On Surf Rescue Duty
From Manly Beach, Sydney, NSW, Australia… Love the weather and sunshine that day 🙂
Taken With A Pinch Of Salt
I received a birthday gift in advance from CY in the form of a Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 carbon-fibre tripod. I have been longing for a lightweight tripod for some time. I still feel that a tripod is essential in many situations for good and sharp photography but abandoned the idea of bringing my older Manfrotto aluminum tripod on my two most recent overseas trip to spare my shoulders and back :P. With this new tripod, I certainly won’t have any more excuse not for bringing it along for my photo trips!
One of the interesting features of this new tripod is its Quick Center Column system which allows me to put the camera quickly into a horizontally-mounted position. I played around with this feature in my kitchen using a macro lens, a pinch of salt, a compact disc and a torchlight. I am pretty happy with the above shot I managed to get 🙂
“And That’s How The Seagulls Landed On The Beach”
From Bondi Beach, Australia 🙂
Now a rant… I used to be an avid reader and fan of the UK photo magazine Photography Monthly, subscribing to it even for a while. The magazine had seen better days even though it has gone through a change of 3 editorial teams since 2003. With the latest change, it seems to have taken a turn for the worse. I was extremely disappointed when a forum thread with 72 follow-up posts, many with negative comments (from loyal and concerned readers) on the new issue (from the new team) were deleted by their forum moderators. When I voiced my comment on their (now restricted-to-public-view) feedback forums, I was surprised to get a notification that posts have now to be approved by moderators before they can be posted. I cross-posted the same post to their general forum as well (no approval required). This was the reply I got a few hours later:
Hello engloy,
You are receiving this notification because your topic “What happened to
the feedback posts on the January issue?” at “Photography Monthly Forum”
was disapproved by a moderator or administrator.The following reason was given for the disapproval:
The post contains links to illegal or pirated software.
—
Best Regards,
The Photography Monthly Team
Hello???????! Has PM hired on its team, people that engineered the “Great Firewall of China”? That magazine has just lost one loyal reader. In any case, I have found my new read and subscription. For those who miss the Photography Monthly of old, check out Digital SLR Photography magazine, which has as its editor, Daniel Lezano, the person who started PM in the first place.