Nearly time for my move to Italy.

At the time of writing this there is only 7 days to go before I set off on my drive to South of Naples, Italy from Leeds, UK.  Autoroute says it’s 1500 miles and I’ve no reason to disbelieve that.  I’m hoping to do it in under 3 days but have no idea what the weather or road conditions will be like as I go through France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland but as I’m on main roads I’m hoping they will be all clear.

Having studied the road maps I’m even more confused as to which way to go (apart from south!) as there apears to be lots of different routes I could take so if anyone has any sound ideas just contact me before the 24th!

When I had the idea of opening a training centre for photography in Italy it seemed like a really good one.  Now, with 1500 miles of driving in front of me, it’s sort of getting very serious!

I’m going to have my Ricoh GX100 with me on the way down just so I can take a couple of documentory type images of the trip.  Any ideas of how to attach it to the windscreen of the Jeep?

D3 and Wolfie again

Another D3 image of one of my cats. This time using flash with a diffuser on it. The SB800 is a clever little unit with a power that is certainly bigger than it’s small size alludes to.

Does anyone else have a cat that crosses it’s legs when sitting down?

Nikon D3 is the Cat’s Whiskers!

Still playing with and learning about the Nikon D3.  This image was taken with the 85 f1.8 lens. 1/40th sec f2.8 at 640 Iso.

Even at 640 ISO it’s so smooth.  This is just from the jpg without any further noise reduction. If anyone wants the full size file just ask.

For anyone who’s interested the cat is called Wolfie (Highland Wolf) and is a four year old Maine Coon.  Weighs in at just under 2 stone so he’s a big brown boy!

D3 here!

Ok, so I got excited and thought it might arrive on Saturday but it didn’t but it’s here now. The battery is still charging as I type this so I haven’t looked through the viewfinder yet but I have put a card in one of the 2 slots so I’m as ready as I can be! It’s now well dark outside so it will have to be tomorrow before I start in earnest with it although I will do some really low light stuff -AS SOON AS THE BATTERY CHARGES!!!!

These images were taken in awful light in my workroom.  The first is at 200 iso the second at H2 which is 25600 iso !!

They were raws and converted in Lightroom – the second with some noise removed – still not bad though – better than film!!

Never mind the subject just look at the exif data.

Anyone any comments?

Nikon D3 day.

Well, I think today (Saturday 1st December 2007)  is the day my new Nikon D3 should arrive.  I am out working all day so even if it does arrive I won’t be able to play with it until I get back after 5pm and by then it will be dark.

Not that that should bother the D3 with it’s allegidly high ISO rating capability.

I’ll post some samples once I’ve had time to play!