Early snow and a song

A bit brisk today. Out with the TNF Hedgehogs, overtrousers and fleece-lined jacket… and off to work.

Sadly the first snows have left one local fatality and a spate of accidents… so here’s a ‘transportation song’.

Beach ‘Droid

Yesterday evening found me down at the beach with some time to kill, so I decided to compare the Polaroid-effect cameras that I have on my HTC Desire (running Android 2.1). I left the settings at Automatic White Balance, and clicked away.

RetroCamera: I like the interface, but there’s too much vignetting, and the AWB gave a blue tint in the evening’s light.

CameraZoom: takes a while to get to the ‘frameFX: (dated) Polaroid”, but there are good options there. Again, the AWB gave a blue tint in the evening’s light.

FxCamera: one click and the camera is ready to take pictures. I preferred the “aged” setting, and the frame set for “square”. The AWB setting gave a true interpretation of the colours that my eye saw.

I used the FxCamera (link) for a couple of snaps the next day. Here is one. I had to wait for the empty shot, as I really can’t be bothered with arguments over snapping the public. I wish that the resolution was higher as this is 480 x 566 pixels.

Out in the Sun

Back from spending a day out in the sun at Balmedie and then the Sands of Forvie Nature Reserve, just up the coast from Aberdeen. Multiple coatings of sun lotion, especially as it was a windy day and very deceptive.

Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150, processed in Adobe Lightroom 3.

Evening at the beach

Down at the beach last night as the sun disappeared into the heavy clouds.

Photo taken with HTC Desire.

British Armed Forces and Veterans Day Parade

Yesterday’s parade in some more detail. Faces, caps, badges and medals.

Some more photographs are across at Flickr.

British Armed Forces and Veterans Day Parade

Just a taster of some photos from the British Armed Forces and Veterans Day parade along Union Street in Aberdeen.

Canon 40d with Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II Lens. JPGs resized via Windows.

Aberdeen Beach

After a trip up town (unsuccessfully trying to get a couple of padded lens cases), I dined and then went down to the beach. I was on the prowl for surfers, taking my 55-200mm Tamron lens, but only saw some fast-moving jet ski-ers. Too fast for my limited skills. I took a few shots, including the one of pebbles – which seems to hang on some people’s walls. Peculiar. I must get round to replacing some of my faded prints with some of my own photos.

Fleeting sadness

The fleeting height of being a sad git. Becoming Mayor of my work through foursquare. Oooh yah.

The phone is my HTC Desire in a skin.

‘king Summer

As the clouds opened and the rain came straight down, the day was brightened by a double rainbow (leprechaun-nav?) lighting the way home from work. As I rounded the corner, I quickly moved out of the way of Mr & Mrs Drunken Chav, as he screamed at her “It’s supposed to be ‘king Summer!”. My guffaw was stifled in case I got beaten up.

Shot through built-in app on HTC Desire (Android).

Blue-on-blue contacts needed

Went for a potter around the dunes at Balmedie (maplink) last Friday. It was a lovely evening and gave me an opportunity to try the circular filter with the Canon 40d. And my new HTC Desire smartphone. And give the sofa a chance to regain its shape.

Looking southeastish towards Aberdeen (above), and east to the sea (below).

Below: just playing with the new filter and trying not to burn out the camera’s sensor.

Mike had been describing the differences in the dune shapes since “The Planet” was filmed.

Close-up above taken with the Camera Zoom Fx app on the HTC Desire.