The important thing to look for is that planes and satellites have big differences. A plane will have flashing navigation lights-  satellites and ISS do NOT!

The station is in orbit between 278 km (173 miles) and 460 km (286 miles) altitude, and travels at an average ground speed of 27,724 km (17,227 miles per hour, completing 15.7 orbits per day.

*PLEASE NOTE* This blog post is aimed at UK sky watchers. Please select your country instead.

Using sites like http://www.heavens-above.com/ can be confusing the first couple of times that you use them. Here I go through each step so you can see within 60 seconds of when the ISS will be in the skies near your home.

Open The heavens Above website in another tab…. Then come back..

Done that?

Good.

Now near the top of the page you will see in the text some links in blue.

First ones are: Select from map. and the second says: From Database.

Click on From Database.

Then select “U”

This selection will give you all the countries beginning with “U”

Select “United Kingdom”

Then:

Select “Your Town” this is the town or city in which you live. I live in Marlow, Buckinghamshire and on Hevens Above two are listed so make sure you get the right one or you will miss it!

When you have done that you are taken back to the home page and you may wonder what the?…. Not to worry this is correct as now you need to select which you want to go and see fly over.

Select ISS and this will give you a table showing the following:

Date – Brightness – time of visible flight start – Altitude in dgress – Direction where to be looking – Time of Max Altitude – Max Altitude - direction – time of end – Altitude – direction.

The time are almost always spot on! So be out a min or so before and find a good spot away from street light view for best viewing experience.

Any questions please post them in the comments below and I will reply!

If you want to photograph the ISS, you are going to need a tripod and usually a slow shutter speed to give you a light trail image of a pass (solid white line) Manual focus just inside of infinity and open the shutter for around 15 seconds at F4-F5.6 ISO 200.

www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

Months after I had the pleasure of being asked to be the official photographer at the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club’s (VJMC) show at
Uttoxeter Racecourse the dates had finally arrived. July 2^nd and 3^rd 2011 was going to be a weekend of classic Japanese motorcycles.

Owners, clubs and enthusiasts from across the UK  got together at the Staffordshire racecourse to show off their bikes and talk to like-minded people about their passion for what is now the fifth year.

I had also been given a space to have a photography studio where visitors and exhibitors could have the pride and joys photographed in studio conditions, which meant I needed a printer on site, a backdrop and of course my lighting rig.

I needed to have the backdrop setup ready to go as Saturday was going to be a long busy day. So I travelled up on the Friday afternoon on
the train as all my kit had gone up in a van and a car.

I had spent the best part of 6 hours travelling and changing trains and although the station is right next to the Racecourse, I had to walk
round the houses a bit as there was no direct entry from the station. So I was a bit hot and bothered, not to mention hungry!

I found where I needed to be and set the backdrop up which is a bit of a handful being  3 metres wide, assemble pole lengths and stick through the vinyl roll and set where the stands are going to be and get the holes to line up with the threaded tops of the stands. This took one attempt first time (You can see this here: http://youtu.be/8ulDnSh-sxY) but this time it was five or six, either one of the sections of the support came adrift or I could not get the bolt in the hole….

Now swearing and getting the hump I got it done and had some lunch.

So I then came back and checked everything was setup right and taped the front edges of the backdrop down. Set the Lencarta Safari up with
the softbox and umbrella took a test shot and adjusted the power etc.. Setup the HiTi 510s Dye Sub printer on a table again
tiredness and heat fried my part-time brain cell to a crisp… Got the toner in, then the paper.. Split my jeans wide open.. DOH! Embarrassing and funny at the same time. Finished off what I was doing then changed into a spare pair and carried on sorting bits and pieces…

At this point I needed a bike to test shoot and as John Cooper’s Rocket 3 was nearby, I gingerly asked if they would mind wheeling it into my studio for my test bike shot, I took a few frames then it was wheeled back to it’s proper place. I ran a couple of prints off to check all was well
with the printer and so potential customers could see what they would get if they decided to have their bikes photographed.

John Cooper's BSA Rocket 3 ridden to victory against Giacomo Agostini.

A limited edition print of John Cooper with his bike and prints of the bike on its own are available to order. These will be limited to 150 editions of each as a framed print, canvas, acrylic and metal panels for the wall.

This turned out to be quite popular, but working on your own limits the canvassing for clients and sales hard, but I put up some posters and
all was well in the end..

A fine Kawasaki

Then the hard bit, packing everything away after the show and heading home. So this was my first taste of event photography.

Would I do this again? Yes I would and I would jump at it too.

Special thanks to all involved with the VJMC event at Uttoxeter, your hard work and effort is much appreciated.

Thanks also to System insight for a seemless experience with the dye sub printer.

