ran its course and transmuted into the Pondlife series as there were other interests coming from the pond such as these Mayflies, emerging damselflies, and more procreation. 

On the software front, Dave gave us his first thoughts on Adobe Photoshop CS5 , shared some of the secrets of manual flash, and processing with Capture One.

We were both out and about with local trip reports from Raleigh and the Warwickshire woods for Bluebells.

Dave showed us how to manage wildlife photography on a tight budget, and did a technical article on backgrounds for bird in flight photography.

Chris Jones was our guest photographer and themed his blog on a great trip to North Africa. 

All 42 blogs from May can be found here if you want to see all of them.

581 of you visited us a total of 2003 times from 39 countries.

Apologies for the slow posts from my Norfolk trip, but I was away at the weekend, and am struggling to find processing time.  They will be here soon......promise.

Martin

Review of the Year - Part 4 - April

So into Spring, at least here in the northern hemisphere - my favourite season, although it is always a close run thing with Autumn.

Dave took a great trip to Florida and gave us loads of wonderful images in fabulous light (forgotten what that looks like at the moment).  In a seven part series that can be seen here as Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7

It was a great trip and I for one loved reading of Dave's experiences and looking at the images.

Meanwhile, here in my Pond, the Frogblog series continued here and here with our first free swimmers

It was a busy month for software with articles on Photoshop CS5 and a technical review of Capture One V5

Also on the technical front, I did a quick and dirty of Lens AF micro adjustment with the 7D here and Dave set out a very good article on Manual metering techniques here.

We posted a lot of images in April and it might be worth a browse of the full archives here.

Finally, 552 of you made 2095 visits from 39 countries.

I will bring you some pictures from my Christmas trip to Norfolk in the coming blogs, as well as a grand gear clear out as I will be looking to sell off a number of camera bodies, lenses and other bits.  

Martin

Review of the Year - Final Part - December

So onto the final part - Part 12 on twelfth night - just sneaked in on time

We made more posts in December than any previous month - 45 in total

We also made it to the end of the year with at least one post every day.

One of the things that people said to us when we started this was  - y 'eah blogs they are OK but people dont bother to keep them up to date with new stuff.'  Well we met the challenge we set ourselves.  Hopefully some of you found some of our ramblings useful.

As it is all quite fresh, I am not going to post a whole load of links as per previous parts of this review of the year series.

With the exception of this one - Canon7D AF testing, as this is one that has been very popular looking at the stats for the month.

Looking forward to 2010, we will think about some more and new features for the blog.  We will probably set up a survey to get some feedback, but please post your comments anyway.  Tell us what you think, what you would like to see, more of, less of.

We will welcome the feedback.

Stat porn for December

3,400 page views from 809 unique visitors from 50 countries.

Except these figures are 4 days light as muggins here forgot to put the tracking code on the Christmas 'White' template'  Mustn't forget that when I change it back to black

Annual total of  40,880 page views from 5,975 unique visitors from 81 countries.

Martin

Review of the Year Part 11 - November

Full archive for November can be found here covering all 36 posts but some of my favourites were as follows.

Dave started the month off Bob Dylan style - well almost and then went off to see the New York skyline, before getting lost in technology, at least a  couple of times.

I started my BTO winter counts for a couple of tetrads that I am monitoring as part of the Bird Atlas 2007-2011 work, and then went off to find some local fungi with these two reports.

I also got some hands on time with the Canon 7D and reviewed back to back with the 1Dmk111 on an ISO test

This post and the one I did in December on AF testing have seen a huge number of views, so clearly it is something that some of you are interested in.

I was very cynical about the Canon marketing speak, based on my own experiences of ownership of the 1Dmk111 and use of the 50D, when comparing to the claims made for them.  I said I would let the testing tell the story for the 7D and remain sceptical until I had hands on time.  Well it is good, and a significant upgrade over the 40D, and a more massive leap compared to the 50D for image quality/ISO noise.

Dave picked up on AF systems here, and I will cover it a bit more in the review for December.

Anyway, there were lots of other good posts as well as these, so check them out.

Stat porn for November

2606 page visits from 578 unique visitors from 43 countries

Martin

Review of the Year Part 10 - October

So into the final quarter of the year.

The Autumn was very dry in the UK and so it was barren for fungi until November, or at least it was around here in Warwickshire.

In terms of blogs for the month, we made 38 posts for the month.

I had a go at Bats in flight and Dave melted his flash head.

Canon announced the 1Dmk4, which still hasn't made it into the shops here in the UK in any numbers, and Nikon announced the D3S.

Dave took a trip to the Smokey Mountains plus here, here and here and to New York for a few of days.

I got all philosophical about unpaid beta testing for manufacturers and we shared a few news stories with you from the world of wildlife and here too.

