Dom Davis (The Blog)

Today it’s beginning to sink in that there are only a couple of days until everything kicks off. Tonight I started packing (well, I took a load of new clothes that I’d bought for the holiday from the bags on the floor and put them into the suitcase along with a few other clothes) which is always a good sign that you’re about to go away. Tomorrow, I have been reliably informed, will involve cleaning the house. I will, of course, help¹, but will probably mostly get underfoot. Friday we’re off to the Windmill and then it’s all go. There will be a period of time between returning from the Windmill on Sunday and leaving for our salubrious² overnight accommodation before being packaged into a pressurised cylinder and shot half way round the world³ which can be used for finishing up the packing but I thought it might be useful to get the drop on it.

I’ve also packed my camera. This is not as simple as it sounds as it’s not just the camera that needs to be packed. There are lenses, flashes, chargers, cable releases, cleaning items, tripod mounts, tripod heads, filters, batteries, and God knows what else in the three (yes, 3) camera bags I have. Every single piece of equipment I take will need to be carried, all day in the heat and humidity, on my back which means that I had to take everything out and decide what I really wanted to take and what I wanted to leave.

I also had to consider which camera bag to take. The choices were my trusty backpack which I usually use and my new slingshot. Not a simple decision as I had to weigh up size, ease of access to the camera, weight distribution and comfort. After parading round the bedroom with the fully loaded bags on my back I opted for the slingshot. I hope this isn’t a decision I regret 1 hour into a 3 hour hike into the jungle

Sunday will now be a question of get back home, check the passports, pack the clothes that are currently in the wash, check the passports, transpose the toiletries from the Windmill bag to the holiday back, check the passports, check the tickets are packed, check the passports, double check the hotel is actually at the airport we’re flying from, check the passports, double check we’ve got all the holiday information, check the passports, program the satnav, check the passports, check the tickets are packed, check the passports, load the car up, check the tickets have been packed, check the passports, check all the holiday details are packed, check the passports, head off to Heathrow, possibly stopping along the way to check the passports. Nervous? Me?

¹ For a given value of ‘help’

² For a given value of ‘salubrious’, it is, after all, a hotel next to Heathrow so my expectations are set low

³ This will be the longest flight I’ve ever done. While I used to love flying when I was younger the older I get the more I dislike it. I spend the entire flight just waiting for the thing to drop out of the sky which is not conducive to relaxing. Anyway, I have my happy pills, which help, and I have 5 longish flights under my belt from the engagement holiday so hopefully it wont quite be the terrifying ordeal that it perhaps would have been a few years ago.

The first iPhone was, to my mind, a marvel of technology in all areas except one. The camera was a joke. And I’m not talking about its tiny, high density sensor with a bit if plastic on the front compared to several grands worth of SLR and glass. No, it was a joke compared to other high density sensors with bits of plastic on the front.

The fact is that, in a time when mobile phone cameras were actually becoming good for what they were iPhone users were lumbered with something from the previous generation. Mine rarely got used.

The situation was little better on the iPhone 3G. If anything it was worse because now even low end phones had better cameras.

The iPhone 4 finally put a half decent (for a phone) camera on the back which, coupled with some software tweaks from the iPhone 3GS and various apps means I now use it as a point and shoot camera for when I can’t be arsed to lug my big SLR about, or for when I simply don’t have it.

Recently Apple included HDR (High Dynamic Range) with it’s camera app. HDR works by taking a number of shots in quick succession at different exposures and then tone mapping them so you can see details in both the highlights and the shadows. The effect can be seen on the two images below. The one without HDR has a white sky because it was exposed for the tree. The HDR version has a much nicer sky.

The jury is out on whether HDR produces good, vibrant images or if it’s a travesty against photography. Personally I think a good HDR image can look stunning and while it doesn’t work in all situations its a great tool to have.

What really impresses me though is that I now have in my pocket something that will do what used to take a lot of time, preparation and post processing with software that is not inexpensive. Not bad for a phone.

So recently I’ve been spanking large sums of money with these lovely people (actually, who am I kidding, I’ve been spanking large sums of cash with them for some time now given half my camera kit was bought from their website) since they are one of the better camera shops about and I need lots of things for my course and photography business. On Saturday I needed to get a background so, on my way home from my course, I swung by the showroom. It was heaving. Turned out there was a 1 year anniversary for the new, bigger showroom so there were loads of special offer on, lots of reps from different companies, various events and a prize draw. I vaguely recalled hearing something about it but had not realised it was then. Anyway, I waited my turn to speak to a sales bod while they dealt with the masses and looked at the shiny things on display. 30 minutes later and I walked out with my stuff, they put my name in the prize draw box (free entry if you bought something) and I headed home.

Today I received a call from them. At first I thought maybe I’d left something there, or maybe I’d been charged for the wrong item, but no, turns out they want to give me a rather nice A3 printer as a prize (the most expensive prize in the draw no less) which I think is rather sporting of them. I don’t think I’ve won anything like that before