F-Stop Junkie

And funnier. I'm all for different forums of expression and the like, and I hoped you (and everyone reading) would find it funny rather than immature. Ultimately any camera is a light proof box with a lens. Nothing more. To try and elevate a shonky Russian camera to the level of art is simply possible because people look at the effect and not the image. Of you can take a good image with a Lomo, like you can with any camera, but a bit of retro-chic because you have to use film, flash gels and ring flash doesn't make a good photographer, it makes a gimmick. Who really wants a camera with 8 different lenses? Who'd buy an iPod which could play 8 tunes at once through 8 different headphones? Lomos are a toy, a distraction, something for people who coo at the effects and don't think of composition and the like, and proudly display the bad photos as abstract art, not overexposed blurry messes. Why not shoot with an SLR, or even a modified Holga lens, and add blur or boost saturation later? I'm sure you have your own, overly wordy, opinion. I'm not trying to change your pro-stance, merely offering a counterpoint. I was making a rhetorical point. Not a normal TF word, must be a triple score. And yes, I do have a certain amount of thought and experience behind my answers, but when you've been surrounded by this cock of the poppiest variety for so long, you're allowed to be a little immature around po-faced (not smelly) art students.

Before I start, and believe me this'll get me started, I'm not including the very very cheap Lomos in this. The multiple lensed or fisheye ones. I'm referring to the black plastic Holgas and the like. The others are just toys. Don't forget, this whole Lomography bunkump started with a couple of students buying cheap cameras and doing marketing on them. They even come with black tape for when they start leaking light or fall apart! You do realise that Lomos are a cruel marketing trick played on smelly art students, and smelly art graduates, to make them believe they're making art when they're actually just taking rubbish photos? Due to the lack of lens sensitivity, most shots require a long exposure and as a result lots of pictures come out blurred. Lomo PhotographyDoesn’t sound great, but a few clever marketing type people managed to sell the bad photos as high art, and part of a movement to document the world! A great cause if ever there was one. Lomography follows 10 rules: 1. Take your camera everywhere you go. 2. Use it anytime, day and night. (So far it’s take as many pictures as you can) 3. Lomography does not interfere with your life, but is a part of it. 4. Try the shot from the hip. (Don’t hold it upto your eye, wave it about and get some odd angles) 5. Approach the objects of your “Lomographic desire” as close as possible. (The closer you get, the more fisheye it gets, plus the camera doesn’t have a zoom…) 6. Don’t think. 7. Be fast. 8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film. (Take random pics, and you may be surprised) 9. Afterwards, either. 10. Don’t worry about any rules. It’s an interesting concept, and I’ve tried it myself using the small digital cameras and it’s a pretty fun thing to do. Having a certain camera is crap, it’s about taking pictures. The only difference with digital cameras is people care less about the camera, and everything is in focus. However, as far as the marketing goes, I’ve rewritten the rules a little with my cynical head on. 1. Take pictures. 2. Take more pictures. 3. Photography is part of your life, so take yet more pictures 4. Wave the camera around. You get more camera shake, but you get weird angles and compositions. 5. Fill the frame, so get close. 6. Take pictures randomly. 7. Take as many pictures as quickly as possible. 8. Don’t think about what you want out of the picture, just take pictures. 9. Don’t worry about the results either, they’re likely to be crap, cross your fingers and hope for a good one. 10. Come up with slogans that encourage picture taking and sales of cameras, while sounding kind of rebelleous and allow oppressed artists to feel as though they’re beating the system. The bottom line is that if you take lots of pictures, you will occasionally get a good one. The more you take, the more likely you are to get a good one. Better still, if you get bright colours and swirly patterns then even better. Put those in the hands of arty types, and you’ll get some interesting results. Still all marketing hogwash though. There are some photographers who use Holgas (or modified Holga lenses on other mounts) but they're a distraction, not the main focus of their work. Buy a Ricoh Capilio GX100, you'll get better shots, not waste film and have a good camera.

I have no strong feelings on this subject...

To be honest, there arn't trials specific frames intended for even short travel suspension forks. Either you get a decent length seat tube, or you need to run rigid forks. Many have thought about suspension in one way or another. The best bet is to get the best trials frame to suit you, then send your forks off to some tech centre like TF Tuned to get them rebuilt down to 50mm. That's really the only way you can do it. Or go rigid and get used to it. It's a good way to go once you get the technique down.

