Fuji X100s in Edinburgh - Highland Piper

The first image is a crop from the full frame. Click the images to see much larger and more detailed versions.

Fuji X100s Sharpness

I have had this camera for more than a year now and I had good results last year shooting comedians for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

But I have also had mixed results, and a few weeks ago I met someone who also shoots a Fuji X100s.

He asked me what I thought of the image sharpness and I said that there was a strange kind of behaviour in some images that I could only describe as almost double imaging that gave shots a plastic look.

He said he found the same, and we shook our heads at how we had managed to buy highly-recommended cameras that sometimes gave so-so results.

Then about a week ago I noticed a strange thing happening when I opened images in Photoshop Camera Raw. The image would look blurry, as though it had not rendered properly. And then it would just 'develop' and turn into lovely, sharp, detailed, rich, rounded, luxurious images.

Did Adobe update Camera Raw to deal with the x-trans sensor in Fuji cameras?

The Piper

I spoke to the piper and in the course of our conversation he explained that the reed is a single reed just like in a clarinet. I mentioned that I had read Larry Adler saying that he would blow out the reed on his harmonicas after just one full evening's performance and had to throw them away.

The piper (I forget his name - apologies to him) said he had had this reed for two years.

Having never seen a piper in Edinburgh wearing a red jacket, he explained that it was a military jacket and had cost him £500.00 and that he used to collect funds for a hospice and the jacket brought in the crowds - that and his playing. He had terrific staying power when he played, with notes and sequences that just went on and on. He said he had been piping for 45 years and was thankful his lungs had held out.

He said he used a soft reed which made it easier to play and that professional contestants and pipers in military bands used a hard reed to get more volume.

Then he pointed to where the reed sits, and I was so surprised. I expected it to be up near his mouth, but it is buried at the far end of the pipe where it meets the bag. Who knew?

Silvrback Blog - Yes, No, Maybe

The answer is always yes, no, and maybe.

The blogging system is Silvrback - 14-day free trial and then $30/year. It's not exactly front-end blogging but it is near it and it is very intuitive to use.

It states

You have full ownership of your data. Your blog has no advertisements. You own your data and can export it at any time. Embrace the zen-like, Silvrback writing experience.

I cannot think why I am attracted to using it. I don't need another blogging platform. I have Pixels ate.. and I have a self-hosted site at NoMorePencils - so what is there beyond the allure of a well-polished product that makes me want to pay $29.99/year for the privilege? It's a mystery.

Fight Repeal Of Fox Hunting Ban

From a Telegraph article of 6th March:

"The Prime Minister has pledged to give MPs a free vote on whether to repeal the Hunting Act if the Tories win the election.

"People in the countryside must have “the freedom to hunt”, David Cameron has said, as he backed a repeal of the foxhunting ban.

He said that the act “has done nothing for animal welfare” and that he shares “the frustration” about the hunting ban."

Cameron On Fox Hunting

He has a strange idea of animal welfare - ripped apart by dogs is OK, apparently.

A free vote for a repeal that he has declared he supports will be seen as a test of his Government - especially if he introduces the vote early on in the life of this new Government.

It's worrying that the repeal might pass as a show of support for the Government. Then it won't be a conscience vote - it'll be a political vote.

Support this petition to David Cameron to withdraw the vote.

38 Degrees Petition

Reach For The Sky

This article is cross-posted from Photographworks.me



I took these photos with my iPhone. I also took my Fuji, but the photos are still on the SD card.

When I first read about cameras with built-in wifi that enables you to wirelessly transfer the images to computer, I thought it was a gimmick. But the truth is that in a world of convenience, everything that is even a little bit less convenient becomes a chore.

So, back to the tale of a week in London.

We spent a week there and we were blessed with good weather so we spent a day at Kew Gardens. The magnolias were in bloom and they were staggeringly beautiful.

We also visited the Wildfowl and Wetland Centre at Barnes, just four miles from the centre of London - with hundreds of wildfowl - ducks, geese, waders...

And we went to the Wildlife Photography Exhibition and to an exhibition on Greek sculpture. And to some other things like sitting out at the South Bank Centre and watching the world go by.

It was a full week and just what we needed to dust away some cobwebs.

Kew

The photo above is from near the entrance/exit to Kew and I thought it would look nice with the magnolia framing the little building.

I am not sure what the building is, probably a little folly or gazebo in classical style, built to look cute - which it does.





