DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

Woo, almost quitting time! This is the first of three short weeks for me! Tomorrow is Anzac Day here in Oz, so, in order to commemorate the Anzac efforts in World War I, we get a day off. For me, that means that I have a nice long weekend to play with my new camera and lens, which I am exceptionally excited. As usual, we have an action packed weekend ahead, with lots of dinner, drinks, a trip down to the Gold Coast and other bits and pieces on. Expect lots of pics to appear on flickr over the weekend!

My new toys, my Canon EOS 40D and Canon EF24-105L have just arrived to my office, and are sitting here on my desk beside me. I’m itching to take them out and start playing with them, but, I know as soon as I do that, that’s the end of me getting any work done today. I’m gonna be good and just try and ignore them for the day, but OMG I can’t wait to get home later!

And having a fantastic time! I’ve settled into work just nicely, and I’m really enjoying it! I’m covering a whole range of different things, and some of it is quite new to me, so, I’m learning loads too. Lots of pressure to get things done for a big deadline we have coming up, but, that’s all good!

Outside of work, still having a fantastic time too. Things are finally starting to settle down and we’re having a somewhat normal life. We’ve just bought ourselves a new MINI Cooper S, which is currently being built over in Oxford, England, and should be here by mid July, to say that Kas and I are excited about that is a massive understatement!

On top of that, I’ve just gone and splashed out on some new toys for myself, I’ve got a new Canon EOS 40D and Canon EF 24-105 IS L lens arriving here tomorrow, so looking forward to getting my hands on that. Yes, I’ve been out getting more pictures of late too, which can be found on flickr as per usual. Keep an eye out for pics from my new gear there too over the next few days!

Other than that, not a huge amount going on that I can bore you with here, if you want more info, just drop me a mail!

Kassie asked me to shoot an advertising campaign that she needs for an assignment in college. The idea was to make Kraft cheese advertising seem elegant. This is the shot we have decided to run with.

If you are a huge Canon SLR fan like myself, this Spring catalogue outlining the entire Canon EOS body / flash / lens collection is sure to get you drooling, and your credit card sweating!!

Really liking Donncha’s shot of London taken whilst flying over head! Pity he just missed grabbing a shot of my apartment as well!

And whilst I’m sharing some photo love, OMG I think this is wonderful!

One of the best ways to while away some time is definitely to explore interestingness. This will throw up some stunning images, but, you are limited to looking at 9 images at a time before you have to reload. A nice alternative that Barry showed me to this at the weekend is flickriver which displays, in descending order, the most interesting photos of the day. Not only that, it does it on a beautiful black background as well, via a very slick interface.

IMG_8060

Originally uploaded by DjMagra

Normally, I sleep with the blinds in the apartment up, I like waking up in the morning, rolling out of bed, and seeing my view of London out the window.

This morning I woke up rather bleary eyed and sleepy, and thought that I’d obviously closed the blinds last night, so headed over to open them up. Queue a dazed and confused Daragh as he tried to pull up the blinds that were already up, and figure out what exactly was going on. Turns out, there had been a severe weather warning issued for extremely dense fog, and this is what was confusing me. I could not see a thing. The building next door is about 20 feet away from mine, and even that was barely visible, never mind Canary Wharf or the city in the background. It was a very cool but eerie feeling. I couldn’t even see the ground below me which was very wierd!

Anyways, fog is now gone and it’s a beautiful sunny day in London now, and the forecast is good, with temperatures forecast to get up to 20 degrees over the weekend which is a bit mad for mid October!

The sunset that I see out my window as I’m eating dinner for the past few nights here has been absolutely spectacular!

Unfortunately, my EF-S 17 - 85mm is currently out of action. I’m not 100% sure what’s up to be honest. Barry first noticed a problem when he was using it here a few weeks back, it would appear that the aperture ring is locking up. He’s had the problem on his 30D, and I have the exact same problem on my 20D. I’ve tried cleaning the sensor connects on the lens (with a rubber tip on a pencil as suggested) and that’s made no difference.

I’m looking for a good, clueful camera shop in London to take it into. The lens will presumably go back to Canon for repair, but, it would be nice to build up a good relationship with a good camera store here in London anyways. I don’t really want to go via Jessops to get the lens returned, that’s like going to Tesco looking for a tailored suit!