Important links that may be of interest:

http://www.vjmc.com/

http://www.geoffselvidge.com/

http://www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

One day I had a strong idea for an upbeat dance track that
would have been at home being played in clubs etc.. It started off well with
all the right vibe, but then a block happened and the whole thing went off in a
different direction, so much so, that what I ended up with was a piece of music
that would have been great on a horror movie! When I finished the mix I had no
idea how it had gone from dance to horror, but it was another piece in my
arsenal of composed music.

We are now in the age of the tablet ( The Romans had these as a bit of slate and a lump of chalk!) And as a photographer they seem to be an invaluable device for showing clients portfolios etc.
The devices are tactile and more fluid in navigation than a laptop and opening and closing images with a click and nice to hold, but what are the options…….

There are a number of cheap Chinese tablets on the usual auction sites, and while most of these look good on paper or in videos, the screen and power will not be up to much of a job.

At the DSG chain of stores (Curry’s, PC World, Dixons) they have the best budget machine that I have see to date. The Advent Vega has 512MB Ram, 512MB built in flash but you can fit upto a 32GB Micro SD card (it is supplied with a 4GB card and runs Adnoid 2.2 (Froyo) While this was for phones and not meant for tablets, it is re-flashable with a custom rom and launcher to change the home screen animation as your apps slide out of the way.

There are a number of sites with custom ROMs and the Modaco and Corvus seem to be the most popular. Speeding up the machine nicely and ironing out little bits and pieces in the software. The custom ROMs also add the official Android Market for downloading Apps etc which is missing out of the box.
The Advent Vega also has a 1024 x 600 screen resolution (but poor viewing angles off square on) It is a dual core machine to so speed with the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.  The price of the Advent Vega is currently £199.99

Now Google Android is in it’s 3rd incarnation known as Honeycomb.
Tablets with this are now on the market with lots more on the way, The Motorola Xoom has 32GB storage, has a 3G option and also has a 10.1″ screen. The Motorola Xoom is priced at £479.00 for the WIFI only version.

The Asus EEE Pad Transformer, nice snappy name! has 16GB storage with the option to use a MicroSD card to give more space, but has a docking laptop keyboard to turn it into a netbook. The Asus EEE Pad Transformer is currently priced at £379.00 without the optional keyboard and £429.00 with the keyboard.
Acer has the Iconia A500 which has just gone on the market. Looks very nice and well built with a brushed metal back and 10.1″ screen etc.
Specs across these new machines are pretty close.. So I am not going to go into every bit of detail.. The Acer comes in Windows 7 and Android 3.0 flavours and is priced at £449.00

Other tablets that are coming, Samsung has upgraded it’s 7″ Galaxy Tablet with 8.9 and 10.1″ screens and these looks superb so far, though I have seen there are still bugs in the software, but Honeycomb 3.1 is now out that should address some issues.

Of course the Ipad is a package that many look to owning or indeed copying. It is a well designed, made and thought out device. Stylish and tactile the aluminium and glass construction, the software is stable and integrates superbly, however being a closed system you can’t personalise it like you can the Android devices…. Ipad prices start at £399.00 for the 16GB WIFI model and upto £659.00 for the 3G 64GB version.
It is not all Android though and not just Apple using it’s own in house software on tablets and in the next few months the choice of tablets will be mind blowing. Though there are a number of tablets running Microsoft’s Windows 7, which many seem to agree is just pretty poor on a tablet.

One thing to think about are the different APPS from both Apple’s Itunes store and the growing Android Market which is not as big as Apple’s app store, but is growing. This is probably a deciding factor for many potential buyers and it is one to think about. It is the apps that make these devices personal to how we use them.

I do see the 7″ devices improving and indeed Blackberry has a tablet on the market in some countries in the price range. For photographers I see the 8.9 and 10.1 size tablets being the most popular sizes.

Of course you can get around 3G by buying a MIFI 3G modem either as a pay as you go or contract device. Switch it on and leave it in your bag. Handy if travelling away from home. Though some places do have free WIFI…
I haven’t decided which one is for me yet.. But it is an exciting area of the computer market right now… as for the choice to make, It’s app to you!

Encapsulated smoke pellets are normally used for testing air flow on boilers etc.

Take smoke pellets of course, the kind sold in DIY and trade stores like www.screwfix.com for packs of 10 or 50 pellets. retail outlets across the country or online with postal delivery.

I bought a tub of ten encapsulated pellets that burn for 30 seconds and producing 15 cubic metres of smoke. To be honest the encasulated pellets produce a smoke tainted with plastic fumes, so the normal type will be better. The smoke itself is white and needs to be lit either by flash or shooting into the sun.

