Not a lot

This morning it was overcast, but then the cloud started to clear and there was a bit of blue sky, so I hurried out to try and take some panos of the blossoming trees and flowers in Welland Park. Unfortunately by the time I'd finished my first pano the sky had become mostly overcast, and just about totally overcast by the time I'd finished my second pano.

I thought I might as well just take one more pano of the blossoming trees, since the blossom isn't likely to last very long, then I went back home.

I checked the Web Squeeze while waiting for some photos to upload (which I seem to be doing a lot of the past week).

I spent the rest of the morning and first part of the afternoon editing and re-uploading the old panos of Welland Park that I processed the other day. I would notice a problem with one of the panos, edit the original file to fix it, save out the TIFF, JPEG, sharpened sRGB TIFF, convert to cube faces, and then upload the updated JPEG and cube faces. Then after I'd done that I'd either notice a problem with one of the other panos, or notice another problem with the one I'd just worked on, and have to repeat the whole process over again.

Later in the afternoon I was trying some backup software called 'SC-Lite', as it does a binary comparison. I set it to do a compare of my photos folder and backup, but it didn't have a progress bar and was maxing out a CPU core. Due to the high CPU usage I thought it would be best not to do anything resource intensive on my comp (like editing more panos in Photoshop). I went on the pinternet for a bit, but then couldn't think of anything else to do that didn't involve resource intensive programs on my PC.

After a bit I remembered that I've got loads of books I haven't read, so I read a bit more of John Shaw's Close-ups in Nature. It also stopped raining so I went in the garden to see if I could find any soggy bees. There were a few flies around, but they looked like Coenosia Tigrina (fly I've already got 100s of shots of). There were also little green leaf hoppers, but they kept flying around so I didn't even bother trying to attempt a photo of one. I didn't see anything else except a slug on a daffodil and a snail I only noticed because I heard its shell crunch under my foot.

In the evening I watched an episode of Star Trek with Mauser and L, then I checked my comp and the SC-Lite binary comparison was still running so I decided to just close the program. I opened SyncBack and tried that. It doesn't do a binary comparison, but can do a checksum comparison.

SyncBack was verrry slooow so I'm not sure if binary comparisons / checksum comparisons are super slow (there was a note on the option that I ticked to enable checksum comparison that it was very slow). I wonder how Beyond Compare does its comparisons so fast (unless it's not really doing a binary comparison)?

While I was waiting for SyncBack (like SC-Lite, it used a lot of CPU), I looked into the latest flash diffusion techniques for the MT-24EX. There seem to be 3:

1. Concave diffusers (translucent cap from a stick or roll-on deodorant), placed up against the flash head and surrounded by reflective material.
2. Vellum Paper or similar material hung over the front of the lens like a canopy, with flashes in normal or raised position shooting through it.
3. Gary Fong Lightsphere II bowl section (that fits in the top of the Lightsphere II) positioned away from the flash head and in convex position.

So I spent a while looking at the deodorants online, but it is hard to tell what the caps are like, how transparent they are, and how large they are. I checked on the boots website, and there is a boots in town, so I may have to go there and have a look one day.

I also spent a long time looking at Lambency Flash diffusers, which is the Chinese knock-off of the Gary Fong Lightsphere II (which is very expensive). Unfortunately, the Lambency Flash diffuser don't seem to be available from many places now (wierdly Dealextreme didn't have any flash diffuser products, when it used to stock quite a few).

There are a few available on ebay, but mostly they are quite expensive. I also found them on focalprice.com, but a reviewer on there said that whether you get the bowl/dome and what colour it is depends on the supplier focalprice is getting them from at the time you order. Since I would mainly be buying it for the white bowl/dome, that wasn't too encouraging.

Food
Breakfast: Bowl of Chocolate Crunch Oat Cereal; Cup o' Tea.
Lunch: Mature Cheddar Cheese with Watercress Sandwich; Grapes; Satsuma; Piece of Home-made Flapjack; Rocky; Cup o' Tea.
Dinner: Shepherd's Pie; Broccoli; Carrots; Tomato Ketchup; Ground Black Pepper. Pudding was Lemon pud with Custard. Coffee; Bit of Easter Egg; 6 pieces of Galaxy Chocolate.