Sunday 27 April 2008

Big Bang

Howdy folks, I have actually got to do some photography this weekend! With yesterday being such a glorious day I decided on a trip to Big Bang up at Santa Pod, primarily to have a play with the 40D and to support the returning Havoc team and to see my mate Derek Flynn start his top fuel career. Sadly a broken fuel pump ended Havoc's return on the first burnout and Derek never even made it to the track (see Eurodragster for the story there).

There was still plenty of action with 3 VW classes, Junior Dragster, 9.50 Bike, Outlaw Anglia, Sportsman ET, Street Eliminator and Super Mod all qualifying in the gathering dusk from 6pm - 9pm and some of the guys choseing to use the day time rwyb to test as well. I came home with just over 200 frames which hopefully will be on the site within a week. Watch this space....

Friday 18 April 2008

Quiet Week...

Bit of a quiet week on the photography front this week unfortunately. My trusty desktop PC died last weekend after 4 years so most of my time has been spent trying to save that and then when it became clear it had had it trying to rescue as many files as possible off it.

A nice new Dell from Euro PC is on order and should be here early next week, just in time to be set up ready to process any pictures I get at Big Bang next weekend. I did toy with the idea of going up to Shakey for the test and tune this weekend but the weather forecast combined with a bit of a flair up with the ME has put paid to that and also to the thoughts of going to Donnington for the historic race series there.

Should finally get to use the 40D in anger next week as Friday I am off to the Bird of Prey centre at Shuttleworth for a half day's owl flying and then Saturday and Sunday I intend to pop up to Santa Pod for a couple of hours at Big Bang.

Cheers
Sharky

Thursday 10 April 2008

New Toys!

I had a little accident whilst browsing the Calumet web site. A Canon 40D jumped in my shopping basket and before I knew it it was ordered and arrived the very next day. Still, 10 megapixel Digic 111 sensor, 6.5 frames a second with a double figure buffer for raw files and built in sensor cleaning for £620 body only and then a £100 cash back from Canon as well means it works out cheaper than the new 450D which can't be bad.

This will make a very nice 2nd body to accompany my 1dmk3 as it takes the EF-S 10-22mm wide angle which the 1Dmk3 doesn't. With Big Bang coming up at the end of April and then Spring Speed at Shakey the week after I will hopefully get to both meetings for a couple of hours or more to get to know the new camera.

Cheers
Sharky

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Back from Hibernation...

Yes, its true! Afetr more than a year with no new photo galleries, I have at last been able to update Topendtales with a new gallery! I was only track side for a total of about 3 hours over two days at the Thunderball and between that and a new, stricter editting process the number of images is only about 90, but its a start. Hopefully each meeting will see me manage a little longer at track side so the number of images will go up as the year goes on.

Cheers
Sharky