Joe Aston

The house we wanted has had an offer accepted on it. Back to the search we go, I knew this would happen, especially when I was already planning out how my home network was going to be set up and drawing up plans for the garden.

I've just ordered a raspberry pi zero and i plan on setting up pi hole on it to run as a network-wide ad blocker, any one using a pi for any other uses, I've got plenty of time on my hands while furloughed so feel like playing around with this sort of thing a good way to pass the time.

i recently got google stadia which seems like good middle ground. They had a deal on a few weeks ago, i don't remember the exact details but i spent 60 quid got, cyberpunk, google home 4k and the stadia controller. That included the first month of stadia pro which is about £10. Pro has some decent game titles available and other games are often on sale. While I'm off work furloughed it seems good value, i will probably ditch the pro subscription once I'm back at work and have less time to play.

Must feel good to be out of the flat Ali, hard moving away from living with mates though. Our flat has been on purple bricks, Right move and i think Zoopla for a week now. We listed it at the top end of what we thought we could get for it, thinking people would put an offer in and we would accept lower. Due to how Rightmove algorithm works we were advised not to go between 25k increments as this means your listing doesn't show up on the first page of search results as you can only search in those brackets. So we went with the upper bracket. We had a viewing booked within an hour of going live and that all went ok, (haven't heard from them since) but since then we have had no more bookings. Am i just being impatient in thinking i would have had a load of viewings by now, or have i put people off by going in at the higher price. Has anyone paid list for a property or have you always put an offer in?

looks like ive got all this to come, we've just put our flat on the market. We've found a place we like, its been on the market for ages, needs a lot of work but that's part of the reason we want it. Fingers crossed we can sell our place quickly before the new place gets snapped up or put back on the rental market.

Having done a little more research and spoken to a mate of mine who shoots weddings, he advised me to stretch my budget and try and get a MK ii they can be had with a lens for a little over 1100 which was more than I was initially planning on spending but the benefits over the MK i seem worth it. Glass will have to wait. Amazon have 3 in stock so fingers crossed they have some left once ive sold my cannon kit.

That's what I have read, really not an issue, I won't be shooting anything so critical that replacing a battery will cause me too many issues.

Has anyone got any experience with the Sony A7 range? Im after a new body as I’m hardly using my 7d as I’m just finding it too big and bulky for taking on walks and stuff. Planning on keeping the Canon glass and getting an adapter. The A7 is appealing as the form factor seems a sensible size and weight. The specs seem a good step up from the 7d. I appreciate the autofocus and shutter speeds are no way near as good with the Sony but I no longer shoot sport so this doesn’t bother me and I’m not actually planning on getting rid of the 7d body. From what I’ve read the A7 can be picked up second hand for £4-500 or brand new with a kit lens for £900. I don’t think I need the extra megapixels from the S and I don’t need the 4K video shooting options of the R. Thanks Joe

I'm not too sure on the forum rules for this sort of stuff so please remove if I've got it wrong. I'm getting rid of my late 2012 mac mini which has worked well for my photo editing requirements for the best part of 7 years. Off the top of my head, it's the 2.3ghz i7 model, 6GB ram and 1TB HDD. It's physically in good condition and has run photoshop and Lightroom CC fine processing the raw files from my 7d without issue. Getting rid of it as I have recently replaced it with a Macbook pro as I don't have desk space anymore. Let me know if anyone is interested.

i spotted something on twitter last night that would suggest that they are now aiming to get it finished this year. I think this is now all they are working on.

Mery day of indulgence and consumption. May the wine be rich and the turkey moist. May your love ones be quiet and not remind you of why you dont see them more. May lego go together with no missing parts. May all toys arrive with the required AAs. PS i am very drunk.

its very different in terms of workflow. I love Lightroom, i have a CS subscription so have photoshop but very rarely do i need to open it up to edit anything, most of what i need to do i can do in LR. LR integrates neatly with photoshop if you do find you need to edit anything in PS. i would give it a go, it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you've gotten to grips with it its great. In other news, it looks like im going with the 2017 13" MBP. My mac 2012 mac mini will be for sale if anyone is interested? manages lightroom and photoshop fine with raw files from my 7D

Thanks Guys. Having done a bit more reading into this on my boringly slow train to Scotland this morning, running the Lightroom catalogue off a high-speed external drive shouldn't be an issue with USB3. So I think this will probably be my best option. The screens on the new MBPs are gorgous so much nicer than any other laptop ive used.

I have a sort of photography/tech question. Its more photography related than anything else so thought in here was the best option. Basically, I'm moving in with my Mrs and no longer have room for a desktop computer set up which means my mac mini has to go and I need a laptop so i can edit photos. I have been looking at Mac Book pros, i know there is a significant apple tax applied to the hardware and I would possibly get a better machine in a PC but i like the OSX and they seem a popular choice among photographers. I'm open to windows laptops but i wouldn't even know where to start looking for a decent spec machine that isn't gaming orientated with loads of RGB. My main concern with a laptop is the lack of internal storage, for example, the MBP i am looking has 256gb SSD. Which is no way near big enough for my Lightroom catalogue. Has anyone had any experience running lightroom of an external drive, either HDD or SSD? Another idea i had was to import onto the SSD edit that set and then move the files onto an HDD to be accessed later? a longer workflow i know but something that cant be avoided. Also as this is the photography forum here are some snaps from a couple of recent trips.

I fancy trying some more primes, got the standard 50 1.8 but fancy something a bit wider may 35 and also something longer, I just find 50mm on a cropped body an awkward focal length so it hardly gets any use. If anyone has any experience with longer and wider primes than 50mm I'd love to hear your thoughts? Joe

Some lovely shots there mate.

I made a jump from a 450d to a 7d and was astounded by the jump in image quality as well as the build quality. Never used a 550 but assume it's a newer entry level to the 450. If your shooting sport and videos you may be better with the 7dii however like you said a 5diii will be a great buy that could last a long long time. Not sure on your budget but a bit of a curve ball, have you looked at Sony a7 series, with an adapter your canon lens would work, probably not the fish eye but it seems to be great great reviews. I'm shootings less and less sports and more street and landscape so I think full frame will be my next move.

off to Iceland on tuesday, got 5 days touring around the southen half of the country. Any tips from anyone whos shot the northern lights before would be good. Also if anyone has been and has anything to recomend seeing please let me know. One from the summer that i dont think ive posted before. Looks so noisy but im not sure why.

Cracking shot Mike. Hope you don't mind the comments but the only thing I would change is to crop up from the bottom a little to remove the land. Just think it would look much cleaner if the pier lead you down the image from the left edge. Colours are amazing, did you have to tweek much in post?

Quick selfie from a recent trip to Cornwall.

Took my go pro surfing on Tuesday only to realise after a couple of minutes that I had the incorrect back door on the case, safe to say the camera is now dead. Such a a stupid mistake to cost me my camera and all the data I had already stored to the card as that's now dead too.

From what I remember when I was last looking into a new bag, unless you spend big money they still look like boring camera bags. Then you're spending 200 plus and you're into the f-stop gear evoc range and they are both great looking bags and amazing quality. In the end I just brought decent backpack and some gear wraps and that's how I get by, I have a lot less kit than you though.

Nice, is it just one exposure or multiple ones blended together?

Loving that Mike. Has anyone got any experience with the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens Ive been toying with the idea of something nice and wide, i appreicate this isnt the fastest lens in the world but that doesnt really bother me. Also Thanks to @Duncy H im absolutly loving the 7D. Not shot with the 7D but a recent one from a walk in the city.

Thanks mate.