Pellets come in diiferent burn tmes and smoke output. Getting a balance  of smoke and burn time for the right effect will need to be a personal test and may vary from shoot to shoot. The largest I have found burn for 90 seconds and produce 300 cubic metres of smoke!

An encapsulated pellet out of the tub before lighting.

So what do they actually look like, this is a single pellet:

You may not be able to tell from the picture on the right but the pellet’s size is 15mm X 35mm. Don’t forget your lighter though and much easier than trying to use matches.

I found it is best to back light the smoke with a flashgun, though this was a little too late in the day and too low on pellets to get properly set for this.

So here are some resulting images from the test shoot.

As you can see the added effect is eye catching and adds some considerable interest to the image.

Lit by two YN 460MKIIs, placed left of the camera with one the other side of me and triggered with built-in camera flash.

So you fancy getting into off camera flash. There are lots of options for this and in this post we will look at a number of items and different setup costs.

The 460MKII has a higher guide number of 53 while the original 460 was around 33. Power adjustment is 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64

Overview on Youtube:

It can be set as manual, Slave 1 or Slave 2. Slave 1 is for use with a master flash in manual. Slave 2 can be used with the master set to TTL. Both the 460 and 460MKII have a power save function.

Build quality seems surprisingly good. Solid feeling to the plastics and to the head swivel. A bounce card and diffuser pull out of the head too. One other point is, that most flashguns zoom by moving the flash tube back and forth to control the spread of light at the same focal length as your lens choice. The 460 MKII does not have a zoom head.

The 460MKII is supplied with a desktop/tripod stand and a cloth bag to protect it. Available for Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Olympus cameras.

I paid £39.95 each and bought two, this can be used to light a background and help make one using coloured gels while the main light is coming from the Safari. I can also do interesting things with lighting just from these two flashguns.

Other models from Yongnuo include the 462, 465, 467, 468 and 560.

Of course you can light a person or foreground interest with one light, sometimes it makes for a more interesting image, soft light from the front, drop the ISO and aperture and increase the shutter to reduce the ambient light.

A shoot through umbrella would be a more portable option though, you would lose some control over the light as there will be some bounce from the diffuser. Reflective umbrellas come with a white, silver or gold lining or as a multi purpose umbrella with a removable outer cover to reveal a shoot through etc..

Folding soft boxes can also be bought for use with speed lights and offer more control.

You will need a cold shoe spigot with umbrella mount and lightstand to use modfiyers like these with any of the brands of flashgun.

With more money there are products from Nissin, Nikon, Sigma, Canon etc.

For example price wise the Nikon SB700 is around £280.00 with the SB-900 costing £329.00 and the Canon range from £100.00 to £385.00 each.

Here is a slideshow with images lit by the Lencarta safari, some may also include flashguns.

And then………

You can add radio triggers.

Starting at the popular Yongnuo RF-602 which can be purchased for around £80.00 with four receivers. You can also use a receiver and connect it as a wireless remote!

Pocket wizards are a lot more money for a set (two) are around £319.00 for the Plus 2s additional units are around the £183.00 mark!

Other brands are Seculine, Elinchrom, etc…

What ever your budget there are products for you. Right down to bargain basement online with a bit of browsing, though build quality and lifespan may not keep up with more expensive products.

Some interesting reading:

www.strobist.com 

www.lightenupandshoot.com

www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

Nearly everyone has a hobby or past time that they do to get away from every day stresses like work, etc.. Some even do hobbies to get away from their other halves…..

Excersize is important to both our mental and physical well being, the sun in sensible doses gives the vitamin D that we need and the fresh air helps us get away from computers and telephones etc. But when we get older how do we look back on those active hobbies like extreme sports, like running, cycling ( road and mountain), motor cross, white water kayaking are just a few examples.. Some are even lucky enough to turn it into a career with Olympic hopes…

Though I wonder how many avid sadists, erm I mean sports people stop to think about have some stunning photos done for the wall or even a photobook for the coffee table or desktop at the office. What if you play field sports? A professional photo taken on location, will be some thing to cherish when team mates have moved away or you have retired.

Looking back to when I did cross country mountain biking, I wish now that I had some shots taken of me in action, but of course it is only recently that Off camera flash has become so popular which adds the sparkle to any outdoor location photos. 

So why not contact me today for a photo shoot at www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

I get such a buzz from my photography when I get to try something new, and as a photographer I don’t get to photograph people very often. This is now something I am trying to change.

So I had the chance to  photograph some great looking people in a great looking office in the centre of London’s financial part of the city. I was a little nevous of taking the trolley with my Lencarta Safari onboard onto the escalators of the underground. I needn’t have as it balanced nicely and people who wanted to walk down had enough room to get past me.

