From this…..

To this!!!!!!

Click on pics for full size!

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I bought my first conventional SLR in 1999. It was a Nikon something something with a kit lens. I thought it was quite cool and I loved ruining almost all of my ISO 200 films on it. It was eating into my expenses heavily so had to take it easy. I used it off and on and brought it with me to London.

I used this camera a few times in London and burned into about 20 films before I got bored and stuck to cheapo digital point and shoots, the last one being a Panasonic LX3 Leica 24-55mm f/2.0 lens. Now, the LX3 wasn’t a bad camera at all but I just wanted to get back into those lovely out of focus background shots like this one I took of my wife in 2007 with the Nikon SLR.  Not the sharpest of shots, but I didn’t really care back then.

Bokeh on this shot was ok, f/5.6 me thinks, not great but I didn’t know what bokeh was back then… click for full size

Watching my mates jumping onto the DSLR bandwagon one by one, I decided to try my hand on something that would be a DSLR-esque compact, unique camera with lots of good reviews and a healthy user community. After spending hours on end and much research on sites like DPReview, I purchased the Sony NEX-5N with a kit lens arrangement in late 2011. This camera is certainly a slick little number and has been pivotal in my sudden re-initiation and love for photography. I have discovered that legacy lenses still matter and that manual focus is so much more fun. Here is a shot of all the gear I accumalated with the Sony NEX 5N with some lenses from the 50s and the 60s.

Sony NEX5N with legacy lenses and other accessories

I started buying lenses and accessories and adapters left right and centre, enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was short lived. I discovered (too much forum reading) that I need something better, something worthy of being called a DSLR. I started considering Canons and Nikons again. Looked at all their APS-C range but was drawn to full frame and went for the top of the line in the enthusiast category at the time and splashed out on a brand new Canon 5D Mark II in Jan 2012.

Canon 5d Mark II

Its been a few months since I got this and have been buying accessories and lenses to compliment the impulse purchase. Here is a list of all the kit I have right now:

• Canon 5D Mark II with 24-105mm L USM Kit lens
• Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime
• Canon 15mm f/2.8 ultra wide fisheye
• Contax Carl Zeiss Distagon 28mm f/2.8
• Contax Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/1.7
• Contax Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonar 35-70mm f/3.4
• Olympus OM 50mm f/1.4 MIJ
• Minolta Rokkor-X PG 58mm f/1.2
• Canon 430EX II Speedlite
• Yongnuo 603C wireless triggers
• B-Grip, hand grip, tripod adapter
• RedSnapper RS-283 Tripod & RHS-12 Ball Head
• Targus Monopod
• Edelkrone Pocket Rig
• All lenses with B&W MRC UV filters
• A whole lotta various accessories
• LCDVF
• Kata 3N1 22 DSLR bag

I am still learning how to use this puppy and discovering new things almost every day. For instance, I can install a custom firmware on the 5D to literally explode the movie making abilities of the camera. Check Magic Lantern and you will see what I mean. I now also want to calibrate all my lenses with the camera using Reikan Focal. So much to do, if only I could find the time.

With all this fancy gear, I have realised I am lusting after equipment more than I should be and should really be concentrating on things like composition, lighting, shapes, generally the art of photography (someone stop me). I have already been accused of being a pixel peeper and a gear junkie in a few forums. I am happy to admit that I am but I guess a little bit of pixel peeping doesn’t hurt. Currently I am happy with only about 1% of all the photographs I have shot so far. Thats an awfully low number and I am hoping to improve on this. If only someone can slap some sense into me so I can stop running after the best most recent gear and concentrate on real photography. Anyone?

I am looking for a catchy moniker to put on my photos as a watermark. Any ideas?

Here’s one I came up with:

ALITECH IMAGES

Some of the better pictures that I have taken will be coming up in subsequent posts. Watch this space.

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I created a Facebook Fan Page in 2009 and have been actively marketing it to facebook users within the UK. It was hacked a few months ago and I am still unable to recover it from the alleged hacker. I don’t know what purpose it serves these hackers to take over a page and do nothing with it?

