The Camera Always Lies

 The other week I just did not feel like walking at all, although I managed a few steps , last week I did get back to sort of normal although th eclocks going back has had an effect. Last night I went out in daylight at around 4:30pm , when I returned around 5:30pm I was in total darkness, the dark came nown very quickly and although the weather is cold it's not freezing.

When I go I out I do enjoy trying to capture pictures, especially the skies , simethimes you don't get what you want, but sometimes you get things far more amazing than what you have actually seen. This morning the sky was a gorgeous pink with mackerel cloud effects , but the pictures I took were grey and nondescript. This week I have taken some amazing looking sunrise pictures , and they were nowhere near as good as the photographs that I took.

The thing is I remember photography being film based , you took the picture , then when you finished the film you paid to have it developed and a week or two later you got the results which may or may not be in focus. Now thanks to enormous jumps in technology we have cameras as part of our communication devices and ofthen these allow us almost instant access to take pictures.

The other thing is that if you don't take pictures immediately then the moment is gone, that was never an option with film based cameras.

Another thing is that often see vistas which I want to take a picture of , but the camera cannot capture the faraway image sthat I see like a plane or a bird. The other thing is that the human eye only captures part of what we see and the brain fills in the gaps.

With a phone camera we don't have an optical zoom, so we need a a very high pixel capture to enable the digital zoom , which works to a point, but still is nowhere near as good as the human eye or cameras with optical zoom (which have enabled me to capture images that I couldn't actually see when I took the photograph),

I once had a Sony phone and the camera on that could take some amazingly psychedelic images, which I sort of loved , but was not good fir capturing a normal picture. Apparently my Google Pixel 2XL is one of the best phone cameras, and the number of photographs I take are a testament to that, but I know things are only going to get better in this area.

The word "Camera" appears in a wonderful line in the John Cooper Clarke song / poem "Post War Glamour Girl" and is:

"Glamourous Cameras Clickety Click"

I always thought "Glamourous Cameras" would be a great name for a band as well. So that is the song we will go with on this dreary Thursday.

Long Distance

I have a Canon SX620 camera and it enables me to take long distance pictures. The control says I can take up to 100x zoom although the front of the camera says 25x optical zoom so that maty be why my longer distance pics get a bit less detailed, after 25x the zoom becomes digital.

I use the photos of long distance shots as a screensaver on my desktop and love when I see something and try to work out lots of things that I had never noticed before in relatively familiar surroundings. From the top of Cow Hill I can photograph from The West Road to Wallsend taking in the City Centre and St Jame's Park.

Having a sizeable zoom worried me about privacy , but I trued taking photos in my front room and front bedroom and the lack of light and glass reflection ensures good privacy. I do wonder about controllable drones that could easily be used to snoop, although I have seen some great outdoor drone shots.

Today Shaun Keaveny brought up the fact that you can use scissors to cut pizza, something I had never thought about , but I suppose you could , although the take aways I get are usually ready cut , and I haven't had a frozen pizza for a long time (Dr Oetker and Morrisons are my preferred ones when I feel in a pizza mood).

So given that this started about cameras we shall go with "The Camera Eye" by Rush

Mr Kilmister Said

I'm still listening to Hawkwind's "Doremi Fasol Latido" and the original album closed with this acoustic song from Lemmy (Ian Fraser Kilmister to give his Sunday name)  and sung by him. While the song is gentle the lyrics are a little more acidic although there is very little indication of  what was to come when he was sacked by the band. This was not his last album with Hawkwind and on "Hall of The Mountain Grill" he contributed probably the best track on that album and also one of his and Hawkwind's finest, the amazing "Lost Johnny". Now that I've mentioned it I have to include that as well don't I.

I wasn't sure if his surname was Kilminster or Kilmister, it turns out it's the latter.

Anyway this week my walking has been good despite some rain and cold mornings, but it's still raining now so I am glad to be warm and dry inside the house.

