A Photographic Adventure in Rainy Devon!

August 26th, 2010

When I was a small child, the family and I went to Devon. It rained all week and I’ve never been since, until last week. Excited at the potential at getting a photo or two amidst entertaining my youngest and spending quality time with the wife and family, the reality was that yet again, it just rained and rained and rained! We had one good morning of sun, and then it rained the rest of the day.

Like all good British holiday makers, we refused to be rained out of the fun. After spending a few days with a relative in Barnstaple, we headed to Combe Martin and we stayed in a brilliant ‘family friendly’ hotel come B&B called “The Fo’c’sle Inn“. Now, if you’re thinking of going to Devon and staying in or around Combe Martin, I can’t recommend this place enough! Don’t get me wrong – it’s not posh and glamorous, but if you’re a normal family person interested in ‘traditional’ family fun (standard room, standard TV, no Internet gubbins preventing your kids from avoiding actually interacting with you, pool table, juke box, etc) this place is great, and it overlooks the sea directly. We stayed in Room 7 which is on the top floor (thus away from any noise downstairs) and overlooks the sea specifically.

It was from the bay (Coombe Martin Bay) that I shot my only roll of landscapes using Fuji Velvia 100, but what a sequence of shots it was! I rated it at EI50 for additional shadow details, and the result blew me away. When I was photographing the bay I thought some of the scenes I was looking at were nice, but I’d forgot my polarising filters, and the light was not quite as punchy as I’d have liked. Luckily, I had my Lee ND Grads.

When I got the transparencies back, I looked at the CD scans first as I had some other films of family snaps that I’d also had developed. The pictures looked really good, so I got very excited and quickly got out my light box to look at them properly. Velvia is an amazing film. It just makes everything look so vibrant. My 20 and 30 second exposures were as sharp as you like and the exposures looked more or less dot on – just as I had hoped. The sea was milky and looks like frost in many of these shots.

See the low res CD scans below.

From Combe Martin, you’re ideally suited to visit lots of great places. For example, Combe Martin Wildlife and Dinosaur Park which is great for families and couples alike. Most famously, there’s Shaun Ellis, aka ‘The Wolf Man‘, who’s featured on Animal Planet via Sky and is due to have a new show broadcast on the BBC in September\October 2010. Listening to him is fascinating, and, if you’ve got a decent telephoto, you might be able to get a fairly decent shot of the wolves themselves.

Woolacombe Beach is amazing too. It rained for us, of course, but I imagine on a sunny day it must be amazing, especially for those that surf and like big waves. From a photographic point of view, it’s great for dramatic coastal shots and simple wave like shots, especially if it’s stormy. If it weren’t for my family, I’d have walked off and shot a roll of Acros there as the cloud and rain really suited the scene.

All in all, I really enjoyed my holiday in Devon, though to be honest, it was my family that made it the holiday that it was – if I go again, I’ll wait for a sunny weather forecast! The one evening I got out to take these shots was a treasure for sure though. As a photographer, there’s nothing quite like spending two or three hours on your own, out in the fresh air with just your camera and nature for company (having a dog with you is nice, too).

Posted in Locations & Directions | No Comments »

Family wedding at Breadsall Prior Hotel, Derby

August 6th, 2010

I recently attended a family wedding – that of my wife’s Uncle. It was held at the Breadsall Priory hotel in Derby, and what an amazing venue it is too.

The sun was shining bright and there were plenty of flowers in bloom. An ideal setting for any photographer. As I was a family guest I wasn’t granted the honour of being the Official Photographer, but as usual, I took my Nikon F5 along with me for the ride loaded with my new best friend – Fuji Pro 400H. You guys – I love this film! Every time I get a roll developed, the pack jumps alive with vibrant colour and crispness.

The grounds have some lovely ponds with fountains and spot lights. I would have had a field day if I were the official photographer. Being a guest at a wedding, when you’re also a photographer, is always difficult. You can’t help think “I wouldn’t pose them like that…” or “I wouldn’t position them in that light…” and you have a natural urge to take over, but one has to be respectful to fellow photographers and so I sat on the side lines and just blasted a few casual shots for the family album.

