Walked in to town from work the other week and was testing out my Canon EOS M. This is again with the 40mm lens and the mount adapter.
Having passed the 5 year mark at work in January (still can't believe it's been 5 years already) I got a BonusBond voucher for long service, and I ended up using it towards buying myself the Canon EOS M. It's a compact system camera and you can change the lenses on it as you would on an SLR, but it's considerably smaller. With the camera I also bought a Canon mount adapter which basically allows me to attach any EF mount lens that fits on my Canon 600D DSLR. The below is the Canon EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens that came with the Canon EOS M, and my MacBook Pro in the background. Took it using the Canon EF 40mm lens attached with the mount adapter as one of the first few photos whilst testing the adapter.
It's been a crazy few weeks shifts-wise at work, and I don't know where the weeks have gone. And I've built up some more backlog of my weekly photos that haven't been posted. So there will be 5 or 6 done this week.. Can't believe it's June already, and although it feels like only yesterday day the week 18 photo was taken back in April. Just after my birthday at the end of April I went down to London for the day, and last thing I did that day was to go up into The Shard to The View from the Shard. And the view from up there was amazing!
Below is just one of the many photos I took during the couple of hours I spent there.
Off to London for the day tomorrow :) and will be taking this (the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens) with me to see how it does at the top of The Shard.
The fence of the shared garden for my block of flats.
On my way home from work on Wednesday it was actually nice and sunny (after a few weeks of grey and miserable weather), and the flowers in the little communal garden behind my flat have started flowering. Took some photos with my iPhone 5S, and also put the macro lens of my Olloclip 4-in-1 lens to the test.The Olloclip is a 4-in-1 lens which slots onto the iPhone on the corner where the camera is. It's got a wide angle lens, a fisheye lens, and two macro lenses (one 10x and one 15x).
The below is the middle of a flower, and it was taken with the 15x macro lens. It's a bit blurry as it was a bit windy, which is not ideal when it takes so little to make the photo out of focus at that high magnification.
I guess this qualifies as both random waffling and tired babbling, or a combination of the two. Although it's 9am I have been up since 7pm ish last night. Finished my second week of night shift yesterday, and tonight has been the first of my three nights off this week. I've had about 5-6hrs sleep a day this week, and I think it's starting to get to that point in the week when it's starting to catch up with me. Which means I'll probably go to bed in a few hours. I am actually really enjoying the night shift, despite pretty much everyone saying I'm crazy for doing it and "rather me than them" sort of thing. It's nice to work Monday to Thursday night though and have your weekend start on Friday morning and end Monday night. Obviously there's a rolling rota, so not all weeks will be Mon-Thu. I've just been put on Mon-Thu for the first few weeks so that they can make sure I can hack it or something.
The grand plan is to do night shift (I'm currently on secondment to the night shift) for 5-6 months and scrape together as much money as possible, and then flee the country for 7-10 days going to New York :D However, depending on how things go, and how well the night shift works with my so-called life, I might end up doing it for longer than 5-6 months. The salary uplift for working unsociable hours is never a bad thing ;)
Just had a look at the last post I wrote that wasn't for my Fifty-Two Week project, and I mentioned having an appointment to get a tattoo done when over in Sweden in January and saying I'd post a photo. I'd completely forgotten about that.. not the tattoo, but posting a photo of it on here. I posted one on Instagram when it was newly done, and since I can't seem to find the photo on my phone I'll just have to provide a link to the Instagram photo for now. I'll try and take/find a newer photo of it and post it on here later.
I can't believe we're nearly half-way through April already.. seems crazy.. and I seriously don't know where this year is disappearing off to. With it being April it's my birthday at the end of the month, and I'm thinking of going down to London for the day (shifts and money permitting). If not necessarily on my birthday, as it's a Sunday, then at least somewhere around then. Really want to go up in The Shard and take photos and give my Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens "test run". Planning on taking it when going to New York in Aug/Sep, so would be nice to try it out from the Shard and see how it does. You can go up to the top in The Shard, as there's The View from The Shard tourist attraction, although it seems to cost £25-30 (depending on if you book it in advance or not).. maybe I'll make that my birthday present to myself :) I've never been on the London Eye, and to be honest The Shard seems like a better idea for taking photos as it obviously won't be moving. Though you're not allowed tripods or monopods in The View from The Shard apparently. Still I'm sure I'm capable of taking photos by just standing still :)
Anyways, it's time for some breakfast. And time to let my ears have some fresh air after having been in/under a pair of headphones since about 1am.. I have to say I'm so happy I've got my Skullcandy Aviator headphones, because they are the most comfortable ever. And they're getting a lot of use now I'm sticking to staying up all night and sleeping in the day what with the night shift. Don't really feel like having the TV on without headphones in the middle of the night, being considerate of my neighbours who probably don't want to be up all night.