Stat porn for October  2,418 page views from 561 unique visitors from 38 countries.

Two more to go

Martin

Review of the Year Part 9 - September

In Part 9 of this series we revisit the September archives.

Canon launched the 7D and I had a view as did Dave and by the end of the month it was shipping, so no hanging around there.

I did a two part article on 'What type of photographer are you?' plus part 2 here.

Dave went photographing Kingfishers and some interesting other things on his local patch and I found some more new species in my garden and more here.

Dave also had a neat little sideline here as he turned model and I went off to find some moths in Worcestershire.

HDR software was covered here and I shared how I keep in touch with the web while mobile.

Stat porn for September  2,967 page views from  693 unique visitors from 48 countries.

Martin

Review of the Year Part 8 - August

So as we welcome in the New Year and a new decade, I will carry on with our year review and so into August we go.

We did a couple of posts on back button focussing here and here - this is a technique that I have been using for a number of years now and immediately set any camera that I use to this setting.  It is a great feature for wildlife photographers.

My garden was a source of many images for me this year and a couple of the posts covered this here and here.

Dave did a bit on the Sigma 180 macro lens here and showed how images look when using different perspectives.

We had two guest photographers in August, Tony Wharton and Mike Lane, who shared a number of images with us.

I did a bit on wildlife introduction philosophy here, which I had hoped would spark some more comments and interaction, but sadly we only received one comment - Thanks Peter.

Dave shared with us his close encounter with death as he came up face to face and close with Black Widow spiders.

Stat porn for August,  3,400 page vists, 830 unique visitors  from 50 countries.

Martin

Review of the Year Part 7 - July

So on into the second half of the year as part of the Year Review series.

All blogs can be seen here for July, but here are a few that might whet your appetite to revisit or see for the first time for any of our newer readers.

Dave did a review of his Nikon 200-400VRf4 - a great lens and one that many Canon users would like to have.  But as usual Canon only have marketeers rather than ears that listen to photographers - so we will continue to wait in vain.

July was a great month for macro work in the UK as all the various bugs, butterflies and damsels came out to play. 

Dave took a trip to South Carolina and sent in two reports here and here.

I finally found the way to unlock 1024 x 768 pixel res on my Samsung netbook, which meant I could use some other software to herlp processing and screen calibration.

On Tips and techniques, we covered wireless off camera flash here and here, I did a bit on Hightlight Tone Priority and Dave looked at AF assist points.

John Bulpitt was our first Guest Photographer and sent us a fascinating article on storing images on the  move, along with some great images.

Finally, the story here about a persistent pair of Great Crested Grebes was one of my favourite stories of the year.

Stat porn for July

2988 page views from 496 unique visitors from 27 countries

Martin

Review of the Year Part 6 - June

And so on into half way through the year.

Dave started the month off with a trip to Colorado and posted some reports here, here and here.

Here in the UK it was a great time for Orchids and I shared some of my experiences here and also some sad news when my local council decimated a load of Bee Orchids here.

It had been quite a while since I needed to buy any inks for my Canon printer and had quite a shock as we reported here and here.

It was a great year too for butterflies and I found some good specimens very locally to me.

In our Tips and Techniques section, I did a bit on lighting control and Dave covered fill in flash with wildlife here and backgrounds here.

I gave the poor unloved 'Corvid' family the opportunity for a fair hearing in this post.

In my garden, I had ben getting a lot of life at my pond and we clocked up the 200th post this month.

Stat porn for June -  3,178 number of page views, from 491 unique visitors in 28 countries, and at the half year stage we had cumulative totals of  22,698 number of page views, from 2,766 unique visitors in 55 countries.

Martin

Review of the Year Part 5 - May

May is usually a busy time for wildlife in the Northern hemisphere as we get into the f'ull-on' part of the breeding season.

I took my usual trip to Mull and set out a number of reports from Day 1 here to Day 6 here. The in between days are all posted in the Archives if you want to see more from that trip. I covered off trip preparation here. 

On the way back south, I came via the north east of England and found a great site for Early Purple Orchids.

Sadly, Dave's mum passed away which necessitated a return to England and the need to attend to more important matters there.

Once back in the USA, Dave showed us what was happening on his local patch here, and showed us a couple of blogs on long lens techniques here and here.  We did quite a few posts throughout the year on Long lens work, so if you open one of these links and click on the long lens techniques tag, you should find all of those from the series if you are interested.

On the gear front Dave reviewed the Nikon sb900 flash head here.

In my garden, things were moving on nicely and I posted here, here and here.

Stat porn for May -  3691 page visits, 523 unique visitors from 18 countries.

Martin

Review of the Year Part 4 - April

So if you are reading this on Christmas Day - well Happy Christmas.

