Yesterday Rebecca Adlington won a gold medal in the women's 400m freestyle swimming. Moohar said that she used to be one of Shaz's friends at Broomhill. Also it said on the local news that she had been given 'The Freedom of Mansfield'. Does that mean she can go down Bronwlow Road without getting beat up?
Today Britain got a silver in men's slalom canoe, and some Bronzes in horse stuff. The badminton mixed pair match of GB Vs. China today was really good. GB won the first round by quite a few points, then at half way through match 2 they were winning by about 4 points. But after that China came back really well, and won that match with GB not getting many more points. Then the 3rd deciding game China were winning by quite a few points at half time. But then GB came back and won by about 3 points. The match was good to watch for the skills on display as well, and often had long rallies.
The men's team gymnastics today was good as well. China were amazing, getting 16s on floor and rings (normally people get 14s or 15s), and high 16s on vault (normally people get 15s). The bits it showed of USA were really good as well, great high bar routines.
Obviously I watched nearly all of the other Olympics stuff as well.
In the evening I went on the pinternet.
Food
Breakfast: Golden Nuggets; cup o' tea.
Elevenses: Coffee; butter Kek biscuit; choc chip cookie.
Dinner: Pepperoni deep pan pizza; peas; chips. Pudding was Cornish Ice-cream. Coffee. Roses.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Britain gets a gold
Watched Olympics, went to church, watched Olympics, ate dinner, watched Olympics. It's 17.45 and has finished for the day now, so I'll go on the internet for a bit. Britain got a gold in the Women's Cycling Road Race.
After tea went on the internet more, then watched some photoshop photo editing tutorial videos.
Food
Breakfast: Blackcurrant jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
After church snack: Chocolate digestive; coffee.
Dinner: Nasi Goreng; noodles. Pudding was cheesecake. Coffee.
Tea: Ham sandwich; banana; slice of Mac P gingerbread cake; gold bar; cup o' tea.
After tea went on the internet more, then watched some photoshop photo editing tutorial videos.
Food
Breakfast: Blackcurrant jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
After church snack: Chocolate digestive; coffee.
Dinner: Nasi Goreng; noodles. Pudding was cheesecake. Coffee.
Tea: Ham sandwich; banana; slice of Mac P gingerbread cake; gold bar; cup o' tea.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Olympics
This morning watched the Olympics, first men's gymnastics qualifying, then beach volleyball. After lunch I sorted my photos from yesterday, sorted my photos that I had now been given IDs for, and tagged my latest pics that had got accepted to photoshelter (the tagging process takes me ages).
Interestingly, I had got some more editors choice in the latest batch. I now have 49 Images listed, 100% acceptance rate and 20.4% Editors choice. I'm sure both of these will go down over time though as I submit more images and also as their collection grows they will become more picky. The images I get editors choice aren't the images that I think are best, and none of my landscapes have an editors choice, only macros. I only have 1 Comp download and no lightbox adds and no sales - I expect it will stay that way for a long time (maybe forever).
I also watched a bit more olympics.
After dinner, me, Mac and Ben watched Hero, then some skill japanese McDonalds videos:
I went on the pinternet for a bit and found that I always get its and it's the wrong way round - either the website I checked about a year ago gave me the wrong info or I remembered it wrong. I thought its was it is and it's was possesive, but actually it's (got it right there!) the other way round.
It rained nearly all day so I didn't go out at all.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Elevenses: Ginger biscuit; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Ham sandwich; banana; slice of Mac P gingerbread cake; Fox's whipped cream (viennese whirl); cup o' tea.
Dinner: Delee herby sausages; mashed potato; baked beans. Pudding was yoghurt and a chocolate digestive. Coffee. Piece of Sainsbury's caramel chocolate.
Interestingly, I had got some more editors choice in the latest batch. I now have 49 Images listed, 100% acceptance rate and 20.4% Editors choice. I'm sure both of these will go down over time though as I submit more images and also as their collection grows they will become more picky. The images I get editors choice aren't the images that I think are best, and none of my landscapes have an editors choice, only macros. I only have 1 Comp download and no lightbox adds and no sales - I expect it will stay that way for a long time (maybe forever).
I also watched a bit more olympics.
After dinner, me, Mac and Ben watched Hero, then some skill japanese McDonalds videos:
I went on the pinternet for a bit and found that I always get its and it's the wrong way round - either the website I checked about a year ago gave me the wrong info or I remembered it wrong. I thought its was it is and it's was possesive, but actually it's (got it right there!) the other way round.
