Back from The Discworld Convention

[Sjoerd3000]

Excellent photos, Penners. Caught me with my eyes shut - my standard pose, I'm afraid, as everyone who's ever taken my picture will tell you. I think it's something to do with wossname. Quantum.

Here's a photo with your eyes open


I got home late yesterday evening, worrying about mC a lot, I knew she made her flight but not if her luggage made it or if she got her keys back. I'm glad you got home ok, and your luggage should be there soon

I had great time at the convention! Loved meeting up with you all.

Looking forward to 2014

[Tonyblack]

That's a really good photo!

[michelanCello]

Love the pictures, Penners!
Still no luggage, I'm affraid, but should be here soon-ish (I hope)... Feeling great, though, slept a LOT and I don't even have to unpack yet

[Tonyblack]

Toofs, I'm sure I've seen you before - your face looks so familiar. Maybe at another DW event.

[Penfold]

Excellent photos, Penners. Caught me with my eyes shut - my standard pose, I'm afraid, as everyone who's ever taken my picture will tell you. I think it's something to do with wossname. Quantum.

Here's a photo with your eyes open

And also demonstrating the fine art of duck balancing!

Here's another one that I took, this time with your eyes open and finely balanced duck.

[Catch-up]

LOVE the pictures!! Sounds like you guys had a wonderful time.

[SimStars13]

Ah, pictures look brilliant How on earth did you manage to get good photos? All mine are blurry or have dodgy poses... And I do hope your luggage turns up (my friend once had her luggage redirected to Spain on a flight home from Italy...)

[michelanCello]

Luggage needs holidays too, sometimes

[Penfold]

Ah, pictures look brilliant How on earth did you manage to get good photos? All mine are blurry or have dodgy poses... And I do hope your luggage turns up (my friend once had her luggage redirected to Spain on a flight home from Italy...)

As a tip, blurry photos not caused by focus is down to shutter speed or camera shake. A good rule of thumb if using a zoom lens (hand-held rather than tripod) is that the shutter speed should equal or exceed the focal length of the zoom (the longer the zoom length, the more pronounced the camera shake). For example, if the zoom length is 300mm then the shutter speed should be 1/300 second. If the zoom length is 100mm then the shutter speed should be set at 1/100 sec, and so on. Image Stabilizers built into lenses/cameras allow you to stop down the shutter speed a couple of places as does putting the camera on a tripod (I think you can also get 'mini' tripods from camera shops for point and click cameras quite cheaply as well).

Regarding 'dodgy' poses, THIS WALL-CHART might be useful for ideas and THIS ONE shows the best (and worst) places for cropping photos of people. Picasa has good image editing as well for adjusting brighness, contrast, exposure, straightening, sharpening, and cropping photos which is free and easy to use.

I hope this helps or at least gives you some ideas.

[SimStars13]

So the trick is to plan what you're doing? ... that might have been what I got wrong I tend to point, shoot, say "oops that went wrong", change some settings and by that time the person having their photo taken has moved on... but that is an interesting site

[raisindot]

Stephen Briggs plotting the untimely demise of a pushy photographer.

These are all great photos, Penners, but the Briggs here does such a spot-on imitation of Paul Kidby's Vetinari portrait (love the Tyrant button!) that I almost wonder whether Kidby originally based his Vetinari on Briggs himself...

[Jason]

Don't know about the Paul Kidby one but the patrician stamps were most definitely based on Stephen.

[Tonyblack]

See here.

[michelanCello]

Got a phone call - my luggage will be delivered between 5 and 6 PM. A bit late, but at least I'll have it

[Jason]

Great news. Apart from having to wash it all now.