Wired.com's top 10 new organism list

I spotted this top 10 list on Wired.com. It's 2007 top 10 'new' organism list.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/YE_10_organisms

It's quite amazing. The combination of new traits that can be implanted is massive.

Dog days

I spent the day testing the Sony Alpha 100 DSLR. I only got the camera last week and I wanted to get used to the control as I have a wedding to shoot tomorrow. Overall, it was an easy transition from my older camera which is the Konica Minolta 5D as the controls were similar. I must say though, I am a little disappointed with the camera. There was some nice new features but it's not drastically different from the 5D. For me, the part that really annoyed me was the amount of noise it produced beyond ISO 400. It may have 10MP but the image quality is about the same after post processing in photoshop.

As it was a wet and miserable day out, Odie became my test subject.

Here is a sample of the photos taken. Not true indicator of the camera's ability though as I've worked these pictures in photoshop. The rest of the pics are on flickr.

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post to wish you all a Merry Xmas. I've just completed my last day at work in the Limerick. Now to get things ready for the move to Mullingar. I am not looking forward to it at all. The girlfriend and I will be heading over to her parents today for the traditional Xmas dinner. No plans for the evening yet. Then it's a couple of quiet days before it's Hazel and Barry's wedding. Very important as I'll be doing some wedding shots then. Fingers, it will turn out fine, worst case scenario, I would have learnt something from it. Will let you know how it turns out.

Not much else to say. Have yourself a Merry merry Xmas time folks.

Quick update

Apologies for the lack of recent updates. I have been busy. Between sorting out details for the new job in Mullingar and work, there hasn't been much time left to update my blog.

I was invited to take some pictures at a Fashion show a couple of days ago. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to do so. Click on the picture below to go to my Flickr site for more fashion shoot pictures.

Learned a couple of things from the shoot:

1. People don't look as good if you don't get them to pose for the camera. Most people just don't look naturally good in the camera.

2. If you are shooting without a flash, you need to know where the light sources are. It is unfortunate in my case when the models reached the end of the runway, the lamp was overhead. Consequently, a good bit of their faces were hidden in shadow. Most of my runway shots were crap. Had a few back of the scene , pre run way shots that turn out ok though.

3. Alternately, shoot with a flash. I am not a big fan of flash photography but then it's probably because I don't have sufficient skill in using them. Any how, should the pictures look flat in terms of light source, you can always alter the light source is photoshop later.

4. Shoot lots! You'll be surprised how many of your pics are out of focus, poorly litted, blur, compose poorly, crap.

5. As I've never shot an event like this, I didn't know what to expect and I started running out of juice half way through. Make sure you have enough batteries. If you can't afford battery packs, the alternative is to buy a few more batteries and have them charged up before you shoot your event. Batteries are pretty cheap these days.

6. A fast lens with fast auto focus helps. If all else fails, get to know your manual focus control.

7. Shoot in RAW format. It gives you a lot of room for correction later.

8. Alternate angles as well as position around the catwalk if possible. (wish I had done more of this)