It rained nearly all day so I didn't go out at all.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Elevenses: Ginger biscuit; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Ham sandwich; banana; slice of Mac P gingerbread cake; Fox's whipped cream (viennese whirl); cup o' tea.
Dinner: Delee herby sausages; mashed potato; baked beans. Pudding was yoghurt and a chocolate digestive. Coffee. Piece of Sainsbury's caramel chocolate.
Friday, 8 August 2008
Exercising, gardening and photoing
Got up quite early this morning, about 6am. Had breakfast, then went on the internet (it was raining). Cropped some of the insect pics from the last few days, then posted them to http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk to see if I could get any IDs, hopefully I can get an ID for the little beetle, but the other pics aren't very good so I won't be surprised if I don't get IDs for them.
Went on Wii fit, then did some japanese. Then I saw that Moohar was about to put the washing machine on, so I stopped her and took some pics from inside of the washing machine of me putting the ball of washing liquid in it. When I finished doing that it was lunch time.
After lunch I went in the garden and did some digging, digging up the turf in the corner between the pond and the greenhouse and the wall. We'll plant some wild flowers and hopefully other plants that insects, caterpillars and butterflies like. I need to do some research on which plants they like, we've got some buddleia down there now that I dug up from behind the greenhouse and planted there.
After that I took some photos of a green Elephant hawk moth caterpillar. When it gets scared it tucks it's little head back into it's big body. I copied the pics onto my comp and then loaded up Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP). Some of the pics were overexposed, and I couldn't see how to adjust the exposure so I searched for 'DPP tutorial' and came across a bunch of video tutorials on the canon website. I watched all the tutorials, and they were very helpful.
After watching the tutorials, it made me think that there probably wasn't much point using DPP to process the RAW files. I thought that DPP would apply automatic chromatic abberation and vignetting adjustments, but it doesn't (at least not for the MPE65 since it is not listed as a supported lens). I tried processing one of the overexposed through DPP and through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and found that ACR gave a better output (although not as sharp, just needed to run a USM to equalize the sharpening).
DPP does have a nice dust removal brush, and you can copy this and apply it to multiple images. I think you can do the same thing in ACR using the healing brush / clone stamp tool, although I'm not sure whether DPP or ACR works best there. I think I will probably use ACR for converting the files, then if I find it isn't too good for removing dust, I can run the converted TIFFs through DPP for dust removal. Luckily I don't think I have any dust on the sensor at the moment.
After dinner me, jin, Ben and Moohar watched the Olympics opening ceremony, which was long, but good. It was interesting because it was all about old Chinese traditions which the communists previously tried to get rid of, and there wasn't really anything about communism in it at all. I guess tourism is more important to them than upholding their party values.
Then me, Ben and Amerika-jin watched the rest of Pee-wee's Big Adventure. After that I processed my pics from today and yesterday.
Food
Breakfast: Almonds, oats and more cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Fried chicken that Ben made yesterday; ½ cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; ½ ham sandwich; clementine; slice of Maccy's gingerbread cake; ¼ chocolate muffin; cup o' tea.
Dinner: 2x fishcakes; peas; potatoes; butter. Pudding was rice pudding with blackcurrant jam. Coffee. 1 x Roses.
Went on Wii fit, then did some japanese. Then I saw that Moohar was about to put the washing machine on, so I stopped her and took some pics from inside of the washing machine of me putting the ball of washing liquid in it. When I finished doing that it was lunch time.
After lunch I went in the garden and did some digging, digging up the turf in the corner between the pond and the greenhouse and the wall. We'll plant some wild flowers and hopefully other plants that insects, caterpillars and butterflies like. I need to do some research on which plants they like, we've got some buddleia down there now that I dug up from behind the greenhouse and planted there.
After that I took some photos of a green Elephant hawk moth caterpillar. When it gets scared it tucks it's little head back into it's big body. I copied the pics onto my comp and then loaded up Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP). Some of the pics were overexposed, and I couldn't see how to adjust the exposure so I searched for 'DPP tutorial' and came across a bunch of video tutorials on the canon website. I watched all the tutorials, and they were very helpful.
After watching the tutorials, it made me think that there probably wasn't much point using DPP to process the RAW files. I thought that DPP would apply automatic chromatic abberation and vignetting adjustments, but it doesn't (at least not for the MPE65 since it is not listed as a supported lens). I tried processing one of the overexposed through DPP and through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and found that ACR gave a better output (although not as sharp, just needed to run a USM to equalize the sharpening).