Facebook are not acknowledging the hack and turn a deaf ear to all of us who have experienced a takeover of their fan pages. Despite thousands of legitimate requests, Facebook are unwilling to consider giving back access because of of security reasons that are unbeknown to all. A simple excuse for not able to identify original page creators from the hackers if you ask me.

The Register did an article on this very subject after I prompted them. Despite the article explicitly describing how facebook fan pages are being hacked, and how the original page administrators are left out in the cold, it did little to help victims of a fan page takeover.

For people who hit this article from a google search, please visit this page for ideas on how you *could* potentially get your page back. I certainly tried everything but no luck so far. Facebook have even closed all the forum threads on their support pages that complained about pages being hacked. I wish you all the best in getting yours back. Sorry to end this on a downer but I just wanted vent for a bit. I have stopped pursuing this for now.

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There comes a point every day where I have to look at my calendar to fit in a coffee and a lunch perhaps. Everyone wants to take up my lunch hour as well. How to deal with a busy calendar at work, looking for opinions please.

Click on the image for full size

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Note: Image published without permission from BSI, but whatever is shown is pretty boring to the uninitiated.

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I WANT TO BREAK FREE – QUEEN

I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self-satisfied I don’t need you
I got to to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free

I’ve fallen in love
I’ve fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it’s for real
I’ve fallen in love, yeah
God knows, God knows I’ve fallen in love

It’s strange but it’s true (hey yea)
I can’t get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh how I want to be free baby
Oh how I want to be free
Oh how I want to break free

But life still goes on
I can’t get used to living without, living without, living without you
by my side
I don’t want to live alone, hey
God knows got to make it on my own
So baby can’t you see
I’ve got to break free

I’ve got to break free
I want to break free, yeah

I want I want I want I want to break free ..

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I have been a faithful android fanatic ever since it launched. I used to have windows smartphones before this, but I am sure you can understand why I would want to move away from that OS.

I just bought the Samsung Galaxy S 2, after flogging my Nexus S on fleabay.. what a device I tell you.. simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Its got a 1.2 Ghz dual core processor and all of the android communities prowess behind it. Its going strong and is currently the most advanced Android smartphone out there. Check out the monster specs sheet n GSMArena.com and a hands on review on Engadget

The kickass Samsung Galaxy S2

I wanted to try out homebrewed android ROMs after rooting my device over the weekend, as its the all the rave right now. I tried out a few including one called VillianRom. Although there are a few other ROMs out there, this seems to be the most mature. So anyways, I wanted to get the latest android release on my phone, which currently is Gingerbread 2.3.4 so after installing VillianRom I can report that the phone has become truly supersonic. The quadrant benchmarking scores are off the ROOF, and Linpack reports 86 megaflops on multithread.

There is a lot I can say about this phone, actually I can’t stop talking about it, so I’ll stop here. I will however list some of the apps I most frequently use.

Coolest Apps On The Android Market as of July 2011

1. My Backup Pro
2. Audiogalaxy
3. Astro file manager
4. Shazam encore
5. Rom Manager
6. Set CPU
7. Root explorer
8. HulloMail
9. Whatsapp
10. Remote VNC Pro
11. Barcode scanner
12. Zabihah
13. Adfree
14. Swiftkey X
15. Shootme
16. Skype
17. Pulse
18. Cube Extended
19. Llama
20. Google+
21. Go Weather HD
22. Tubemate (unavailable on the market right now)
23. BBC news
24. Total recall

Some screenshots for to make this post a little colourful.

Home Screen Galaxy S2 Stock ROM

Quadrant score for galaxy S2 on Stock Rom

Linpack Score for Galaxy S2 Stock ROM

I will do some more posts about Android in general and how to squeeze every bit of juice out of your android device including tips and tricks as well as some serious reviews on some Android devices I have tested and used including:

• Motorola Atrix
• Acer Iconia A500 tab
• Samsung Nexus S
• ZTE Blade
• HTC Desire S
• HTC Desire

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This was done back in January and since then I have ordered around 50 gigs for social bookmarking, link building, twitter marketing etc. Check out the “fun and bizarre” section to amuse yourself.

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The soundtrack is apparently home brewed. Thanks Wraheal, it is awesome. If only I had your butt-kickers to get the full effect.

You might want to check out some of his other stuff.

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