Welcome to Comic Con!

Hey Surfers,

It's yet another bank holiday weekend! I don't think I remember what a five day week feels like.
This weekend I headed up to London once again with my brother and cousins for...

 I've never been to one of these events before and was looking forward to seeing all of the amazing costumes, of which there were many! The problem was the whole of the ExCeL was completely packed and there was no room to walk let alone ask people to stop for a picture. When it began to quiet down I did manage to get some shots but it was still busy, and those in costumes were there to enjoy themselves not just pose for me so I tried to take the picture as quickly as possible. In order to get the pictures the way I wanted them I really got to test out my Photoshop skills! Enjoy.

Took this whilst we were waiting to get in to the venue, luckily we went for priority tickets as the queue for on the door was enormous.

This was the first Cosplay shot that I was brave enough to ask for. All of the people in costume were so friendly and sweet to let me take their picture, I hope I've done their fantastic costumes justice :)

Thor and Loki were some of the best costumes I saw and they were incredibly nice :) Adding a background blur to this image just wouldn't work the way I wanted, so I used another effect.

These guys were awesome; I used Photoshop to enhance the colours and also add the dark hue to the background so that they really stand out.

As the day went on and the crowds thinned a little I was able to get many more pictures and had time to ask the expo goers to pose in different ways.

Really love that he is wearing the original X-men costumes XD

I felt that this picture of Angel (can't remember if that's the actual name of the character) needed a lens flare to match his battle pose; for want of a better word, it makes the image more epic, definitely had fun editing these.

I unfortunately don't know who this character is but I asked if I could take her picture in front of this toy stall, I think the juxtaposition works really well! 

At one point I'd wandered off from my family and we used this amazing display as a land mark to find one another, had to get a couple of pictures of that.

Quite possibly one of the best Jack Sparrow look-alikes I have ever seen; he couldn't take two steps without someone asking for a picture.

Dont believe the BS Bear 

An amazing dress

Roxas and Axel: FIGHT!

Childhood dream come true XD

  It was a pretty hectic day out, there were so many people and so much to see and do. Getting lunch was a challenge, I've never had a Subway sandwich made so quickly! Not even really sure what was in it...

As the expo is mainly merchandise I couldn't resist making a few purchases.

First thing I picked up was this steam punk pocket watch necklace, it's actually made of plastic but looks metallic.

This necklace is amazing, its a tiny version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, made of paper; it's about the size of the top of my little finger! They had many different novels including Harry Potter and Twilight. The sales woman was lovely, all of their information is on the card in the background :)

My camera and I had a disagreement so these were shot on my phone.

Picked up this cat pillow, I couldn't help myself XD

Got this steam-punk/android Simba to brighten up my desk, I included the name of the artist, go give them some love!

 This has to be my favourite purchase, a sketch of myself wearing Loki's cape and Thor's hammer. The artist was so talented and drew this from a photo she took of me. Compared to all of the awesome costumes I was a little bland in my grey t-shirt and jeans >.<

Comic Con was a great experience, especially in terms of photography practice as its not often that I get to shoot portraits. It was a challenge but I learnt a lot about how to take a good picture and how to edit it.

Hope you enjoyed this post, i'll be back next week!

Love E

"What is this...? my replacement?"

Ode to the FujiFilm xx..

Hey Surfers,

I think that summer is finally here! though with summer has come mosquitoes and other horrendous mini beasts...I'm covered in bites... ¬_¬

I feel that in my last post I was a little unfair to my old Fujifilm Bridge. My Nikon is undeniably better and the compact is much easier to use but, in the two years of using the bridge I did get some pretty nice shots. I've picked some of the ones that I like the most to share with you all. Enjoy.

This was one of the first pictures that I shot with this camera. I took some of my mother's fake flowers into the garden and snapped a few pictures to test  it out.

Testing the super macro function

 The detail on the fly in this image really surprised me; I was thoroughly impressed.

 Another shot using the super macro function. Even though this camera isn't a fully functioning DSLR it has only the daisy in focus; the blur coupled with the bright sunlight make for a very pretty picture.

Got this shot from the car on the way home from my graduation dinner. It was getting late but despite the low light the image is quite clear, bar the woman in the centre; her being out of focus makes the shot in my opinion :)

 Another shot from graduation day, though this time I was able to leave the car and balance my camera on a wall so it would be a crisper image. The bridge does perform well in low light, you just need to have a steady hand and a little patience.

I love taking pictures of animals! This was taken last year at Bristol Zoo, I was very proud of this image though the poor lion does look a bit forlorn...

Yet another shot from London, this time I was in Hampstead Heath. The sun was still quite high in the sky despite it being late afternoon by this point and I took this picture whilst lounging around in the long grass.

