Form over function

I took this photo of a ridiculous chicken while staying with my parents last weekend. What purpose do you serve, o chicken? Neither meat nor eggs, I'll warrant.

Event horizon

These are my Flickr stats for about the last three weeks. You can see where the riot happened, no?

I was at my parents' house last weekend; took some photos of local wildlife but nothing particularly came out. I'll see if there's anything salvagable.

Moral of the story: take risks

It seems that the deluge of redirections from various contintental news and blogging sites has died down now. The news cycle moves quickly. At least now I know what I have to do for exposure- war photographer.

I jest. Well, mostly.

I picked up my tripod on Saturday and my wireless flash triggers today. I'm still awaiting the flash itself but I've been able to confirm that the trigger and receiver are talking to one another. Hopefully the flash will arrive in the next couple of days.

I was in work on Saturday and was hoping to take some sunset/night shot photos from the 24th floor of my work building but the project finished up sooner than anticipated so that was a no-go. Never mind, there'll be another opportunity in 26 days.

Atypical levels of exposure

My paid Flickr account expired on August 6th. Despite the fact that my intention was to explore Google+-Picasa-Blogger connectivity for photos, the fact that there's been quite a bit of interest in the two photos I took of the burning car and the fact that I'd handed out a few business cards made me think that perhaps I should get the account back up in case anyone took a look.

I'm very glad I did; the paid account gives me access to stats and lets me see where my photos are being linked from. They're being linked from your run of the mill blogs like this guy but also a number of other more serious blog/news sites:

Economics Intelligence: 'The economics of riots and austerity'
Future Conscience: 'UK Riots: Are We Limiting Our Understanding of Violence?'
CommonDreams.org: 'Police and Thieves: Making Sense of the English Riots'
GOOD: '"If We Don't Riot, You Don't Listen to Us": The Case for Chaos'
NieuwsUit: 'Rellen in Engeland - Rellen in Manchester & Birmingham'
Youphil.com: 'Angleterre: la pauvreté, responsable des émeutes?' (currently featuring on their front page)

On top of that, the Wikipedia page about the riots features one of my images (albeit under slightly the wrong day- may have to edit that) with about a dozen Wiki news articles in various language using it.

That's... quite a bit more exposure than I'm used to.

Manchester riots

Another photo taken during the night of rioting in Manchester city centre on 09.08.2011.

Fire

Detail of a burning car taken during the rioting in Manchester on the night of 09.08.2011.


Riot policeman in Piccadilly Gardens.

Manchester Town Hall

Flash update

An update on flashes: Speedlights.net has an excellent guide which seems to simply flat out say get the YN-465 to get TTL support for Nikon cameras. The 465 seems to be the only model in the line which provides this functionality and fully integrates with the camera. The TTL still isn't wireless; only the upcoming YN-565 provides wireless TTL and I'm happy to do without that for the sake of the wait and the price tag. I found a nearly-new 465 on eBay so went ahead and bought it.

Flash triggers

Tied in with the last entry about off-body flashes, I'm also looking at wireless flash trigger kits. Cactus seem to be your go-to guys for this and I've used their stuff before so I know that they're compatible with both my camera and the line of flashes that I intend to get. I don't know how much compatibility is an issue with these things but I'm reasoning that it's better to be safe, especially when you're ordering online.

Google 'cactus flash triggers' and you'll find a plethora of reviews and discussion on the products, almost universally positive (it almost gives the impression of them being industry standard), but oddly few places actually selling them. Even major retailers like Amazon and eBay (despite having sponsored links hawking them on Google search results) don't appear to have any. The Amazon search result just yields flash triggers from other manufacturers.

Essentially, I've found two places:
Gadget Infinity, a US site linked from the official Cactus site, so I guess they're the preferred supplier. Adjusted price is a little under £30 inc. shipping.
1stopbrighter.com, a British site where they come in at around £40 including postage.

Obviously the US is a cheaper but I do risk getting hit for VAT and charges if customs pick it up. It seems to be arbitrary as to whether that happens or not.

Worth noting is that the V5 transceiver model is also out but I don't see that my usage is going to require anything not provided by the V4.

Off-body flash

I'm looking for an off-body flash at the moment. I really don't think I can see the additional benefit/justify the additional cost of buying an official Nikon one so Yongnuo would seem to be the maker of choice. I've used a friend's YN-560 before and I know it's compatible with my camera and does the job. So the question seems to pretty much be which model? They have a bewildering array.

I think it's straight progression so YN-468 is the more recent YN-460, YN-565 is the latest rather than there being actual differences between the models. Obviously more features may have been added as the series progresses, performance improvements etc. but I would have thought that, since I would assume that my needs are fairly basic, one of the older models would be sufficient. Current price for a 560 on eBay is around the £55 mark. 460 mk.II is closer to £35 so unless I can really find something the 560 does that the 460 does not which I think would yield a particular benefit, I suppose that logically I should do for the cheaper one.

Sample photos