It's not a freaky coincidence, it's a hoax. Hoax details here..

Let this be a warning to you all... For background, the '10 Pence Short' poster was a car guy just like so many of us on here, and he was just out for a quick drive on country roads...

I've never done this before, but... +1 Isn't there an expression that goes something like "There's no bad religions, just bad ideas done in their name"?

A driving test isn't a test of skill, it doesn't say if you're a good or bad driver, it says if you're a safe driver. Nothing more. If you've had your licence a week, you have a lot to learn. Similarly, if you're at a point where you're clipping curbs and the like, you're not a good driver. The public road is no place to try and find the limit, or hone your race craft. Ok, I know I sound like an old man saying that, but if you want to hustle your Mini then do trackdays. I'd just count myself lucky that you didn't hit another car or a pedestrian. You may get points, a small fine, or a driver training day. You get a new car. So what? Imagine if you'd hit someone and watch them fly over your bonnet and windscreen? That you'd now be in a police cell waiting to be charged and sent to court? You were lucky. With time, you'll see that.

I have a sneaking feeling that the union jack DCDs were only ever a promo item. Pete Tompkins used to do them to raise interest... The actual frame Martyn used to ride was never made available to the public, as Cannondale felt they'd never get their investment back on the tooling, testing, design and so on. Once he was on his own bike, he let slip that his bike didn't have the best geometry, but it was light so he got away with it. That's how good a rider Martyn is What I would give though for one of the red framed bikes, Sun rims and Coda crank sets. I also *adored* the red team kit tops with yellow sleeves which had VOLVO down each arm in massive letters. I think Martyn wore it in Getta Grip, and Missy Giove wore it too in some paddock photos. Very, very cool. Team only.

This is an awesome thread, because it's exactly the sort of post I was making about ten years ago... That bike looks top. For real period looks, either try tracking down a Cannondale Magic Motorcycle chainset, or a Filthy 'Ard Guard and run it single ring on the granny ring. Now I'm going to dig out my old Volvo-Cannondale kit now

Woah, woah, woah... So all Muslims are just terrorists, or terrorists in training? With their 'scummy' mosques? That's racist. Very much so. Also, you do realise that 'muslims and blacks' (and sikhs, jews, christians, etc...) can be British citizens if they were born here, or have legal resident status? Changing immigration laws, and even getting rid of people who were not born in Britain would still leave us with a multi-cultural society? I think your attitude needs an adjustment.

How's that different to british nationals who sponge off the state, get council houses and benefits and put nothing back into the system? Do you think that Al Murray Pub Landlord has the right idea?

Such a well reasoned, insightful post. Well done. You obviously read the whole post, thought, and came up with a response, and you didn't just read the first line of the post and thought that's what I was having a go at. After all, that's the sort of thing a Daily Mail reader would do.

Daily Mail readers ooozing onto TF I see... Well, you're as narrow minded as the those you blindly follow in a media induced haze of fear and paranoia. Let me guess, you're also worried about immigrants coming over here and the thought that Britain might lose it's identity if we adopt the Euro and all end up sitting in Cafes all day eating 'jambon et pomme frites' and surrender at the first glimpse of a tank gun. Well if you call a black person a c*nt then that's fine. If you call them nigger, that isn't. It's the subtle - at least to some - difference between calling someone a b*****d, and calling them a black b*****d. One is racist, one isn't. If someone claims that what you said is racist, then that's the fault of their own intelligence, or they've run out of decent arguments and have resorted to name calling. I'm glad people are sensitive to the problems of racism and can moderate their language or behaviour to suit the situation. Frankly I'd rather people worried a bit about if they should call it Happy Holidays or Happy Christmas than see whole ethnic groups have their cultures steamrollered and themselves marginalised because as a country we had large scale institutionalised racism. Call a spade a spade, go ahead, it's ok. At the same time, be sensitive to those around you so we can learn from each other and all get along. Want to see something that isn't racist? Try this for size. It's okay. NOTE AS MOD: In this post I've used offensive terms, but in a suitable context to make a point. This thread is not an excuse to air your views on how people should 'go home if they don't like it' or how 'they should speak english if they want to live here'. Believe me, mods will be watching and warning/banning as appropriate. 'Ah' you say, 'your post is offensive and you should be banned, you sandal wearing hippy.' It's a good point well made, if you think Jeremy Kyle should really be on BBC4 with the other clever programmes. To this end I say this; If this thread is genuinely racist or offensive then I'm happy for me to get the same punishment as anyone else would. Just because I'm a moderator doesn't make me above the rules.