Posted in Locations & Directions | No Comments »

How does the Nikon F5 compare to the modern D3

July 18th, 2010

I use a Nikon F5 film camera. It is said to be perhaps the best 35mm camera ever made. There are the obvious folk who beg to differ, but even Nikon admitted, when they released their last film body – the Nikon F6 in 2004 – that the F6 was basically an F5 but with some features taken off to make it lighter and smaller etc. When it comes to overall performance, if you can handle the weight, the F5 is, in my view, the best camera ever, especially for action or quick-fire photography.

In recent months I began to wonder how it compares to its modern day digital equivalents like the Nikon D3. Is the D3 so much better than the F5? In terms of light metering and overall features, does the D3 have so much more than my trusty F5? Well, I’ve never used a D3 so I did some Googling to see what others think. Ken Rockwell says some interesting things on his website about all things photography based – some of what he says has to be taken with a pinch of salt I think, but he knows his eggs so his articles make a good read.

Here is a recent write up (May 2010) that he has produced, having recently bought an F5 himself. He compares it to his D3, which he has used since 2007. It makes for an interesting read, and, in all honesty, simply compounds my long thought belief that there really is little to be gained by forking out £3K for a D3 – the F5 does it all already (as it is said that all modern DSLRs originate from the F5), and with the right choice of film and a competent photographer, it’s probably better.

Nikon F5

Nikon F5

Posted in Misc | No Comments »

Everyone is a photographer these days, but using old manual cameras is another thing

July 4th, 2010

It’s July 2010, and 35mm cameras are everywhere you look, owned by almost anyone who earns a living and can shell out a hundred quid or more. Even SLRs are bought by some as a “first camera” and consequently used as a glorified point and shoot until 18 months later when its sold for the latest digital model by its owner in the misguided belief that consequently shelling out on the latest and greatest DSLR will make him a better photographer – poor old camera never gets to do 80% of what it’s capable of.

I can confess to never being one of these individuals and I am proud to be able to say so. My Dad bought me my first SLR because I actually wanted to be a photographer as young as age 10 or 11. He bought me an Olympus OM10 when I was about 14, after I’d mucked about with one of his older cameras for a year or two, and when I was 15, when my friends were doing work experience at fast food restaurant, I was doing mine at a professional photography studio in my home town.

Olympus OM10

Olympus OM10

Anyway, I used the OM10 camera along with its manual focus 50mm kit lens for years, and well beyond the introduction of digital. I’ve taken some great photos with it and I have many albums littered with prints produced by it.  In fact, I used it until 2005 when I replaced it with another film camera of the Nikon brand – the Nikon F65. I’d always wanted a Nikon but never had the money to do so until around 2005, and the digital revolution meant such cameras were much more affordable.  I soon sold that though and upgraded to the Nikon F80 – another superb Nikon film camera. Nikon F65

Then, in 2006, I thought I’d try digital. So I bought yet another second hand Nikon – the 6Mp D70s with kit lens (image here is the D70). Nikon D70s Nikon D70sI still own it and use it today four years later (though I sold the kit lens). In fact, it was using that camera (which was a serious and expensive camera when it was released in 2005ish), which many wannabe photographer today would try to say is a redundant old thing, that I got my first World Wildlife Fund published photograph. One of my prouder moments, for sure.

The D70s is a great camera in many ways – it’s fast and it boots up in a fraction of a second – ideal for quick reaction type photography. It’s light and I’ve “gone round the clock” with it and it still carries on shooting well. It doesn’t have one of these daft video screens either – why does a stills photographer give a hoot about video footage? Why pay for that feature? The more modern DSLRs offer me little over and above my D70s other than extra megapixels that I really don’t need unless I become a famouse gallery exhibitor. The reality is that unless you are a serious sports photographer, journalist or some such, you really don’t need much more thatn cameras like the D70s offer. Regardless of that, there is always a market for bigger and better cameras, and they will always sell to Mr. Joe Average because he knows no better and to many serious amateurs. Professionals, I find, use the most inexpensive kit they can get their hands on because profit is everything and they can use an £80 camera probably much better than a baboon can use a Nikon D3s.

