I stumbled upon the Royal Barge Gloriana today

I decided to take a walk along the Thames Path just as the sun was setting. The river was very quiet considering all the hustle yesterday with the Olympic opening ceremony.

This is my first wide lens - granted, 18mm on a crop body isn't that wide, but I still like the effect.

On my way back, just as I got close to Slice of Reality, I noticed the reflected sun on the water and decided to take a snapshot of it. The shot came with a bird in flight. I liked the motion.

Then a tug came into view and I focused on that. I did not notice that it was towing Gloriana until it was right in front of me. It was quite a surprise. I then ran after it and got a few more shots. And this is it.

Closeup video of Canada Geese feeding

We live right next to the Greenwich Ecology Park and there are lots of birds around. I was playing with my SLR camera yesterday and capture some great footage of the local Canada Geese feeding. I think the camera was made for this kind of close-up work. What do you think?

Paddle steamer Elizabethan

I got my new Canon 650D DSLR camera yesterday and I tried my hand at some videos. We occasionally see the Elizabethan, a restaurant boat sail past our house and I took the opportunity to make a short video of it.

It is operated by Thames Luxury charters and takes tourists to the Thames Barrier every few weeks.

This was my first published video recorded on my Canon 650D DSLR and I am still practising. I used my Canon EOS EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM lens for this. I found that it was reasonably easy to capture the video, even at the full 300mm zoom. However, the camera does seem to hunt for focus sometimes.

UK Weather warning...

It seems it is time for the next weather warning. It seems as though we are in for a bit of flooding.

Canon 650d Camera and links

I've recently decided to buy a new DSLR camera and it has been tough deciding between these cameras:

• Canon EOS 600D
• Canon EOS 60D
• Canon EOS 7D

I didn't want to pay a fortune, but I still wanted a better camera than my current Canon EOS 350D My list of criteria was pretty simple

• It needed to be more sensitive than the 350D - the 350D only supports up to an ISO level of 1600
• I want a video capturing ability. At present I take a lot of video clips with my iPhone 4, but the quality is not good enough.
• It needs to support my lenses, which ruled out Nikon
• It would be nice if the camera has a flip-out screen that I can use to compose photos from weird angles - something I can't do with my 350D

I couldn't really make a decision, because each one of the cameras in the list above had something counting in its favour and I couldn't make up my mind. But then Canon launched the EOS 650D a couple of weeks ago and that got my attention. This is why.

• Has very good video support
• Includes a touch-sensitive, flip out type screen that you can use to focus
• Has a better processing engine
• It is affordable

Hopefully I'll receive my camera tomorrow and I'll post a short review. I found these reviews helpful:

• dpreview.com
• cnet.com
• TechRadar

And this video:

The end of Dye transfer printing

I had this indescribable fascination with Dye Transfer printing since I saw this interview with Ctein a few years ago. Since then I've been keeping in touch with Ctein and I was a little alarmed when I spotted the announcement that dye transfer is going to end soon. It is sad in a way, because he is the last person that I know of that still prints in this way. Kodak stopped producing the chemicals, matrix film and paper back in the early 1990s and Ctein bought all the stock he could find so that he could continue printing. When his stock runs out, it will be gone forever. So we decided to order three prints just to see this in real life. I am excited to announce that Ctein will soon send me mine. (Sorry Ctein, I lifted the descriptions and photos from your site). He quoted me a price in dollars, but he was not very specific about the exact flavour of dollars he wanted. Obviously I offered to pay him in the now defunct Zim dollars and be generous and add a few zeroes onto his price. He didn't fall for it. Smart man! I ordered these three prints: Fresh Pahoehoe, Mothers Day Flow HI -- 2002 A tongue of bright cherry-red lava seeps from under sparkling black and white crust. A brilliantly textured and detailed scene, with filaments of orange-gray new crust solidifying on the tongue. Competing Ferns, May '73 Lava Flow HI ~ 2002 A cluster of ferns in greens, reds, oranges, yellows, and browns springs forth from a crevice in the charcoal black pahoehoe from the May 1973 lava flow. Mud and Horsetails, N. Ontario Canada ~1980 In the light of the setting sun, horsetails glow with almost luminescent shades of yellow-green, as they grow out of the rich brown-maroon mud of the stream bed. I tried to pick three that appealed to my own idea of good composition and that I believe should show the advantages of dye transfer. I don't have any idea what they are going to look like, so I am waiting. Here are a few dye transfer links:

1. http://ctein.com/dyetrans.htm - Ctein describing the process.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvqGN96Q9WU - A video of Charles Cramer describing the process
3. http://www.charlescramer.com/dyetransfer.html - Charles Cramer's article about the printing process
4. http://luminous-landscape.com/video_journal/video_clips-11.shtml - Ctein's videos on the Luminous Landscape where the man himself shows us how to make prints.