The weekend is here, the first one of the year and I am looking forward to some well needed rest. My knee has been playing up when I sit down so th eanswer is surely to keep walking, although I think the weather may have contributed to it.

Another thing technology wise is that most of my photos these days are taken using my phone and I was thinking I don't need a camera at all. In fact generally my phone is actually better than my camera for getting the shots I want so I may be have a small technological clear out.

Anyway it's time for bed so have a brilliant weekend everybody.
 

Blue Skies and Sunshine

Blue Skies Over Fenham

To Be Mown

Woke up this morning to blue skies, sunshine and the realisation that lawn mowing may have to start soon, although it is almost the end of March. So really there's no getting away with it. I'm awaiting a delivery of Aftercut that cam via Yodel on Wednesday when I was at work. I was expecting another run in with the delivery company as they only deliver Monday to Friday 9-5 (what sort of time is that to deliver large items to home address/ Anyway, went on their web site and they now deliver on Saturdays, which is good, so I'm expecting delivery of that today, so another thing to brighten up my weekend.

Sunrise in the Back Garden

It's ages since I used my camera to take pictures as I now tend to use my Samsung Note, but have had the camera out this morning and it's good to get to use the optical zoom. It's a five year old Canon Powershot but is compact and easy to use. It may be superseded by my next phone and phone manufacturers have gone for the huge megapixels that allow lossless zooming of pictures negating the the need for an optical zoom for the sort of photographs I take.






Anyway everyone have an absolutely wonderful weekend, I intend to, and if you are in the North East then it's a brilliant day weather wise, and if you are elsewhere in the world you are probably have good weather anyway. Enjoy every moment.

Friday Feeling

Well it's Friday and it's the last day of the holiday , but has been a great week.I found out the guy who runs the farm we are staying at restores vintage cars for a hobby so hopefully I'll get some photos of those before I leave. The weather has been mostly excellent and is very sunny again today.

It's almost eleven o' clock and I've still not switched on my phone , which I have used quite a lot as a camera. It's amazing now how mobile phones are replacing cameras and music players because they are capable of doing all these things.

Add that to Instagram and Facebook and you can be completely connected and let everyone know everything you are doing but whether that's a good thing I'm not to sure.

I've just seen a black ladybird with red spots , apparently seeing a ladybird is lucky, so who knows what may happen , but there's always something good so I know that will come true one way or another.

Although it's Friday the song "Saturday Gigs" by Mott The Hoople is playing round in my mind so I'm going to include that, ain'y Youtube useful?

Anyway I'm going to enjoy the rest of the day and hope that you do too.

Get The Picture?

Holiday Sunset

It's not that long ago that advances in photography , to me , was a 36 picture film reel , which I took my pictures on , hoped they'd turn out ok , then happily drop them into Boots or Jessops , or Max Spielman's and then wait a couple of weeks to see the results. Then you could also get them put onto CD which was really impressive. To get a digital camera that came anywhere near your common or garden film camera would set you back the best part of a grand.

Two Horses

Nowadays you can pick up very good digital cameras for around £50 and get the instannt gratification of seeing immediate results, and the luxury of discarding the rubbish. Last week I took 175 photographs and videos which took up a gigabyte of storage . i cand sift through and adjust , picking oout the best ones, or what I think are the best.





However I really don't know what I'm doing , it's a case of point and hope for the best. Professional photographers know what they are doing , and are able to guarantee the best results whereas I just hope for the best. Mark Johnson is and excelelnt example of someone who know's what he's doing and examples of  his work can be found on his website www.shineyblack.co.uk.

A Phone With A 3D Camera

The new LG Optimus has two cameras that allow you to take 3D images. This is a gimmick obviously , but they keep yammering on about the 5 megapixel Cameras and nothing about the lenses . It's the lense that makes the camera , had a 1.3 megapixel Kodak Camera that outperformed a 5 megapixel camera. It's all in the lens.

Nokia produce the best cameras in phones , followed by Sony, so if you have to have one go for a Nokia . Problem is the rest of the phones arent up to much!!!