In 2008, rather than ‘upgrading’ to a better DSLR, I sold my F80 and bought what is arguably the best 35mm film camera every made – the Nikon F5. Why? Because I adore film, and I was bored with spending ages processing my digital files from my D70s. I still use the D70s, but not generally for professional work – I use it for charity work where profit is everything, test shoots etc. It’s my F5 that is my work horse though – I use it for my dog photography as well as weddings and portrait work – it’s an animal of a camera offering blistering fast autofocus that will tear up cheap lenses and 8fps! 8fps, on a film camera!? That’s good, and expensive in the wrong hands!  Nikon F5

Now, don’t get me wrong – if a crack addict stole all my gear, he’d not get too much for my camera’s of course, but he would for my lenses. I have spent a fair measure on glass in my time, and intend to do so again in the future – it’s the only area of photography that I feel true investment is required – I don’t give a hoot what camera I use. To me, there are two main factors that make a good image (asides from the skills of the photographer, of course!) – the choice of film, and the quality of the glass. Stick to that, and your photography will always be good as long as you invest time to learn what you are doing with regard to exposure, tonal range etc – something that many (not all) digital shooters these days seem reluctant to want to do.

Which brings me to my point. Some years ago, my Uncle died. He was a keen photographer back in the 1960’s and 70’s. My aunt gave me his old camera equipment. One such item was the Minolta SR-3 , but he also had a Minolta SR-T 101. Minolta SR-3 Now, these are old, manual (in every way) cameras. The SR-3 doesn’t have a light meter built in, no autofocus, no auto-wind or rewind – Christ, it doesn’t even use a battery! So why, 40 years after this camera model was made am I even thinking about using it? Because it has a Minolta Rokkor f1.4 50mm lens (and it’s just plain fun to do things that most people don’t!). These lenses are famed for their brilliance – sharp corner to corner even wide open – they were made in a photographic era when things were not made cheaply for commercial mass production.

So I gave it a whirl with a roll of Fuji Superia 200 – a fairly standard domestic film. I just blasted through it, casually, in my lounge with the intention of taking the roll to ASDA for a quick consumer level development. I just want to see how the camera worked really and whether these claims of lens sharpness were true.

I have to say, the camera feels very heavy, and it’s not ergonomic on the hand – I had a few painful dints in my right hand as a result of holding it constantly for 10 minutes. It’s like a tank! The focus ring was stiffer in some sequences than others which made focussing trickier than it should be and so by the end I was thinking it was not for me and certainly it was not suitable for my kind of work, which usually requires quick focus and reactions.

Regardless, I took the roll to ASDA using their 1 hour service. Below is a scan of a 7×5″ print from that roll. I was really quite impressed, considering the light was barely enough to get 1/30 sec shutter speed, but that considered, it’s come out OK. Good enough for me to think about giving the camera another try with something a bit more serious, but steady – a landscape scene perhaps using my tripod mount.

So my point is that all these years after such a camera was made, and with modern cameras like the Nikon D3s being top end market products with a price to boot, in the right hands, any camera can do well, and any camera can do bad. The Nikon D3s in the hands of someone who doesn’t care or who does not have an eye for their photos is probably not likely to generate results any better than the results you see in the scan below. (PS – I still own my Olympus OM10, and probably always will!)

Photo produced by Minolta SR-3

Posted in Rants | 1 Comment »

The wedding of Laura & Damon, St Edmonds Church, Derbyshire

June 24th, 2010

I had the great pleasure last week of being the official photographer at the wedding of two of my best friends, Laura & Damon, at their church, St Edmunds, Allestree, Derby. I’ve known them for many years now – over 10 years in fact, and they have some great kids who I knew would add a great dynamic to their wedding photos.

As per my previous post about the Midgley Wedding where I was a guest, I used the mighty Fuji Pro 800Z film for this official shoot, rated mostly at its box speed of EI800 due to the low light using my animal-of-a-camera – the Nikon F5 – arguably the best 35mm film camera ever made. I then used Fuji Pro 400H when the 800Z ran out. I also shot a roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot at EI64 for some black and white ‘quiet shots’ after the crowds had made their way to the reception.

I’m not a ‘wedding photographer’ as a rule – I’ve done a handful now and I’m learning at an exponential rate! Wedding photographers usually shadow another wedding photographer for at least a year before having a go themselves. Fortune favours the brave though, I always say. If it gives you butterflies in your stomach, it’s worth doing! I’m very determined to do well at something when I’m asked, especially when a friend is relying on me, so I invested many weeks into learning various new techniques prior to this event, including trying to master flash. Flash was  used in all of these shots, but in many I think I can safely say you’d not notice, which is the art of using flash successfully.