DPP does have a nice dust removal brush, and you can copy this and apply it to multiple images. I think you can do the same thing in ACR using the healing brush / clone stamp tool, although I'm not sure whether DPP or ACR works best there. I think I will probably use ACR for converting the files, then if I find it isn't too good for removing dust, I can run the converted TIFFs through DPP for dust removal. Luckily I don't think I have any dust on the sensor at the moment.
After dinner me, jin, Ben and Moohar watched the Olympics opening ceremony, which was long, but good. It was interesting because it was all about old Chinese traditions which the communists previously tried to get rid of, and there wasn't really anything about communism in it at all. I guess tourism is more important to them than upholding their party values.
Then me, Ben and Amerika-jin watched the rest of Pee-wee's Big Adventure. After that I processed my pics from today and yesterday.
Food
Breakfast: Almonds, oats and more cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Fried chicken that Ben made yesterday; ½ cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; ½ ham sandwich; clementine; slice of Maccy's gingerbread cake; ¼ chocolate muffin; cup o' tea.
Dinner: 2x fishcakes; peas; potatoes; butter. Pudding was rice pudding with blackcurrant jam. Coffee. 1 x Roses.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Getting my website to work
I decided to spend this morning trying to get my website to work on my webhost.
The trouble I was having was that on the server it was giving an error message that it couldn't find the php includes files. I thought the problem was that my webhost had setup their system so the site root refered to when doing a php include was below the documentRoot, wheras on my local setup the root refered to when doing a php include was the documentRoot. After doing lots of reading on virtual hosts and raising a ticket with my webhost I finally managed to fix it.
The problem was nothing to do with the root at all - in fact my php includes were relative, not relative from the root i.e. they didn't start with a forward slash /, which I thought I had done. The problem was that my local environment is windows, which is case insensitive, while the server runs on Linux, which is case sensitive. Some of my includes files I had refered to like include('SSI/Nav.inc.php') wheras the actual file was named nav.inc.php, so it didn't work.
After fixing that on my index page, I found the navigation menu didn't work. After doing some work on this, I found that I had to change some stuff in the SQL query to get it to work. An IF statment IF field IS TRUE I had to change to IF field = 1. Not sure why, although the web server is running mysql 4.1 wheras I'm running 5.something locally. Also had problems with my query referring to tables with the wrong case, again because Linux is case sensitive while Windows is not. More info on that in the MySQL manual.
In the afternoon I did a bit more work on the website, then did a bit of Japanese learning. Did some gardening to dig up some ground near the pond so we can plant wild flowers there and also plant some buddleia in the garden to encourage butterflies.
After dinner I watched the DJ Yoda goes to the movies video with Mac. Then I sorted some macro pics I took today. Watched a bit of PeeWees big adventure with Mac and Ben and listened to old American folk music.
Food
Breakfast: Almond Oats & More cereal; cup o' tea.
Before lunch snack: 2 x fried chicken pieces (that Ben made using the cooking guide recipe)
Lunch: Cheese on toast; clementine; banana; Fox's whipped cream (same as viennese whirl); cup o' tea.
Dinner: 4 x fried chicken pieces (that Ben made using the cooking guide recipe); potatoes; mini corn on the cobs; green beans. Pudding was Cornish ice cream with Scottish raspberries. Coffee. Roses.
Supper ten crupper: Choco Liebniz biscuit; cup o' tea.
The trouble I was having was that on the server it was giving an error message that it couldn't find the php includes files. I thought the problem was that my webhost had setup their system so the site root refered to when doing a php include was below the documentRoot, wheras on my local setup the root refered to when doing a php include was the documentRoot. After doing lots of reading on virtual hosts and raising a ticket with my webhost I finally managed to fix it.
The problem was nothing to do with the root at all - in fact my php includes were relative, not relative from the root i.e. they didn't start with a forward slash /, which I thought I had done. The problem was that my local environment is windows, which is case insensitive, while the server runs on Linux, which is case sensitive. Some of my includes files I had refered to like include('SSI/Nav.inc.php') wheras the actual file was named nav.inc.php, so it didn't work.
