Poggin', photos & panos

I haven't done my blog in a while, so here's an update on what I've been doin lately:

Friday
The weather was nice so I went on the same walk I went on (the Friday before?) nearly to Foxton Locks, and took some photos of the Autumn trees there that I had previously posted to the Photography critique group on Flickr. I tried to use the advice I had been given on the group to improve the photos i.e. shooting lower and getting nearer. I took some photos with both my 18-70mm and 10-17mm fisheye lenses. When I got back home and looked at the photos I think I got too low with the 18-70mm lens, and obviously while I got closer with the fisheye lens it looked further away due to the large FoV.

A large amount of pogs arrived in the post. Ben came home from his week away on a school trip, so he helped me sort some of the new pogs when he got in.

Saturday & Sunday
Finished sorting the pogs into piles of each type (not into number order though). There was over 1000 pogs, which is why it took so long. Also, I cannae remember when I did it, but I added more detailed descriptions to my photoshelter photos, just getting info off wikipedia etc. about the subject of the photo.

Monday
Processed the pictures I took on Friday and also a few other pics I had taken recently. Uploaded a couple of the new Autumn trees photos I took on Friday to the thread on Flickr to show the results.

Tuesday
Processed the first pano from Portsmouth, it was quite a lot of work fixing stitching errors, levelling the pano and patching the nadir. Obviously my skills in using a monopod for panos aren't that great. By lunch I had got quite a bad headache so I went to bed after lunch. Got up at 3pm to get Ben from school, then by the time we got back home my headache had gone so we did more pog scanning/sorting.
While not doing other stuff I looked at high speed photos and how to take them - quite interesting. It seems the best way to do it is to make the high speed flash trigger yourself, which again looks quite interesting although complicated since I can't remember any electronics stuff. I went on maplin.co.uk and added some bits to a basket. Hopefully it will save the basket until I actually want to order. I think I will need to get a book or sumat on basic electronics to learn the basics before I try to make a flash trigger.
There was also a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR lens going for about £300 on ebay, which is very cheap. Luckily(?) I managed to resist from bidding and I will try to do macros cheaper with reversed lens / diopter lenses / extension tubes.

Wednesday
Processed the 2nd pano from Portsmouth, which again had quite a few errors & problems, not as bad as the 1st one though. Did some research on extension tubes and it seems that Kenko are the best as they allow AF (with non AF-S lenses) and adjustment of aperture on G type lenses (which all of mine apart from the 50/1.4 are).
My e-Sata hard drive that I bought off ebay recently doesn't work so I took that to the post office to send it back.

Thursday (today)
In the morning it was frosty so I went out in the garden and to the piece of grass across the road to try and get some frosty macro photos.
Processed 2 panos from Portsmouth, started on a third one but it's really messed up with loads of rope all over a ship that doesn't match up, and the ship is spread over 3 shots.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry crisp; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Smoked ham with mustard sandwich; 2 x apples; banana; kitkat; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: Plain chocolate digestive; ginger biscuit; coffee.
Dinner: Chicken pie; green beans; potatoes. Pudding was flapjack. Coffee.