Louise - Paisley's photostream

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Check out my new group Louise's Flickr Apps

I have started a new group to showcase my flickr apps and provide somewhere for you to give feedback, bug reports, feature requests etc.

If you have an idea for a flickr app then pop over to my group and add your suggestion to I have an idea for an app

In my group you will find info on my flickr apps including..


Random pic from pool/ Best of the pool display

You can set the image size, cycle time, tagged or untagged photos, custom codes, editable 'Best in group' codes..

Here is an example of the code in action:

Random Pics From Not Your Normal Bug
Updates every 10 seconds (when you refresh the page)
  
RandomPic?


Flickr Quick Links

Adds links to the larger sizes to your photo descriptions, lots of options, allow original size for selected photos, open in a new window/ tab etc etc


Group/ personal comment/ award codes made ULTRA easy

My latest playtime session has resulted in a page to create bookmarklets to insert codes into photo comments with just one click of your rodent.

As far as I am aware they should work with any modern browser but I have only tested in FF3/ IE7/ Flock2.


View On Black Links

If you want to have a link in your photo description to display your pic on a nice black background then check these babies out :)

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May I first just say, for anyone who does actually read profiles, I am completely happy to receive critical comments. I am trying to learn from my Flickr investment so being critical with comments is improving my Flickr experience.

Don't get me wrong, if you feel a photo is excellent then by all means say so, but if you think it would be an excellent photo if... then enlighten me :D

For the above reason, and with only a few exceptions, I do not join post 1 award x>1/ post 1 comment x>1 groups. Although I understand the intention is to encourage people to comment, I feel it often just clutters up a comment thread with somewhat half-hearted comments. Personally, I would sooner have 2 comments offering critique or well constructed comment rather than 20 comments consisting of nothing more than a group code.

That in no way means I am against post 1 comment 4 type groups, if that is what you enjoy then good for you ;)

Anyway, enough of that, here is my profile info:

I have lived in Paisley, Scotland, since 2004. I don't get much time for anything interesting (photography) due to work but I am hopefully going to change that by winning the lottery ;)



I currently use the following equipment view Picture:

Nikon D80 (main camera)
4GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC
Timer battery grip with 2 nikon batteries
Radio and wired remote release

Nikon D40X (stand by camera)
4GB class 6 SDHC
IR remote release for D40X and/ or D80

Dust Wand dry sensor cleaning kit
Dust Wand wet sensor cleaning kit

Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 GII ED DX
Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm F4.0-5.6 G ED DX
Sigma 180mm F3.5 APO MACRO DG HSM D EX
X1, X2, X4 & X10 Close up dioptres/ filters (used with 18-55mm lens)
ND4/ ND8/ CPL and 4 Point star filters

SB80DX Flash gun (used as slave)
SB800 Flash gun (used on and off camera)
Radio flash triggers (eBay and not brilliant)
2M coiled TTL lead
5m Sync lead
Collection of colour correction and effects filters for flash (made from filter samples)

Kodak Tripod (pants, I really need a good tripod if anyone wants to donate :D )
Another cheap tripod, even worse than the Kodak above (used as a flash stand and hair straightener holder LOL)

Fujitsu Tablet PC, used for computer control of cameras Via Nikon Camera Control and usefull for touching up photographs on screen with pen.
80GB Passport size USB2 hard disk for photo catalogue storage.

Kata Backpack (may be a good idea to trade this in for a van)

The above list is why I need to win the lottery ;)



Currently my main interest is macro photography. All my early macro shots (<August 2008) are taken with the Nikkor lenses and close up filters, hopefully from now I will be producing better macros with the sigma 180mm prime macro :D

While we are on the subject, my macro shots ARE macro shots. They are not just normal 10MPix shots cropped down and pretending to be macro. The only cropping I do is purely for composition and kept to an absolute minimum. All my pictures have quick links in the comments so you can quickly and easily check out the full size original - and I encourage you to do so :)

*EDIT* I would say the quality of my macro shots has improved dramatically with the new lens, I was apprehensive about moving to a non Nikkor lens, but the image and build quality of the Sigma is absolutely first rate, check out the original size version of the above photo by clicking it ;)



Post processing is done with Lightroom 2 and/ or Photoshop CS3, is there really any alternative? I try to keep it to a minimum, if I use anything but levels adjustment, minimal sharpening and slight crop for composition I will include details in the photo description.

In fact, since moving my workflow into Lightroom I rarely use CS3 for anything but Pano stitching and occasional multi exposure blending. I still use CS3 extensively for graphics editing for other uses (web design, logo's etc) but my photographs just get exposure changes, maybe a crop, tagged, titled, described, catalogued and uploaded to Flickr directly from within Lightroom - what a time saver!

Also, all my photographs are available in original high dimension size complete with quick and convenient links to the large/ Original sizes within the description, so you can tell there's none of this crop a 10MP shot down to 500x500 and pretend its a macro nonsense ;)

Well that's enough about me, hope you find something interesting in my stream and please comment positive or negative so I can improve my photography.

Louise