Some shots were lit with just one light into a white umbrella or with a honeycomb grid fitted to the head. The great thing about having a flash system that does not need mains electricity is, I can go anywhere and obtain great results….

Here Ana is lit with one light fired into a white reflective umbrella and the background is lit with a small flashgun fitted with a red gel, this just gives a touch more separation between my subject and the background, which also looks different to it’s everyday norm as a shutter…

I am so pleased I had the opportunity to have a day shooting people, here Amazine looks like he’s in a club while reading the paper… not sure that this would happen in reality… but you know it kind of seemed right at the time…

For all enquiries please visit www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

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Visit my facebook page.

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On Saturday October 30^th I led a one day taster course at The Berkshire College of Agriculture on photography and getting more out of the camera, most of us have one in some way or another, but do we have the eye or the interest in taken anything more than snaps?

I led 7 adults and one minor on a day round the grounds of the magnificent agricultural college started fairly simply with the usual suspects of shutter and aperture and then seeing the things around like bits of horse tack hanging on the stables. To parts of a tractor and indeed the whole tractor….

Seeing the abstracts and small items and how and when to use a shallow depth of field, the framing of an image of autumn leaves on a tree and getting in close or standing back for a shot of the whole tree etc….

For the most part probably not much thought is given to the point of view and composition or being creative with shutter speeds.

Whether you have a compact or a state of the art DSLR, understanding light and how it differs as the day passes can make a photo that is unique and will make the people who see go ooohhh that’s nice.

This photo (rather obviously) is taken with the sun behind me.



This one is into the sun.



An early morning with some mist or fog by a lake or river is not a bad place to start, for some the thought of such an early start to the day is not such an exciting prospect, try late afternoon. Sunsets can be fantastic and can be enhanced with filters, usually an ND grad of 3 stops should really improve things for example. Cokin P series is the cheapest slot in filter system and a good starting point.. ND stands for Neutral Density the grad means it will be dark on one half of the filter and clear on the other half. The dark area is set to just below the horizon and helps control the exposure of the sky for more detail and colour.

We also spent sometime talking about equipment and how to make the taking of photos easier by using a tripod etc and that it is always best to buy a good solid tripod. Some of the cheaper ones are so light, that they can be knocked over easily and do not have independent legs as they are joined by bracing.

Having a tripod that has independent legs makes it easier to use at lower levels for example. Also they tend to have better heads that are stronger or are easy to set exactly where you want it…

I had a great day with some lovely people that are on a journey to taking better and more interesting photos. We never stop learning new skills in photography as we also keep seeing things differently to most people.

We finished outside talking about flash photography and how terms like strobist have come along to describe off camera flash using just small flashguns or bigger lighting solutions like the Lencarta Safari and how we can over power the sun or use a combination of hard and soft light by moving one light closer or further away.

If you are just starting in the hobby of photography, then some purchases you make should have more money thrown at them than you may think………

I still have many things to learn myself, but I am getting there…

www.sounds-and-images.co.uk

http://www.bca.ac.uk/

So, if you are reading this, then you may have read my last entry about the Lencarta Safari portable lighting for location.. This is a follow up….

Being a photographer often means humping large amounts of kit to and from clients, not always easy if you are using a train etc, so I now have a trolley and as you may know there are plenty of different types, so which one is best? Let us see what we need to think about..

The size of kit being moved.

The weight of kit being moved

Is it being moved long distances or just from the car into the clients venue?

For me the kit is likely to be longer distance as I don’t drive… (Long story for some other time)

I worked that the best trolley for the job of moving my gear around was indeed going to be a fishing tackle trolley, I chose the Shakespeare Seatbox trolley for the job and got it new on Ebay for £30.00 delivered. It has pneumatic tyres with a knobby tread too.. It also colour co-ordinates with the location case of the Safari..

here we have the lightstand bag with umbrella left, with the power generator, then the trolley with Safari case and camera bag, Slik tripod ( now knackered but works0 (just like me). Second head on lightstand.

With this I can over power ambient light to give a dramatic look to a photo while on location outdoors.  And whle I have been getting used to what i can do with these lights, I have had some fun..

Here I used one light with a honeycomb for the head and a Jessops 360AFD flashgun for the newspaper..

Charity shops are great for props and help good causes too. When you are finished with them you can always return them to the charity shop so they get a second hit…

this was taken in a flood relief tunnel near to where I live, dark dirty and just where something scary should be.
All of the photos in this posting use just one light, often with flash photography two are used, but not really always needed..

Even in a field at a ploughing match, flash just gives the subject a lift from the background which course can be under exposed to keep the details in…

So if you need a photographer, that has the go anywhere ability or prefer the natural outdoors as a back drop to a portrait, then we can work with you… http://www.sounds-and-images.co.uk