After fixing that on my index page, I found the navigation menu didn't work. After doing some work on this, I found that I had to change some stuff in the SQL query to get it to work. An IF statment IF field IS TRUE I had to change to IF field = 1. Not sure why, although the web server is running mysql 4.1 wheras I'm running 5.something locally. Also had problems with my query referring to tables with the wrong case, again because Linux is case sensitive while Windows is not. More info on that in the MySQL manual.
In the afternoon I did a bit more work on the website, then did a bit of Japanese learning. Did some gardening to dig up some ground near the pond so we can plant wild flowers there and also plant some buddleia in the garden to encourage butterflies.
After dinner I watched the DJ Yoda goes to the movies video with Mac. Then I sorted some macro pics I took today. Watched a bit of PeeWees big adventure with Mac and Ben and listened to old American folk music.
Food
Breakfast: Almond Oats & More cereal; cup o' tea.
Before lunch snack: 2 x fried chicken pieces (that Ben made using the cooking guide recipe)
Lunch: Cheese on toast; clementine; banana; Fox's whipped cream (same as viennese whirl); cup o' tea.
Dinner: 4 x fried chicken pieces (that Ben made using the cooking guide recipe); potatoes; mini corn on the cobs; green beans. Pudding was Cornish ice cream with Scottish raspberries. Coffee. Roses.
Supper ten crupper: Choco Liebniz biscuit; cup o' tea.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Rainy
It rained on and off (mostly on) all day today so I didn't get to try to out my canon macro setup.
In the morning I went on the pinternet and went on wii fit for quite a while.
In the afternoon I tried to setup my local test website so the root folder for php includes files would be a couple of folders below (so it would be the same as the web server). I spent nearly all afternoon on it, but couldn't get it to work.
After dinner me, Ben & Mac P finished watching the Hulk, and then watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica. After that I went on the pinternet a bit.
Food
Breakfast: Honey nut loops; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Ham with iceberg lettuce and cherry tomato sandwich; slice of bakewell tart; banana; slice of madeira style cake that Ben made the other day; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: ½ eccles cake; cappuchino.
Dinner: Ham quiche; peas; potatoes; butter. Pudding was gingerbread cake with creamy custard. Coffee. Roses.
In the morning I went on the pinternet and went on wii fit for quite a while.
In the afternoon I tried to setup my local test website so the root folder for php includes files would be a couple of folders below (so it would be the same as the web server). I spent nearly all afternoon on it, but couldn't get it to work.
After dinner me, Ben & Mac P finished watching the Hulk, and then watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica. After that I went on the pinternet a bit.
Food
Breakfast: Honey nut loops; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Ham with iceberg lettuce and cherry tomato sandwich; slice of bakewell tart; banana; slice of madeira style cake that Ben made the other day; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: ½ eccles cake; cappuchino.
Dinner: Ham quiche; peas; potatoes; butter. Pudding was gingerbread cake with creamy custard. Coffee. Roses.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Buying some puffers
This morning my 450d and 18-55 IS lens arrived back from Canon. I took them out for a quick test. Unfortunately its still front focusing, although not quite as bad as before and I even got 1 shot (out of 6) that was correctly focused! Canon had included a print of some test shots (4 images each printed about 3.5" x 5" on a sheet of A4 photo paper) to show the lens was working correctly. However, all the shots (maybe not one of them) look like they were taken at less than 10m from the subject (the camera only seems to front focus with subjects that are over 10m away). Also at that print size you probably couldn't see any focus problems.
Anyway, I think I will give up on sending it to canon again, since it costs money to post it to them and also means I am without the camera for a week. It means I won't be able to use the camera and lens instead of my D200 and 18-70 lens for a walkaround combo, but it may be useful for larger insects e.g. butterflies, I will have to try it.
After doing the quick test I went down town to post my creative CB2530 headphones that somoeone won on ebay ages ago, but only paid for yesterday. When I got back I went on the pinternet for a bit, then tested out the 450d with MP-E65 and MT-24EX for a bit. I didn't do too many test shots really, but it looked like bare flash or milk jug diffuser, tissue, tissue paper in front of the flash still give you harsh highlights and relatively harsh shadows. A mini softbox made from cardboard, foil and tissue paper seemed to give the best results.
Unfortunately the mini-softbox I made is quite large and I would need to make another one to go on the other flash head, it might be hard to get them both at the right angles with the size of the mini-softboxes. I had done some research on diffusion (and made the mini-softbox) for the MT-24EX over the last few days since I knew it was important. Most of the info I found was posts by John K (He seems to post at a lot of sites!) suggesting the Gary Fong puffer diffusers. However these are expensive, about £17ea. on ebay, shipped from the US, so I didn't want to order any before I'd received the flash and tested cheaper alternatives. Also I'm sure that John K posted a few weeks ago that he now thought the puffers distrubute the light too widely and so destroy the shadows, and was now using some specialist diffusion plastics he had got as a sample from somewhere.
