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!

When viewing these, the youtube video may appear over the top of them, simply use the scroll bars to move it out of the way.

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.

On 13th April 2009, Easter Monday, we went to the Watercress Line where they were holding ‘A day with Thomas’.

It was a fantastic day out, with lots to do for the kids, but also an impressive amount of what I’d call ‘old school geekery’, with Lord Nelson and Bitterne running the full line with 6 carriages each, as many as the platforms could handle.

I was very impressed with how accurate Thomas appeared to be. I was expecting any old train with a face on, but he did seem to be very similar to the character. There were a few more trains moving around, including Diesel, Percy (with Toad) and Daisy.

The best part was the random announcements of “And the sun… continues… to shine!”. All announcers should do that every so often.

Highly recommended as a day out.

This is a photo I took with my 10D in New York from the “Top of the Rock”. I am trying to get a lot more human interest into my photos, and I think I hit the mark with this one. Let me know what you think, in particular whether you think that adding people to photos like this makes them better.

I’d appreciate the comments on flickr, it increases its ‘interestingness’ and more people will then view the photo. Thanks

I’m going to put this up for sale here for a couple of days, to see if there is any interest, if not then it will be on ebay by the weekend.

More recent photos to follow soon.

I bought this car in 2002 with 40,000kms on the clock, basic greddy turbo kit and roll cage. Since then it has been improved and tweeked, retaining a sensible power output of around 200bhp @ 7psi. It has been used on track days, and occasionally for drifting and sprints. It has always been reliable, to the point that I believe it is now the highest mileage turbo there is – daily driving has brought the mileage up just over 160,000 kms, or 100,000 miles. The engine is as strong as it has ever been, and I have no reason to doubt its ability to do another 100,000 miles.

In terms of speed, it is similar to a Caterham. 0-60 is around 6 second, but cornering is where it really shines. The cage, suspension and diff give an unbelievable amount of grip. At the last sprint – MX5 OC, Curborough 2007 – it was 3rd quickest behind a MaX5 car and another car running 15psi.

The main downside to the car is that the paintwork is knackered. T-cut will not fix it as in places the laquer is pealing. Do not let that put you off, it is a very fast, sound car, with all the bits you would ever want to add to an MX-5.

Here are the details;

1992 S-Spec
Greddy Turbo
15psi.com Saab intercooler kit
Full Roll cage – Stiffens the chassis a lot, roof still fits.
Custom ECU
Brand new K&N filter, iridium spark plugs
Recent magnecor leads
KYB AGX shocks
Torsen Differential
Knocklink knock sensor
Sony MP3 CD player, alpine speakers
Manual control of A/C fan for additional cooling in traffic or paddocks.
1.8 Mazda clutch and brake conversion – proven strong on track.
Brake master cylinder brace
Rota group 15” N alloys, 5.1kg each, 2x new toyo’s, 2x worn toyos
Original 14” 7 spoke and BBS wheels included if wanted, both sets are tatty but lightweight and good for track use.
Mazda bodykit with chin and rear spoiler.
Bipes ACU – disconnected, but good for ebay. Needs removing (5 minutes of soldering work).
Autometer gauges
HKS Silent HiPower exhaust
Walbro fuel pump
Polished knob *phnar*.

The bad points are;

The paint.
The roof is split near the rear window.
The A/C doesn’t work and should ideally be removed.
One alloy has been kerbed