The day started out in less than ideal conditions. Despite it being dry and sunny all week, the day of this wedding, it rained! The garden at the brides house is amazing – lovely flowers and decorations. A photographers dream, but all the girls had to stay indoors – hair and makeup, and all of that. So straight from the start, I had to put my dynamic-compromising-photographers hat on, shooting indoors with flash. All in all, it went OK though.

The church had a restriction on the use of flash (as do most Church’s)  and the number of shots used, so there’s nothing much to say about that – one has to respect the wishes of the Church. A lovely church though, and an amazing ceremony – it was nice to be able to sit and enjoy it, frankly, without having to have my “photographers hat” on too much (other than for the signing-the-register bits, and one or two others).

As the ceremony ended, so too did the rain! I was in luck, but time was against me as the rain was threatening to start at any moment and I had about 40 formals to get done with a series of private black and whites to do of the couple afterwards!   The ushers and one of the bridesmaids was called upon to help get the various pre-decided groups in order, and that worked well.

The black and white’s were shot using Fuji Acros 100, rated at EI64 using a polyester yellow filter and, mostly, a Sekonic incident light meter with an aspect of compensation applied for the filter. I get very nervous shooting B&W because it is difficult to do successfully. In my view, it’s one of the hardest forms of photography and there is a niche of wedding photographers who specialise in just B&W wedding photography. I’m not talking about these boring digital de-saturations that seems to be so nauseatingly fashionable these days, where, for every colour photo there’s a “B&W” equivalent that even an 8-year old can do. I’m talking about B&W photography with proper tonal range where each shade of light is considered, pre-visualised and placed in the finished photo by the photographer, properly exposed, to produce a B&W shot that is truly artistic, ideally hand printed by the photographer. This kind of photography is a dying trend, and I for one intend to bring it into my main workflow more in the future – I already have a darkroom with a superb enlarger.

After that, it was off to the reception. No fancy cars to escort them there though, unfortunately – it broke down on the morning of the wedding! They didn’t mind though – they just hitched a lift with me and my wife in our banger like the good old days!

I had the films developed by my pro lab who always do a fine job. Even the 6×4″ proofs look great. Shooting film can be nerve racking – you don’t know if it’s wrong until it’s too late. Another reason why film photographers are generally so good at…photography. I hope Laura and Damon choose some to be enlarged because the films used here provide simply outstanding results, creamy skin tones, and amazing bright whites (when used by the right photographer, of course!)

All the best for the future Laura and Damon, and thanks for having me photograph your big day!

Group wedding photo, Fuji Pro 800Z

Wedding photo using Fuji Pro 800Z

Wedding photo with confetti shower using Fuji Pro 800Z

Black & White wedding photo, Fuji Acros 100

Black & White wedding photo, Fuji Acros 100

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Weddings | No Comments »

The Midgley Wedding on Fuji Pro 800Z & 160S

June 4th, 2010


I had the honour of being invited to the wedding of my good friends last weekend. Leah & Midge got wed at a lovelly hotel called East Lodge near Matlock in the Derbyshire countryside. A lovely setting, and the sun was shining to boot.

I wasn’t the official photographer, but of course I took my Nikon F5 with my 80-200mm stuck to the front of it. I was trying out Fuji Professional 800Z for the first time as I’ve never used it before and I intend to use it for a wedding I’m shooting later this month. Any good photographer knows not to try out a film for the first time for an event for which the photos are crucial!I also used Fuji Pro 160S rated at EI125. I’ve used this film before though and find it, too, to be impeccable.

I rated the 800Z at EI400 to get additional shadow detail. The sun was shining bright, and although the ceremony was at 16:30 (which made the light nicely cross directional to some extent) there was still lots of shadows to contend with. Again, as I wasn’t the official photographer I didn’t want to use my flash from a far irritating both the guests and the official photographer, and obviously I didn’t have the freedom to move Leah & Midge to where I would want them. The official photographer (Steve Bradshaw Photography) did a nice job of posing them for the attendees every now and again though, which I thought was a really nice touch, so I was able to utilise one or two good opportunities.

So how did the Fuji 800Z perform? Very well I thought. The white dress looks lovely and white, as do the flowers, and the skin tones are spot on. 800Z is famed for being a little more punchy and contrasty than normal speed films, so the cheeks look a tiny bit reddish at times, but all in all I think the photos look great. I’ve only had 6″x4″ prints done but I’d be intrigued to see how they look enlarged.

