A problem that I noticed early on, was that the feed from the nest box was strickly black and white. The only light source, even during the day, were the 4 infra red led’s. As I didn’t want to illuminate the box at night, I figured the best thing to do would be to install a window to allow natural light in, and indeed some ready made boxes have small windows.

So, here is what I did. It’s not necessarily what you should do. I did this all in a rush in the hope that Pandora Tit wouldn’t spot me. The best way to describe it is bodged.

The window had to be opaque, so I used what I had to hand, which was two chinese takeaway containers, sandwiching a single ply of tissue. I cut the pieces to shape, around an indentation that they have, added the tissue, and glued the whole thing together, like a sandwich with a glue gun.

From there I had grand plans to cut a hole, with a grove in order to properly install the window. This was way to tricky with the tools that I had, so instead, I cut a hole slightly larger than the indentation, and gluegunned the window over it.

Sorted. Job done. I put it back on the wall and marvelled at the colour pictures. I say marvelled, grimaced is probably more accurate. It’s not exactly technicolour. As you can see I’ve poked through the end of an AV lead, with red, yellow and white connectors, and it’s all a world of grey. Perhaps the tits will look better? At least it’s a slight improvement, and should at least increase the shutter speed of the camera.

Now, all I need is a nest.

As you know, 2 years ago I set up a bird box camera, but got no birds in the first year. In the second year, I didn’t even look, I was too busy and involved in other things, but I’ve decided, that this year will be successful.

Over those two years, the camera has been outside in the bird box, unused, so I wasn’t sure if it would work. I leant out of the window where the box is located, plugged the camera into the mains, set up the receiver box, and – nothing.

I did lots of fiddling inside, and thought that perhaps the problem was with the camera, maybe the power connector had got dirty or rusty? So, I leant out of the window, lifted the box off, and brought it inside… With hindsight I should’ve checked to see if it was empty first.

It turns out that I had a blue tit using the box as a roost, and I had just woken him up. So, an hour of chasing a blue tit around my spare room ensued. Well, I didn’t chase it, I just opened the window, watched and hoped it would fly out of it. No chance. My wife worked out that he was attracted to the light, so she held a torch (near my head) and pointed it at the window, before switching the light off.

Big mistake. It’s amazing how a blue tit can look like an eagle when it’s flying at your face in the near dark.

Plan b – place the torch on the windowsill worked like a charm.

24 hours later, I reconnected the camera, it’s working flawlessly and my blue tit (named Pandora by my wife) is back in there and asleep. I’m disappointed that the image is black and white though. Perhaps I should install a window and let in some colour…

Two years ago, I decided that I wanted a webcam in a nest box. I spent some time doing research and discovered two major problems.

Firstly, no webcam was available which was small enough to fit in a bird box – only wireless av ’spy’ cameras. Secondly, a bird box with built in camera cost way more than I’m willing to spend.

The lack of the most obvious technology struck me as odd. I had assumed that most cameras would be USB, but they weren’t, they were AV and even odder – wireless. These wireless cameras would do what I wanted, and they were cheap. I selected one from ebay which had IR capability and illumination, and adjustable focus as the subject was to be so close to the lens. Ebay was the obvious source, and I ended up with this;

Click for ebay link

It came with a wireless receiver, power supplies, and a 9v battery link for the camera. I rejected this in favour of mains power, as I didn’t want to disturb birds when changing the batteries. All that was missing was the ability to connect via USB. But that was easily fixed by using a EasyCap, again very cheap and readily available from ebay.

A word of advice about the EasyCap – it defaults to “Digital TV” as its input, which is a bit rubbish, as it doesn’t have a digital receiver. When trying to use it, be sure to go to options and select “Composite AV”.

Now all I needed was a bird box, and to install the camera. A quick trip to B&Q and I had a box for just £5. Then installation was simply a case of drilling a hole for the power lead, and another for the aerial (the vertical wire in the photo above). Then I used a glue gun to hold the camera in place.

Everything was setup, and all I needed now, was a willing bird. This was my first failure…

One month later, and I’m back at Core, near Chichester, this time with Derek who has a 20D, 17-40 and 70-200 F4 lenses. All the photos show are my own, with the exception of the one where I’m driving. That shot was Derek’s idea, as he realised I could easily and safely get the front wheels airbourne. Interestingly, I didn’t ground the suspension arms on that run, so perhaps it’s the way forwards!

If anyone knows a fix for this, let me know.

In that last photo you can also see the camcorder mounted. The video is on youtube – it’s 10 minutes long.

Many of these photos were taken by James Dick, but I have uploaded them here so that I can share them with other people.

