bitsofbobs

Went for a little wander at lunch time there. Just to get me away from the computer. Love the fact that we have a bit of sunshine in the afteroon. The weather has been so unpredictable past few months. It’s getting to be hard work carrying so many cameras around and swapping lenses. Been taking alot of pictures with my Iphone recently so all my other cameras have taken a bit of a backseat. Filled them all with new film. Just finished one of my holgas that is currently being developed. Pick it up tomorrow. Rather annoyingly the jessops right near work no-longer process the 120 film as it’s always “too busy”. Soooo had to go up to the one a few blocks up by nevis sport. Worked to my advantage though…it’s always dead in that one, and they undercharged me as they didn’t really know what to put it through the till as…result. Should have it tomorrow. And i’m looking into making a cool a wee flash image viewer for all my iphone pics.

Seen an interview with calvin harris at the weekend just passed and didn’t realise he did the music for the new coke ad. I don’t like the man anyway but love the wee monsters in the ad. Here’s a little behind the scenes monster magic. You don’t get to see the chewbacca bass player enough for my likes.

Last night my attention was brought to the fact there was going to be the annual (apparently) persied meteor shower. about 9 o’clock I noticed it was a pretty clear night. It was decided. Nic was up for it, more to do with driving her new mini more than anything. So we headed to Balmaha beach about 1130 and sat with a picnic blanket (tartan of course) on the banks of loch lomond. Managed to get a few photos…which once looked at were actually black. Wasn’t until I got them into photoshop and did some trickery the image came to light. There was a bit of cloud but you could still see shooting stars through them. I loved it. Seen loads. dunno where they got this magic “100″ meteors in an hour nonsense though. Unless I went to bed too early

Got some WELL early birthday presents from nics mum and dad. I loves it. First off is this kodak brownie a camera which takes 127 mm film. Which by the way is really hard to get hold of these days. Managed to find a place that still does it in the uk. here if by chance you ended up here looking for some. bit of history on it. Made in England introduced in the 50’s before coming a massive success then being shipped over to the states were it became known as the starlet. Some film is on it’s way I’ll keep you posted from what I can gather it rather randomly only takes 8 photos…brilliant.

This is exciting, the kodak hawkeye. This takes 120mm film which I have a load of as my holga takes the same. So this baby is up and running. Basically it’s a box with a lens on it and a manual shutter. It’s as simple as it comes. Bit of history, this particualr model was a slightly “done up” model of the original which date back to the 1890s before kodak bought into it and re-issued it in the 1930s ish. Either way I can’t wait to see it’s results.

also managed to find the original manual online here.

Well it was about time again for a bit more camping as most of the weather forecasts had “predicted” it wouldn’t rain most of saturday. So straight after work me and a few others headed straight to central to catch the ferry. It’s amazing how much further your money goes out on these wee islands. Lets see, edinburgh day single…one train about £10. To rothsay £8.60 one train and a ferry. I know which adventure I’d rather have. SO to rothsay where we grabbed a taxi ro take us to kilchattan bay to the start of the west island way. I had camped here before and managed to get right round to the southern tip but as we arrived a little later the light was dimming and I’d already fallen on my arse. So we found a great spot about a mile and a bit along the path. Setup camp. The weather was awesome…still and really quiet. Found a load of drift wood on the beach so got a fire going. We bought far to much stuff for even 2 nights. The co-op on bute does have amazing disposable bbq’s though. Loads of stars out even seen a few shooting ones. Great fun in the dark on the beach looking for wood…even found a beach toad…who knew?

Up in the morning and cooked up an awesome breakfast on the beach the wind had picked up a bit and the rain had even started a wee bit.

Some fellow campers went home on the early ferry while me and lee stayed on the bus and went round to port bannatyne for a bit of fishing off the pier. The sun had come out to play at this point. Much luck with the fishing few others there to, all fishing for mackerel. Mostly fishing with feathers, seems to be the way to go. Quick chip shop dinner (couldn’t be bothered cooking our fish as the rain was on) then back on the ferry home in time to watch overboard…just the job.

Found this great wee app for iphone. One of the biggest draws of the iphone for me was it’s wee camera. I know alot of people say it’s rubbish…blah blah blah. but I was determined to find some good use for it. I found this great wee app called ToyCamera. Basically you take a picture and it ads 1 of 8 random filters to an image to make it look like it was taken with a retro camera. You can choose to switch off some of the ones you don’t like so it only ever does one. I really like the black and white ones it takes, but it does take some cool ones that either over saturate or undersaturate images. Available for £1.19 bits of bobs recommends.