Finally, a bit of fun with sparklers and a long exposure time. Nothing spectacular but should you wish to do some light painting the option is definitely there with this camera.

I hope this has shown the Fujifilm bridge in a better light. It's a camera which can be worthwhile purchase if you're on a budget but want to take the step up from a compact. I hope to use it to take many more pictures during its life time :)

Thanks for reading Surfers! I'll be back next week with a bit more of a life post ;)

Enjoy your week.

Love E

The Collection

Evening Surfers,

Today's post is going to be somewhat different than usual; I thought I would share with you all the equipment I use for my photography. Before I purchased my Nikon DSLR I did a lot of research and looking around at different cameras, mainly trying to find pictures taken by the ones I wanted to buy.This post is partially for those who are looking to get their first camera but don't really know which way to go. 

All of these "reviews" if you will, are entirely based on my experiences with the cameras; thought I'd let you know what I found out. :)

I have taken the same pictures, as best I could, with all three cameras and they haven't been edited at all. The pictures of the cameras, however, have been and were all taken with my phone.

I use three different cameras which I'll list below:

 This FujiFilm A170 A180 10.2MP compact was my first camera.

I purchased it from Argos back in 2010 for around £60.00. It's perfect for parties as it fits right into the back pocket of my jeans, and for days when you don't want an enormous DSLR hanging around your neck. It's also a great starter camera, very accessible and easy to master.

 I had a lot of fun with this camera when I was starting out, but did consider giving it away once I upgraded, I'm glad I kept it around though. The one issue I have with it is that it DEVOURS  batteries! so make sure to keep a supply handy.

I picked up this FujiFilm Finepix S2980 14MP camera just after I finished Uni, roughly two years after buying my compact. It was £139.00 from Amazon but came complete with a memory card, rechargeable AA batteries and camera bag. 

When I joined the photography society at Uni I was warned against Bridge cameras, which are bigger compacts with certain functions which are usually found on DSLRs e.g manual mode, but went against the experts and bought one. I do regret it somewhat...this camera isn't great but if you're willing to put in the effort it can produce some fantastic pictures.

It is however a bit more complex to use and I had a lot of issues with blur when using it. It would be good to get if you don't feel ready for a DSLR yet. It does help you get to grips with manual mode and I was able to learn about aperture, ISO and shutter speed.

The final camera is the most recent, I only purchased it in October last year, and is my 24.1MP Nikon D7100 DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex). 

I bought this from Ebay for about £750.00, brand new, the lens attached is a simple 18-55mm which was from Amazon for just over £60.00. For obvious reasons this camera produces the best photographs of the three but is MUCH more complex to use. I don't recommend buying a DSLR unless you want to take the time to learn how to use it properly; this includes mastering manual mode, starting to shoot in RAW and going in for the expense of different lenses.

Anyway, I have rambled long enough, for all of the tech specs of these cameras I believe there are other places on the internet who are much better informed than I. Below are the pictures I took to show the capabilities of these cameras, I had them all switched to auto mode.

The first shot is an indoor picture with relatively low light. All three cameras used their flashes initially but I deactivated them as they weren't needed.

Fujifilm A170 A180

FujiFilm FinePix S2980

Nikon D7100

I then took my cameras outside to see how they fared in natural light. It was nearing 7pm by this point so the sun was quite low, but not setting. Also, it became so cold that I had to run indoors and put on my winter coat! Whatever happened to May being the start of summer! XD

Fujifilm A170 A180

FujiFilm FinePix S2980

Nikon D7100

So far all doing well. As the light was fading I decided to test flash on each camera, so I shot a before and after of my key necklace.

Fujifilm A170 A180
Without flash above, with flash below.

FujiFilm FinePix S2980

Nikon D7100

 The Nikon's flash is the only one which didn't completely wash out the picture, but I don't think the others did too badly.

Finally I wanted to get a macro shot, but there was hardly any light so I had to use flash again. I would have liked to have shot more for you but it was getting late and I was freezing...also one of the cameras was beginning to run low on battery, so these are the last pictures.

Fujifilm A170 A180 

FujiFilm FinePix S2980

Nikon D7100

So as overall quality goes the Nikon wins every time, but that was a given...the other cameras however perform really well and I have shot some pictures with them that I am really proud of.

You don't really need to spend a lot to take good pictures, I mean some of the pictures were taken with my phone and they came out quite nicely; my blog banner for example was shot with my Samsung (then had  a little help from Photoshop). Remember it takes time to learn how to take a great photograph, I'm still learning how myself :)

Anyway I hope that you enjoyed this extremely long and different blog post. I will be back next week with something new.

Thanks for reading.

Love E

Nikon

Fujifilm compact

Fujifilm Bridge

For more information on cameras check out DigitalRevTV on Youtube. I've learnt a lot from them.