My little stack of photography books :) The top one is the Humans of New York book. Love the concept of what he (Brandon Stanton) does, and bought myself the book as an early christmas present last year. The book has been an inspiration, and has also in part fuelled my dreams of going to New York.There is also the HONY Facebook page, giving you your fix right there as you are wasting time on Facebook ;)
Came home from late shift the other week, and it was foggy and cold. The photo below was taken in the alleyway outside my flat that evening.
Went into Jessops not last weekend but the one before (15-Mar) to drool over photography gear.. and ended up buying the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens.. whoops ;)Given that it takes a ridiculously large filter (82mm) they had to order one in since the only ones they had in store at the time was some £130 ones. And I'm all for UV filters and they're easily replaceable if scratched etc, but £130 for one seemed a bit excessive. I exercised some restraint and didn't use the lens until the Wednesday when I was on late shift and could pick up the filter from the shop.
The photo below is one of 30-odd photos I took having a quick wander around town before my shift. Still getting used to just how much fits in the frame with such a wide lens, but looking forward to taking it with me on a trip to London or something. And will definitely take it if (no, I should say when) I go on holiday to New York in August/September (money permitting) :D
Had a wander around town on Saturday, mainly because the weather was nice, but also to test out the geotagging app I'd downloaded earlier in the week.The geotagging app, called Geotag Photos Pro, worked a treat. I've just uploaded my file and have geotagged the photos I took on my DSLR on Saturday :)
As it was nice weather on Saturday the fountain on Old Market Square was full of children running around playing in the water (like it was summer or something). This little girl was definitely enjoying herself.
So Thursday this week was World Book Day. I have a bit of a thing for books, you could say.. These are some books I've gotten in the last couple of months. Currently they actually live on my desk, in a pile, because I've run out of room in my bookcase.. I was 11 or 12 I think when I read my first fantasy novel - it was The Belgariad by David Eddings. Now, I was a bit of a book enthusiast before then; but those books are what got me into the fantasy (and later sic-fi) genre. I stopped reading novels translated into Swedish when I was about 16 and I got fed up of waiting for the latest book in the Wheel of Time series. Got the English one from the school library, and haven't looked back since. To this day however, I have still not read The Belgariad in English.
To be honest I have not been reading as much as I used to in the last few years. And really, I need to stop buying more books - I've got plenty of them which I haven't read yet already. I got myself a Kindle a couple of years ago, but I don't know.. there something special about an actual book. The last book I read was The Shack, which I got for christmas 2012. I read the first half on my way over to Sweden for christmas, and the other half on my way back home. Just could not put it down when I started reading it.
Playing catch-up on these a bit atm, because this week (3rd-9th March) is actually week 10. The week 10 photo will come tomorrow. This one is an exception to the rules of my fifty-two week challenge as it wasn't taken during week 9. I had planned to go to Nottingham Light Night on the Friday that week (on the 28th Feb.), but as I spent the day knocked out with a migraine it didn't happen. This was in fact taken as I was waiting for the bus on Monday morning. It was a lovely morning (despite it being Monday), and I love the reflections you get off the bus stops at certain angles.
Double rainbow! :)This was just out my lounge window as I hurried to get the camera when I saw it, and it was gone a few minutes later.
Spring is in the air :)
New glasses as of two weeks ago. My geek glasses :)As I've been battling a cold for the best part of the week, this weeks photo was taken from the comfort of my sofa..
Saturday last weekend I had a wander around town and tried out my lens. I got the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM as a bit of a "spur of the moment"-purchase when buying a flash gun (the Canon Speedlite 430EX II) since Canon was doing a winter sale cash back offer. I already love my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens, so buying the 40mm one seemed like a good idea. It might be my imagination, but the photos taken with the 40mm lens seem sharper than those taken using the 50mm lens. Either way, I am well pleased with the new lens - and it's taken me a while to decide on which photo to post for last week. The photo below is down Market Street towards Old Market Square.
On my way home from Sweden I had to change train at Manchester Piccadilly station (as I my flight went to Manchester Airport). I had a 20 minute wait, and fortunately (with a 22kg suitcase and 10kg hand luggage) my train home went from the opposite side of the platform the train came in to from the airport. Also, I got a nice view of the main station building as you can see below.
There were some photos which were strong contenders when choosing the photo for week 3 of the fifty-two weeks project. Below are a few of them. The side street next to one of the larger shopping centres in Stockholm city centre. Regeringsgatan, around the corner from Gallerian.
One of the things I love about Stockholm is that it's on the water. This is the view from Strömbron.
Sunset from Riksbron.
This was the week when I was in Sweden, and there were some good photos to choose from (even though I only went in to Stockholm with my camera one day). I will post some of the other photos which only just lost out to the one below at a later stage.The photo which I picked just reminds me of home I suppose. Love these lights my parents have hanging over the back door in the kitchen. I would steal them and take them with me home, but don't think that would go down too well with mum ;)