Even with the mini-softbox, the soldier beetle I was testing on still had a large white shine on it's back (just not as harsh as with the other diffusion methods I'd tried). So I decided it would be worth trying to get a couple of puffers to see how well they worked, I did some searching and found some info that said that cheap knock offs used to be available on ebay, but had all been pulled. They also gave 2 websites that sell the knock offs, which made me think of dealextreme, so I tried there and they did have them. The pics on dealextreme are of a blue one, but I assume they actually send you a clear/white one, so I ordered some of those, plus a couple of flash diffusers that looked a bit like the cardboard one I made.
I went on the pinternet a bit and read that some other people were having the same focus problems with their 450ds as me, although the large majority of people seem to have them working correctly.
After dinner I helped Ben make some fruit have Maccy and Moohars faces on. Then we watched a couple of episodes of Get along gang (A good song by Wiley reminded me of it).
Food
Breakfast: Honey nut loops; cup o' tea.
Mid morning snack: Choc chip cookie; bits of nice, butter and malted milk biscuits; coffee.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; clementine; slice of madeira style cake that Ben made; caramel rocky; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Chilli burger with tomato relish, cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce & sliced cherry tomato; chips. Pudding was trifle spong, sliced pear half and the chocolate mousse that Ben and Mac P made yesterday. Coffee.
Anyway, I think I will give up on sending it to canon again, since it costs money to post it to them and also means I am without the camera for a week. It means I won't be able to use the camera and lens instead of my D200 and 18-70 lens for a walkaround combo, but it may be useful for larger insects e.g. butterflies, I will have to try it.
After doing the quick test I went down town to post my creative CB2530 headphones that somoeone won on ebay ages ago, but only paid for yesterday. When I got back I went on the pinternet for a bit, then tested out the 450d with MP-E65 and MT-24EX for a bit. I didn't do too many test shots really, but it looked like bare flash or milk jug diffuser, tissue, tissue paper in front of the flash still give you harsh highlights and relatively harsh shadows. A mini softbox made from cardboard, foil and tissue paper seemed to give the best results.
Unfortunately the mini-softbox I made is quite large and I would need to make another one to go on the other flash head, it might be hard to get them both at the right angles with the size of the mini-softboxes. I had done some research on diffusion (and made the mini-softbox) for the MT-24EX over the last few days since I knew it was important. Most of the info I found was posts by John K (He seems to post at a lot of sites!) suggesting the Gary Fong puffer diffusers. However these are expensive, about £17ea. on ebay, shipped from the US, so I didn't want to order any before I'd received the flash and tested cheaper alternatives. Also I'm sure that John K posted a few weeks ago that he now thought the puffers distrubute the light too widely and so destroy the shadows, and was now using some specialist diffusion plastics he had got as a sample from somewhere.
Even with the mini-softbox, the soldier beetle I was testing on still had a large white shine on it's back (just not as harsh as with the other diffusion methods I'd tried). So I decided it would be worth trying to get a couple of puffers to see how well they worked, I did some searching and found some info that said that cheap knock offs used to be available on ebay, but had all been pulled. They also gave 2 websites that sell the knock offs, which made me think of dealextreme, so I tried there and they did have them. The pics on dealextreme are of a blue one, but I assume they actually send you a clear/white one, so I ordered some of those, plus a couple of flash diffusers that looked a bit like the cardboard one I made.
I went on the pinternet a bit and read that some other people were having the same focus problems with their 450ds as me, although the large majority of people seem to have them working correctly.
After dinner I helped Ben make some fruit have Maccy and Moohars faces on. Then we watched a couple of episodes of Get along gang (A good song by Wiley reminded me of it).
Food
Breakfast: Honey nut loops; cup o' tea.
Mid morning snack: Choc chip cookie; bits of nice, butter and malted milk biscuits; coffee.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; clementine; slice of madeira style cake that Ben made; caramel rocky; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Chilli burger with tomato relish, cheddar cheese, iceberg lettuce & sliced cherry tomato; chips. Pudding was trifle spong, sliced pear half and the chocolate mousse that Ben and Mac P made yesterday. Coffee.
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