Random Bits from Boredom

fill only | key only | key and fill Maths seems to rule the world and normally in a complex way. These are notes to allow us to approxim...

As with most things commercial, there are a million different products claiming to be the ultimate solution. However it is difficult to ...

The 50mm 'standard' lens was the 'kit' lens of yesteryear but that didn't mean that they were poor quality. In recent t...

Who said all design in the 1980s was bad?

image (c) Jonathan Mak As the web weeps with it's tributes to Steve Jobs' passing this month, there have been some interesting ite...

The Westcott 28" Apollo softbox has been long admired for it's quality of light, but as with most things in life, quality costs. F...

There is nothing like a good trick and ImageMagick (IM) has plenty of them - if you need a command line swiss knife image toolset then this...

A colour correct image is important for the basis of any post processing: there are a number of white balance targets on the market (such as...

I don't shoot your traditional macros: I tend to shoot people although I do shoot products occasionally, but never enough to justify a d...

One of the most common debates (ignoring brand wars) in the hobbyist/amateur camera world is whether one should shoot RAW or jpeg (or RAW/jp...

[ non-geeks need to look away - notes about virtualisation on Linux ] Years before I became a photo nerd, I was already a computer nerd ...

Hidding in a bush/behind the garbage waiting for something to come into view/focus and immediately want your Nikon to snap it? Trap focus i...

This is one of those things that I always have to think twice before getting right, but this is how to remotely trigger your camera AND you...

Whilst all my photography has been limited to digital, there has always never been anything that compares to holding a physical (RGB) print....

I like numbers. Good numbers, like 8, and it's just so that I should get to know some more numbers when using my flashes/light modifie...

Music is a powerful thing and has always been around in my life. However, there have been some songs that have burned themselves into my mi...

If you've ever needed to kill ambient midday or required to freeze action, then you'll know that insane shutter speeds are your frie...

The inverse square law (ISL) is one of those things that just annoys me as I keep confusing myself after I've learned it. When you loo...

Reasonable hotshoe softboxes only really come in 2 favours - the Westcott Apollo or the Lastolite Ezybox (incl the ebay clones). When I was...

After years of being, what felt like the last person on Earth, without an iPod I finally joined the Apple family.