The prints below are some of my favourite shots taken with the 800Z at EI400 (Scans 1 – 9). The rest are with the 160S :


Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Weddings | No Comments »

UK Nikon Repair Service – A good professional service

March 3rd, 2010

I have recently taken the plunge and utilised the repair services of ‘Nikon Repair‘ to fix my ‘ever-so-worth-it’ Nikon ED AF Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 D beast. She is fine lens – the model is famed across the land as being amazingly sharp, fast and accurate. She weights a tonne, but it’s all good – keeps me fit carrying her about with me!I got her for a bargain price a few years ago from a photographer who was moving to Hasselblad, so I got a real bargain.

Nikon 80-200 2.8 D

The Nikon 80-200 2.8 D lens

Unfortunately, the ruggedness of dog photography shows etc resulted in the Auto\Manual focus lock ring getting damaged so that it wouldn’t lock on one focus mode or the other, so I’d frequently move it accidentally between either AF or M focus. Very annoying. I had to get it fixed.

So I bundled it off to Nikon Repair with a covering a letter explaining the fault

Nikon UK Ltd

380 Richmond Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey

KT2 5PR

Tel: 0330 123 0928
Fax: 020 8541 4590

Within only a day I’d received an e-mail confirming receipt of said lens, along with a summary of what I had requested, a Request ID number and a Customer Number to allow me to log in and track my repair at www.nikon.co.uk/repair. I was impressed.

About 36 hours later I received a quote, via e-mail. The same day, I received a paper based version, in the snail mail, of the first e-mail I had received. About a day after that, I received a paper version of the quote too. I really was impressed. Within no more than 5 days of sending my beloved lens I’d received two e-mails and written equivalents of them confirming receipt and stating approximate cost.

The total cost (I state this in case anyone else finds this looking for an idea of cost if their own focus lock breaks) was £10 for the part, about £15 for a service of the lens (clean the front and rear elements) and about £70 for the one hour labour with about £8 for the P&P. I forget the exact details now, but in total the whole thing came to £99.

OK, so I logged in, and accepted the quote. About three days later I got another e-mail saying the work had been done along with instructions on how to pay.

I paid, and two working days later my lens arrived back home, good as new via tracked courier service. Focus lock works perfectly now, and the lens elements are as clean as you like. Never seen them so shiny. I expect I have increased it’s value too if I keep all the paperwork.

So, long story short – Nikon Repair Service – quite expensive, but then, it’s Nikon. What do you expect? You pay for the quality. Very smooth and professional service. Will use again. There’s no Urmming and Aaaring. They state the price, they are open about their rates, and you pay what you need to.

Posted in Misc | 1 Comment »

I’ve gone back to my broadband roots – a review of Virgin Media broadband

February 28th, 2010

Like many of us over the age of 30, I was one of a modern few who can remember the days of 28Kbps and 56Kbps dial-up Internet connections. Though novel at the time, when “10 times faster than dial-up” broadband came along by NTL in the very early noughties (2000/1) offering blistering speeds of 512Kbps, I was one of the first to sign up (not literally, but I was one of a relative few who had broadband back then)!

For 5 years, and while speeds increased to several meg, I never looked back. I loved NTL broadband. Then I moved house and though I wanted to keep the broadband service, I didn’t want the phone and TV. Long story short, and in a “cut off my nose to spite my face” kind of act due to the fact that the call centre staff were incomprehensibly stupid and unable to understand my wishes, I cancelled NTL entirely and signed up with Sky for TV, BT for my phone, and the [then] Force 9 (now PlusNet, now bought by BT) for my Broadband.

Yes, this meant using the phone lines again and the newer ADSL technology. Dubious I was, at first, but I was convinced the whole “Up to 8Mb” stuff had to have some truth in it somewhere.

When I first signed up with Force9 in 2005, my connection was OK. Not as stable as my previous NTL experience, and not really as fast, but it was usable for most things – even playing online games like Americas Army.

However, towards the end of the noughties, with the explosive expansion of the Web 2 concept (social networking, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc) and after Force 9 were bought by PlusNet…10 years on from my initial adoption of 512Kbps broadband with NTL…my speeds started to get noticeably slower as BT lines got more and more congested – at least, that was my take on it.

