GrumpyDaddy

This is my favourite photograph I've taken for quite a while. It's a pretty simple affair, my daughter Kitty catching the breeze on the jetty at West Bay in Dorset.

I just thought I'd share with you a few snaps I took last week when we were on holiday in Croyde, North Devon.

Sorry you had to put up with all that guff about selling my Canon gear. It was clearly madness, one invests in lenses, and I have two f2.8 I love and would be bonkers to sell.

Anyway I solved the whole "small camera to carry around when with the family - but with enough control to appeal to the nerdy photographer" (very long-winded) dilemma.

The answer was a Canon S95 thanks to some money that fell into my lap. A compact for folks who like to dabble with SLRs. I promise to shut up about cameras now.

In this post a few weeks ago I talked about possibly selling my Canon photo gear and moving over to Sony.

The reason was the newly announced A55 camera which really looked like a technology I wanted to invest in - especially given my eyesight problems. The only thing nagging me about this move though was that I'd be moving down from a "prosumer" camera to something slightly flimsier.

Well it looks like the rumours of the higher-end A77 were true. Take a look here. I'm completely sold. It's the A77 for me please.

Anyone want to buy a used - but mint - Canon EOS 50D?

I have one of these - Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera. It's a brilliant camera, rugged, packed with features and has very good image quality.

But I'm thinking of selling it and getting one of these - a Sony SLT-A55V. This is a very high tech camera which ditches the traditional optical viewfinder for an electronic one. This has many traditional photographers crossing themselves and reaching for the garlic, but for me it has many plus points.

My eyesight is pretty poor and I often struggle when using optical viewfinders because even on very good cameras like the EOS 50D they aren't particularly bright. This makes it harder for me to judge composition and more importantly focus.

I was reading an online photography resource that suggested one way of improving one's skills is to post an end of year look at what I consider to be my best photos of the last year. And then in a year's time I can compare my shots from the following year.

Picking the best shots is tricky because I know that I'm likely to want to pick the ones I think other people might think are the best, rather than the ones I like the most. But I'm going to have a go at picking my own personal favourites of the past year. So here we go, starting at the beginning of the 2008.

I wonder if the pictures do get better as the year goes on?

I decided to have a go at making my own diffuser for the Canon 430EX flash from a plastic milk carton.

I didn't do anything particularly skilful other than cut the top and handle off the carton, then slipped it over the flash and held it in place with an elastic band.

Here's my hi-tech diffuser:

We had a lovely morning in Richmond Park. The twins really enjoyed the freedom to toddle at will and we loved the freedom, fresh air and joy of being together as a family.

It was very windy in West Bay in Dorset at the weekend. We took the twins for a walk there in the evening with my in-laws and the weather was biting cold. And as it was a walk out with the family I only took my walkaround lens (Sigma 18-200mm DC OS) and one ND Grad filter. But I reckon the following handheld landscapes still aren't too bad and capture some of the drama of the weather...

A few weeks ago I bough a Canon EOS 5 via Ebay. This is the first 35mm SLR I've ever owned. And this morning I got back my first roll of film.

While some of the pictures were very blown out due to my inexperience with slide film I did get some really great shots. Certainly I feel that the camera was £30 well spent.

You can view some more of my efforts on film in this Flickr set.