Today, I wanted to experiment with the 2nd curtain sync function on my flashgun, so really wanted to get something with movement, and as my Newton’s Cradle was laying about, I thought I’d try that.

Getting an exposure I was happy with was completely trial and error as I was using the camera on manual mode, dialling flash exposure compensation into the speedlite and using a homemade snoot on the flash to control the spread of light.

In the end, this was my favourite, as the highlights create some nice arcs showing the path of the steel balls when they were in motion.

I got to the end of today, and have to confess that I was at the stage where I really couldn’t be arsed (I find that packing your belongings into boxes tends to do that to you, well me at least).

I tried several different angles and compositions, but in the end decided to opt for the pencils on a diagonal and use a wide aperture to keep only ght tip of the front pencil in focus, progressively blurring the rest, as I far too frequently opt for maximum depth of field.

The shot was lit using a daylight balanced desk lamp on the RHS, and my speedlite on the left to lift the shadows slightly.

I thought that I would have a bit of a play with my flashgun again today.

I got this crackle glass tumbler in The Pier and decided that it would look good against a black velvet backdrop, lit from the top with the flashgun and snoot to create a tightly controlled pool of light with sharp falloff into shadow.

The lighting works, and the glass positively glows where it is cracked, but unfortunately the sides of the glass which are uncracked disappear, so I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a glass that is cracked all over.

I was feeling a bit fed up today, and having read a lot of positive things about the new Canon EOS 40D, thought that I’d pop into town to see if I could have a play with one.

Jessops in central Reading had a couple still in stock and let me have a play around with one.

I wanted to get the 30D instead of the 400D last year, but as I needed lenses, couldn’t justify the extra cost, and I have been waiting for the much rumoured 40D ever since.

All I can say is “I Want One Now” and if the money had been in the bank today, I’d have walked out with one.

The focussing is incredibly swift, its really comfortable to hold without resorting to the additional battery grip (unlike the 400D), and the Live View function that allows you to compose using the rear LCD screen is certainly impressive, though how often I would use it is debatable.

Its quite a bit bigger and heavier than the 400D, so I would probably keep hold of my current camera as a bacjup when travelling, but my mind is made up and the money is spent before its even in the bank.

Its very expensive compared to the now heavily discounted 30D at £839 body only street price or £799 online price, so I think that I’ll hold off until the new year so that there is time to work out any early issues, and see what the price is doing then.

Not really sure whether this one works or not.

Had a pile of change laying around, so thought I’d point the camera at it.

This one is called “Looking After The Pennies”

I saw this boat and strong reflection the other day when I was walking down to the Car Hire firm to pick up a car.

When I got home today, the sun was out, so I thought that I would go and shoot todays photograph.

Image has been cropped to Panoramic format and contrast and saturation tweaked when processing the raw file.

Had a fantastic day.  It got off to a shaky start as the birds didn’t want to do what the falconers wanted, but they eventually settled down and I got some good shots.

The in-flight shots are a bit shaky, but not too bad considering that it was my first attempt at taking shots of birds flying.  I’m much happier with my portrait shots though.

The album can be found below.

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I’ve had a great day today. I had the day off work to go to a photography day at the Hawk Conservancy Trust at Weyhill just outside of Andover.

I struggled a bit with the birds in flight, but when I got home found that the images were sharper than I though they were going to be, so I’m quite pleased.

I managed to get some really nice portraits of some of the birds, and this tawny owl was one of my favourites.

I highly recommend the photography days here, as you get access to the site which the public do not enjoy, and the falconers are extremely helpful in positioning the birds so that they look natural.

I had decided what I was going to post as todays photo whilst still at work, and nipped out before the shops closed to get the dice and green felt.

It proved slightly harder than I thought, but after much perserverence got an image that I was happy with.

This was taken using a desk lamp as secondary illumination and a speedlite 430ex on second curtain sync to freeze the dice near the end of their path. Shutter speed was 1/6s and aperture set at f16 to try and get the dice sharp.

Unlike last night, I had a firm idea of what I wanted to post as my image for today.

The photo was taken by dropping blue food colouring into a flat sided Gold Blend coffee jar which had white sheets of A4 paper as a backdrop.

My flash was aimed at the paper with its diffuser attached, and the resulting image was rotated by 180 degrees.

I cloned out a load of unwanted mess before tweaking the levels in Photoshop to turn the background near white instead of the muddy grey that it started out as.