So much so that at the end of 2009 I started a process of fault testing as it had got to the point that watching streaming video content was impossible. My speeds? On average, 250Kbps!!! Half that of the 512Kbps broadband speeds I was getting ten years ago with NTL. I was in total disbelief! Having reported the issue I was notified via their fault testing script that I appear to have constant disconnection issues between the ISP and my telephone.

For about 3 minutes I considered trying to resolve the issue with PlusNet, but then I read the many online threads written by people suffering with similar problems who had been told the same thing. Many of them were being told that the faults were at the user end. Well, sorry, maybe some of these issues are at the user end, but I don’t have time to make a thousand changes to my house and study simply to accomodate BT’s ADSL and wireless technology. I was always dubious of broadband running through telephone lines that 10 years ago were moving 56Kbps dial-up connections in the first place so I always wondered how on earth that same infrastructure and technology could move “Up to 8Mb+” broadband. It’s like inventing cars that can move at 1000 mph, and multiplying the number of them by 10 and then trying to drive them on the same roads we use today.

So, yesterday, I returned to NTL..sorry, Virgin Media now, who bought NTL of course, and their ever-so-good and ever-so-reliable and ever-so-proper ethernet based coaxial, modern, wired, system. I appreciate such organisations usually have a pants customer service levels with call centre staff no more intelligent than an ant farm, but you can’t knock their infrastructure, and for the money, it’s top.

I have signed up for their smaller ‘L’ package which gives me “Up to 10Mb” speeds and unlimited downloads, and by gosh, does it move! Last night, having configured my connection (more below) I started a 236Mb Fedora 12 GNU/Linux update and it completed in just a couple of minutes!! At one stage I was getting over 1Mb per second! I was averaging about 750Kbps. Blisteringly fast (literally about 10 times faster) compared to what I have endured of late, and a proper speed for this day and age. Koreans generally have 1Gbit domestic connections at their disposal, so us guys should have services of at least what is now provided by Virgin Media, if not more – it’s 2010 after all! If I wanted to, there’s the 20Mb and 50Mb services too – these would not doubt be amazing. Messing around with crazy, unreliable and horribly slow telephone connections has to stop!

So, how did the installation and customer service side go? Well, “signing-up” attitudes are always different to “current customer” attitudes so I was expecting them to bend over backwards for my contractual sign-up. Anyway, I signed up for the service online (using my old connection, so it took a while!) and all went smoothly. No pressure to sign up for their other services. I have a £35 installation fee to pay at some stage, but considering I got a pretty nifty D-Link DIR-615 wireless router as part of that, and I can now sell my previous ADSL Belkin router that I bought for £90 a few months ago,  that’s OK by me.

When the guy turned up to fit, he was nice enough and, though a bit rushed, he agreed to connect an additional cable to a second room for me for when I move my study.

I think he gathered I was of a technical nature anyway due to our chats, the Fedora Linux desktop on my screen and the variety of IT equipment in my study so he didn’t offer to actually configure the connection for me, but then I am not surprised as it turns out Virgin Media do not make their “Wizard for idiots” software to run on Linux. No matter – I launched a Windows virtual machine and configured the connection (giving it my login credentials etc) using the CD wizard.

It even allowed me to configure encrypted wireless without any problems. Pretty cool I thought, but when the hell was it going to ask me to secure my router? It never did! So how do I access my router directly? The literature does not tell you that either. Virgin Media, it seems, really do accomodate broadband for the common masses with no allowance for the technical minded amongst us who might want to run small web servers or file storage servers.

No matter – ipconfig revealed that the Virgin Media routers use the default gateway of 192.168.0.1 and, by default, access is with the username of ‘admin’ and a blank password. It would have been helpful if they mentioned this in their literature too – I just worked it for myself on the basis of using ipconfig for the default gateway and the famed default logins of commercial routers. OK, so I was in, and I could now configure my router with MAC address filtering, static IP assignments etc.

Though any drive-by hacker parked outside would have had to break my encrypted wireless to gain access to the router itself, that’s not to say it could not have been done, and they would at this stage have had a free reign over my network! I say again, the literature gives no warning of the fact that your router is left wide open with password protection. So I set a nice cryptographically strong password to my router. I felt safe.