Oh the irony...

What it came down to was that pictures were being posted of girls of unknown age - or sometimes explicitly underage - in various states of undress, with or without their consent. On top of that, it was promoting a series of increasingly sexist and misogynistic views that objectified women, or was enitrely unsuitable for a young audience and in breach of TF rules. For example... Rather than go through every post and try to set a boundry for pictures, it was deemed better to delete the thread and get rid of the problem in it's entirity. Trials-Forum exists within certain guidelines, and we can't condone the breaking of those guidelines.

Spelling? Punctuation? NMC isn't far away... Also, there is a BMX-Forum who may be more help!

Auto Reply The topic starter has been validated. Moving topic from New Members Chat to Trials Chat.

*Where* have you been looking? God knows the Apple-ites arn't backwards in posting stuff.

Is it going to change any time soon? No. Will they insist on a certain period of training (like a year) before you can take your test Hopefully. 'SAFE' Danny, chill out man. I know you've just been validated, but you've got to keep up standards.

Not true...

Senior membership isn't something that's automatic, it's just based on what existing senior members think and what the forum needs. Someone who'd really make a difference could have posted 100 times, where as someone who's spamming the forum and has 1000 posts could not. It could just be that there's no reason for making anyone a senior member at that time.

QUOTE (danny B @ Jan 16 2008, 12:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I think that some of the younger riders should be allowed to become full members for the simple reasons that some of the younger riders bring up more valid points than some of the full members that are on here now. Also it takes to long for some new members to become full members because of there spelling and use of the english language however i can't remember the last time i saw someone get graided for their use of puntuation and grammer and spelling on the forum, we ride bikes not write novels...... i think that is so petty and pathetic. as long as the post passes the point across without being stupidly childish or abreviated then people should be allowed to post in full members. People that start petty sarcastic arguments should be warned also, if they having got anything good to say they should keep it shut! Sorry to have a rant but sometimes it seems like i open topics where people want genuine info and they just get sarcy replies and that gets my back up as well. thats my 10p's worth anyway cheers peeps All valid points. The NMC system works on people who's posts make an impact, but the problem is that this relies on either someone reporting you as worthy for validation (which will hopefully happen more) or a mod seeing the posts and thinking "Hmmm, worthy of validation I think..." The age of the rider isn't an issue, it's the quality of their posting. If people are making useful posts, and being a positive influence, then they should be full members. We don't need extra people who will just reply with "yeah", "me too", or "+1" all the time. We have enough of those already The whole thing with spelling, punctuation and grammar isn't that we're expecting perfectly written posts, but in the past there have been some that have been next to unreadable. Truely, truely horrible. It's about context. The forum only exists in the written word, so is it really unfair to expect the people using it to put some effort in? In the words of a flyer I was given once "You make the effort, we'll make the effort." I also agree with the petty, scarcastic and argumentative posts. Moderators keep their activities pretty low profile as this is a place for free expression and exchange of ideas... To a point. Posts and threads do get deleted, and threads locked when people start having conversations between each other which have no bearing on the thread taking place. The fact that people don't notice a lot of the time really shows we're doing our job here. At the end of the day, this is something the whole forum can contribute to. There is a report button, use it. Register what your objections are, and it'll help the whole mod team to try and keep everyone happy. Everyone giving a little time to do that will make the forum better for everyone.

I think the current SM/Mod arrangement works well. SMs are only nominated by existing SMs to be granted access. A lot of SMs don't know they're even nominated until an extra forum appears. I know that's what happened for me. Even then it often takes quite a bit of nominating to get moved as there arn't many new SMs from month to month. There is a reason for this.

A very small bit of France if you're going on the E40/E42. I didn't realise I was in Belgium until we stopped at some services Gratuitous link to my Nurburgring Gallery I'll find somewhere to put up my ring report too