Lazy Robot

087/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

The old debate of shooting JPEG vs RAW will never go away, I think. There are extremes to each argument, with the JPEG proponents wanting results SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) and consider anything else not being "true" to the photograph as you took it. RAW extremists, on the other hand, consider doing that the equivalent of spending £5000 on kit and getting the pictures developed at a 1hr automated photo shop instead of in your own darkroom. You won't have anywhere near the level of control, although most won't ever need or use it. Rational people are somewhere between those two extremes. Of course, there are advantages to each. Raw files are massive, for a start. I can fit between 300 and 350 on an 8Gb SD card. I can fit between 1200 and 1500 JPEGs in the same space. And they take an age to faff with. You can't just get them off the card and show people. There is a load of grunt work to do, even if you don't actually manipulate them in any way at all. An...

086/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . With all the electronics, interactive toys and big brands being pushed about these days, it's nice to know that kids still like playing with a stripped down old tractor. Shot with my little toy Holga lens, with which I am still amazed, and faffed with in Aperture for the olde style feel.

085/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . In colour this time, by special request. Took this by holding the flower up to the sun so it's back-lit.

084/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

083/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Crusty B&W taken far too late after a trip to the Gardener's Rest.

082/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . I picked up this silly bit of kit from Four Corner Store , a stockist of toy cameras from years gone by, for no particularly good reason. It just seemed like a laugh. It's the 60mm, f/8 fixed aperture lens from a Holga plastic camera. The lens itself is entirely plastic. Even the "glass" is clear plastic. Focussing is achieved by turning the front plastic bit and a plastic thread turns and moves another plastic bit. It's very, very tacky and I must be careful not to just rip it apart by accident. It's an anachronistic thing. Designed for 120 film with its 56mm square sensor size, using it on an APS-C digital sensor loses many of the characteristic effects. For example, the strong vignetting of Holga images is simply not present because the bit that would be vignetted is cropped away by the much smaller imaging area. It does feel really rather strange to be manipulating a 25MB, 15 megapixel RAW image shot through a...

081/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . This is a card game we picked up in Prague. Ostensibly a traditional game, it's pretty much a variant of any number of standard card games played with a 52 card deck, but with its own oddities. There are 32 cards, with 8 cards in each suit. The suits are acorns, bells, hearts and leaves. Each contains 4 picture cards (king, queen, jack and serf, I think) and 4 number cards. The number cards, bizarrely, are the 7, 8, 9 and 10. I used a spot of OCR and Google Translate magic to translate the instruction card from Czech to English. I don't think it worked very well. Here they are: It's Raining Number of players; 2-5 Goal of the game: the winner the player who first gets rid of all cards. The course of the game, each will receive 4 cards. The rest remains on the table as a talon. The top card kitty turns and puts the middle stoiu, where a basis swap package. The game begins the player to the left of the dealer. Its task is ...

080/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

079/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

078/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Apparently we have a perigree moon. This means that it appears 14% larger than usual. Unfortunately my longest telephoto is a mere 135mm, which is rubbish. Give me a 300mm and a 2x extender! Anyway, this is my rather lacklustre attempt. Also, "supermoon" is a stupid word and people should stop using it.

077/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Taken through the window of a moving vehicle at approximately 50mph. Not bad, considering.

076/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

075/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

074/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Cheese and carrot muffins. Interesting!

073/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

072/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Some jigsaws I bought off eBay.

071/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . We went to see Epica and ReVamp at Corporation the other night. I really struggled to decide which of the pics from this amazing gig to choose. This one was picked, ultimately, by Emma because I just couldn't make my mind up. The full set is available on Flickr , and the runners up are here:

070/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . The view from our room in Travelodge Leeds Central.

069/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

068/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

067/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

066/365 , originally uploaded by craigand .

065/365 , originally uploaded by craigand . Assume the position ...