The next shot is a pink magnolia, also at Kew. We were all ooh-ing and aah-ing over it and you can see someone admiring it. And you can see how huge the flowers are.

And then there's a close-up of another magnolia - a white one that was deep into the gardens. We passed it as we were stalking a green woodpecker that was flitting low and pecking on the ground.

Kew Gardens covers 300 acres (120 hectares) which is big for London and maybe for anywhere in the UK. I'll keep my voice low because I am sure there are developers licking their lips at the prospect of all that land if it were ever to become available for development.

And Now For Some Urban Reality

This is Heron Tower. I've photographed it before and it always makes me raise my camera/phone. It, and other even more massive buildings now surround the city of London (the financial district of London), are like invaders from another planet (think Tom Cruise in War Of The Worlds).

There are lots of churches in the financial district and they are dwarfed by buildings like the Lloyds building. Here's a shot of it (it's the building on the left) and as you can see, it is an inside-out building like the Pompidou Centre in Paris. All the pipework is on the outside for easy maintenance.

No Courgettes

I saw this van in the next photo when I was on my way early one morning to catch the inflow of people going to work in the morning across one of the London bridges. Those photos are on my Fuji - so watch out for an article about those.



I like the meeting of ideas on the van. If you are not from the UK then you may not be familiar with the fact that lots of shops have signs along the lines of 'No cash kept on these premises overnight.' And the leading supermarkets in the UK do home deliveries. You shop on line and they deliver.

They have cute messages on their delivery vans, like 'Freshly clicked'.

So this van in the photo has married the two ideas to produce this 'No courgettes kept in this van overnight.'



And here is a period building - Osborne House - also in the financial heart of London. I wonder whether there is any relation to George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer?



And then a shot showing the building that is colloquially known by Londoners as the gherkin (which is why Tamara and I call it the pickle.)

It was occupied by the Lord Mayor and the City Of London council - or something along those lines - and is now insurance offices or something.

The gherkin was built after the Baltic Exchange was blown up by the IRA in the 1970s. On this visit to London I happened to go into a church near here. I like to see what they look like inside - many of them being very old.

The one I visited was St Botolphs Without Bishopsgate, and there was a leaflet inside that described how it survived the Great Fire Of London without damage. And how it survived the Second World War with just a couple of windows blown out. But it didn't survive the blast from the Baltic Exchange bombing and lost its windows and its roof completely.

Finally, the last photo is the Shard on the south bank of the Thames - more about that when I I process the Fuji photos.

Carousel Dropbox

In my innocence I clicked on the Carousel icon in Dropbox. Who knew that would activate Carousel?

I don't and didn't want it activated: I was just taking a look at what it is.

I asked Support how to deactivate it and they explained that I needed to go Carousel and then log out. That, according to Support would deactivate Carousel and it would stay inactive as long as I didn't click on a link to Carousel in Dropbox or visit carousel.dropbox.com.

What a journey around the houses.

How Many Psychological Triggers Can You Pull

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[ From an ad for the Tortuga Carry-on Backpack Air ]

Giveaway Tools

After looking at an article on InsightScope about contest giveaways, I just read the FAQs for one of the tools, which is KingSumo Giveaway and I see that as at the time the FAQs were prepared, the tool doesn't integrate with Mailchimp. Instead you have to download a CSV and upload.

Also, there is a warning that the tool may not be compatible with Facebook's terms in the future.

Finally, there is a long, convoluted way you have to deal with duplicate content, which is described in the FAQs as follows:

I’m concerned about duplicate pages for SEO We don’t create new pages, just add a parameter to your URLS. Google just sees the original page and URL structure. What we recommend if Google results are important is to run the tool, then once it looks like a winner I’d change the Title to the winner and the original URL. Remove the other titles. We are working on a fix to make this easier.

Advanced users:

Utilize the parameter tools in Google’s Webmaster Tools and set the Headline plugin’s unique parameter as “Representative URL.” You’ll find this in Webmaster Tools under “Crawl > URL Parameters.” More details on the setting URL parameters can be found at this Google support document. Make sure you have canonical URLs setup on your WordPress website. Many SEO plugin tools will have this available out of the box, with the popular tool being Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin. More details on canonical URLs usage scenarios can be found at the Google documentation here.

So I asked KingSumo:

1. Does Giveaways integrate with Mailchimp marketing service?

2. Is Giveaways compliant with Facebook’s terms of service as of now, March 2015?

3. Any updates on a fix to make dealing with duplicate pages for SEO easier?

I'll update this when I hear back.