Looking back to April, I can see Dave had a great trip to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee and reported the trip here, here and here. I stayed closer to home and had a day out in Gloucestershire with my buddy Robbie.

On Tips and Techniques we covered on board flash here and here, and I also showed how to use the camera technology to capture close up shots of butterflies when they are on plants flapping about in the wind.

I have loved my Samsung netbook that I bought back in February - It has been a brilliant tool and I thank Joe Fox for flagging these up to me earlier in the year.  I showed in this post how to screen colour balance when you are working with less than 1024 x 768 pixel screen resolution, although I subsequently found how to get round that which I will flag up in following year review parts.

We talked about how to do your research to find your subjects for yourself, rather than get others to do your field work here.

On the gear front we covered graduated filters, circular polarisers and also the Think Tank Security bag which is vital for those times when you need to fly with your gear.

April also saw me get my DPAGB award which I covered here.

Stat porn for April - 3611 page views, from 604 unique vistors from  28 countries

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas day wherever you are - back tomorrow with the review of May

Martin

Review of the Year Part 3 - March

Looking back at March, I did a number of posts on the second recall for the 1Dmk111 here, here, here, here and here. Plus some test shots here.

Clearly this has been a very vexing subject for a number of Mark111 users, with seemingly the some of the most troubled users being those who shoot birds in flight.  While I expressed my satisfaction after this recall, in longer term use there are still issues.  It is now about as good as it gets, and the best the Mark111 has ever been.  But having recently done the same with the new 7D, it really does show the Mark111 to be a dog in this department.  That said, for other forms of imagery the Mark111 and the files from it are still stunning.  The fact that 'experts' claim that the 7D noise is now as good as the Mark111 is testament to that - Canon have had three years to catch up with themselves.

Anyway - enough words on that subject.

Other posts included a few on various of bits of gear such as self levelling tripod heads, extension tubes, extenders and also camera gear insurance here and here.

Trip reports were a bit thin on the ground for us in March, but we covered a number of local patch reports here in Warwickshire and here in North Carolina.

I wrote a Tips and Techniques blog on that perennial digital subject, and showed how I used a mask and layer technique to sharpen images

Finally, have a check out the archives section for March to see if there is anything else there that you like.

Stat porn for March - 4283 page visits,  657  unique visitors from 31 countries

Martin

Review of the year Part 2 - February

In the second part of our look back at this year, I thought I would highlight some of the key posts that we made in February.

A couple of posts from our archives looked back at Dave's experiences in India and I took a look back at the Red Squirrels at Formby who have been having a hard time of it.

In the gear section we looked at hides, the Canon 50D,  and the Dell 2407 monitor.

 

Dave shared some techniques with us on Slow motion panning and also his methods of metering.

I went to Mull for four days and set out three trip reports here, here and here - so if you like to see Otter in their wild habitat have a drop into those links.

There were also quite a few local patch reports along with other reviews on software, so check in to the archives for February on the lnks down the right hand side.

Stats for Feb were  4,375 page visits,  584 visitors from 31 countries - so were were a bit up on Jan's figures

Martin

Review of the Year Part 1 - January

Thought it was a good time to start a look back on the first year of our blog and pick out some of the highlights and maybe in an extended 12 days of Christmas theme we will look at each month in turn from now until we have reached the twelfth night, so you will be spared a summary each day as we will as usual continue to put new stuff in between these.

Just before I start on January, I thought that was a good post of Dave's yesterday and will add my own views later in the week with a few images to illustrate the point.

It is probably worth a quick recap about why the blog came about.

Here was our first post back in December last year as one of the trial posts, little did we know that we would be here with this  a year later.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I guess judging from the number of views and visitors we get it is worth doing, but would appreciate your comments as always.

We started off with themes on kit reviews, Here is Dave's. Started a series on Long lens work.

I covered off a trip report on Short Eared Owls and Dave went for a pee, or Pea Island more correctly.

We covered off come techniques on metering and also making the most of the moment and working with the light - probably my favourite images in January in that post from Dave.

We also talked about various bits of software and hardware covering off bags, tripods, and mobile back up options.

Finally, a theme I have visited more than once, and will continue to bang this particular drum when relevant is that our Subject is more important than the Photo.

If you only click on one of the above links in detail, I would encourage this one as it affects all of our reputations as wildlife photographers.

But I do hope you have stroll through the archives that I have put here - maybe there is something useful you missed first time round.

Back later in the week with some views on the Be Honest post and some more real live user feedback from a wildlife photography perspective on the Canon 7D and its AF performance for birds in flight  - that old bete noir for us folk that spent money on the 1Dmk3.

Stats for Jan were 3617 page visits, 537 visitors from 32 countries

Martin