This trip was to core 4×4 near chichester, on a pay’n'play day to try out the Jimny for the first time. I had great fun, even if I did manage to fill my footwell with mud. I now need to fit some recovery points and go out again

Over the past year, I’ve shot 3 rolls of Kodachrome, and a few weeks ago I sat down to scan them with my not so trusty Plustek 7200. After faffing with drivers (again) and software for an hour or so, I finally managed to start scanning.

What came out was a world of disappointment. The scanner just can’t handle Kodachrome, and even on films that it can manage, the quality is just appalling. The sharpness is good, but the colours and contrast sucks.

So, I’ve bought an expensive second hand scanner instead. It’s a Nikon Coolscan 4000ED which I bought from a friend. I’ve only spend 30 mins with it, and scanned a few random slides to see if it works well, and I’m really pleased.

Here is a gallery of some of the Plustek scans, with their Nikon counterparts. The Nikon scans are as is, without setting the scanner up properly, or calibrating anything, or even blowing the dust off. I can’t wait to spend some time getting the scans perfect tonight.

I’m a very happy bunny. Time to buy some more film.

All photos were taken with my Pentax ME Super, on Kodachrome 64 with either my 50mm f1.7, or 28mm f2.8 pentax lenses.

On the 5th August, Hampshire played Yorkshire in the Pro 40 league. It was a great game to watch and went down to the very last ball. Entering the final over, Hampshire were trailing by 9 runs.

It was also floodlit. It was really strange watching the moon rise, whilst watching a game of cricket.

Enjoy the photos.

I got my test roll back today, and as is so often the case, I’ve been really disappointed with the quality of the film, but the photos are great. On the other hand, perhaps I asked too much of the film and got the exposure all wrong?

So what are my thoughts? Well, it’s fun and different, that’s for sure. However I think I need to make a couple of modifications. Firstly, the viewfinder – it needs upgrading. Looking through a single rectangle doesn’t work, as a minimum, you need two rectangles. This is probably going to be too tricky to do, both in terms of focal length and general aim, so I’m going to try a gun sight. It won’t help my composition, but should at least allow me to centre my shots.

Secondly, the wrist strap. I thought it was ‘useless’, but now I realise it is more attention seeking than Paris Hilton. Too many of my shots feature it, although never on all three parts as they aren’t lined up.

Finally, it’s a good shutter speed for panning, giving a good level of background blur. Here is my favorite shot of the film;

GT40, robot 3 camera test shot

I wanted to try panning, so went to a place I thought might have some good passing cars, just the otherside of my village. As it was, the parking place was way lower than the road, and of the first 4 cars, one was a TVR, and the other was this GT40, a replica I assume. I lucked out and got a great photo.

It does show the difficulty I have in aiming, especially vertically. I must fix that. Anyway, I’ve put it on flickr and added it to ’score my car. I can’t wait to see the comments. I’m expecting scores in the 3/10 range, especially as most photos in that group are uber sharp. This is a bit out there for them, lets see what they say…

One of my birthday presents arrived this morning, a ‘Robot 3′ camera which is available from various people on ebay for around £12, just do a search for ‘lomo robot’. As far as I’m aware, it’s not actually made by lomo, just an unnamed chinese company.

My new camera, except mine is white and orange.

It takes 3 photos within a short space of time, around 1 second I think. The best photos I have seen with them show some sort of movement, either panning or shooting a moving target, so I’m after ideas of what I should do.

Example of a robot 3 photo

My first thoughts are that I could take photos from the passenger seat of my car as we pass various landmarks, and that taking it to a funfair would be a good idea too, but suggestions are welcome. Hopefully I will feed the first roll of film through it this weekend and will see some results next week. I’ll start with an old free roll of jessops film, just as a tester.

These pictures were taken from an ebay advert by greenlife style They have a feedback of 10,600 and may be one of the more reputable places to get a camera like this from.

I really like my cross processing, and have been particularly pleased with the latest batch that I got back.

These were taken mostly at Silverstone, at the FIA GT racing, with my Pentax ME Super. It is suprising how many odd looks you get when using a classic film camera, and manually focusing, but I love the result.

I can’t recall the film I used, I’ll look it up when I scan it properly. It was slide film, and I had it developed and scanned at Tesco for £1.98. It can take a bit of persuading to get them to put it through the developer, but once done, you can’t argue with the prices! 99p for processing with no prints, and another quid for a CD? All within an hour? Yes please

Anyway, let me know what you think. I know that xpro is a love it or hate it effect, so I won’t be offended if you don’t like the results. All feedback and comments are welcomed.