So then I ran the ‘Shields Up‘ stealth test to test the firewall to see how well my firewall was configured out of the box. Surely that would be OK? Er, well, it was OK, but it replied to echo ping requests. Dissapointing, but not unexpected. Turns out that was easy enough to fix via the ‘Advanced’ top menu, followed by ‘Advanced Network’ left menu option. Simply untick ‘WAN PING’. Also, I disabled UPnP to avoid any modern latops and other devices trying to create new networks using my connection. I understand why they have UPnP on by default to save troubled callers rining them up asking for help, but it’s not ideal having that on from a security and performance point of view.

Disable PING response of Virgin Media D-Lin default router

A second rescan by Shields Up and I then got a full stealth report:

True Stealth reported by Shields up following minor tweaks

Summary of Virgin Media Broadband

Connection : Only had it 24 hours or so, but so far it seems to be fast, stable and reliable. Will never go back to ADSL etc if this continues :-)

Customer Service : So far, OK, but not really had to sample it

Installation : Quick to turn up (within a week) and quick to install (about 40 minutes) but not overly willing to setup your computers, but then, I didn’t ask them to. Be sure to ask them to help you before they leave if you are not confident setting up your own system.

If you’re a Linux user, be aware that you will need a WindoZe system of some sort simply to register your connection with Virgin Media, though you don’t need WindoZe to actually configure your router. This can all be done via Firefox using the default IP address of 192.168.0.1. If you try to use Linux and Firefox to do the registration you are told “sorry” and (amusingly I thought) you’re using ‘an old’ unsupported operating system and you  should use a supported operating system (of which only Windows and Mac are listed) and web browser such as IE or Safari in XP, Vista etc. Is it just me or has Mozilla Firefox achieved something like a 20% global share of the web browser market in recent years – far more than Safari. And Ubuntu is approaching is a 2% global share. 2% of about 1 billion computer users is about 30 million!  Come on guys – catch up.

Security : Average. Firewall is OK, but not 100%. You need to disable response to echo PING requests. Does not ask you or prompt you to secure your router with a password. Does not encourage you to setup encrypted wireless and neither does the fitter. A new user may inadvertantly send their banking data over an open wireless connection. I would also disable UPnP.

The Router – A DIR-615 Wireless N. Seems OK to date – allows all the standard options…MAC address filtering, port forwarding, static IP allocation, DMZ’s etc. Good enough for most and even small business.

Posted in Misc | 6 Comments »

MS(c) Thesis finished – back to normal life at last!

February 21st, 2010

You’ll have read in my previous post that I’ve been busy the last 12 months studying and writing for an MS(c) thesis.

Well that’s now done, submitted a couple of weeks ago, so I hope to be back to my photography soon.

In fact, I’ve already been out today. Like the rest of the UK, heavy snow hit last night, and this morning saw a winter wonderland! So I headed out to my local park (Chaddesden Park) with my trusted Nikon F5, a roll of Fuji Neopan 1600, a yellow Lee B&W filter and my tripod. A handful of the better photographs of Chaddesden Park are below.

Suffice to say that I think I got some nice shots until I was attacked by a pair of 13 year old boys hurtling snow balls at me! Well, they were actually more like ice balls – they packed them hard!

One too many hit my camera – lucky it was my trusted F5 (a bomb proof and watertight pro camera!), but my poor old Lee Filter on the front could have got damaged. It survived though, I am pleased to say.

I guess if you lug a Manfrotto tripod, a Nikon F5 and Lee Filters to a local sub-urban park you’re kind of asking for trouble! The youth of today.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Misc | No Comments »

Why so quiet lately?

December 17th, 2009

You might be wondering why the blog has been so quiet lately?

I’m currently conducting a Masters degree and 2009 saw the start of my final year project. I have been working on it most nights and weekends since Feb so I’ve been very busy; increasingly so with every month that has passed since.

The submission date is Feb 2010 so after that I’ll be back at my photography with a vengeance.

That said, I hope to have a bit of a rest from my project over Christmas and get myself back into the Derbyshire Peaks for some wintry black and white shots like I did last year.

EDIT : Have just got round to scanning in a couple of the better shots from my trip up into the Peak District during Christmas 2009. It wasn’t a great day for my photographic endeavors, made worse by my knackered knee, but anyway, below are three of the better shots. They were all taken heading south towards Shining Tor. In fact, the wall shots were taken at the summit of Shining Tor.

Posted in Misc | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries