Monday 1 January 2018

Happy New Year - 2018

 
Olympus 7-14 zoom lens at 7mm. Crop from a quick 16 image stack, F5.6, 1.3 secs, at ISO 200.

A Happy New Year to all my readers. May you find fulfillment in all your endeavours, however great or small.

This year sees for me the end of a two year period of working in the NHS. My contract has now ended, and it gives me the opportunity to focus on my goal cementing my goal of being a published author. I realize, on reflection, that time is the most precious commodity one has, and I'm driven to make the most of the time I have to achieve my goals.

I'm not one for making New Year resolutions, because I know that such things generally are counter productive, unless one is willing to make big changes and drive yourself hard. This year I want to commit myself to making changes and I'm prepared to drive myself hard to do so.

My first novel, Bad Dog, is out as an eBook, and by the end of the month I hope to have a paperback and hardcover versions for sale. Furthermore, the sequel, Strike Dog, will be available soon. Just got to commission a cover, oh and do all the niggly bits like typeset it, and stuff. But I know how to do it now, so it will be done. Then before the end of the year I will bring Ghost Dog to market.

But, while this means I will do less model making than I might like, it doesn't mean an end to my hobbies, because everyone needs a hobby. Back here I talked about getting a new camera, now I have my new lens, courtesy of my beloved, more about it on my other blog.

Above is a quick stack of 16 images I took on Christmas Day. And, I've taken away one lesson, with an ultra-wide angle lens one doesn't need to take more than half-a-dozen pictures to get everything in focus.

Wow. If you know anything about photography, that's definitely a thing!

So, I'm excited by this picture, because it combines two of my hobbies. Combining two hobbies is both satisfying and inspirational. My plan is to take a 40mb Hi-Res single image and a stack of 16mb images, of the same scene under better lighting, to compare the results from the two different two modes.

The reason being that doing one 40 mega-pixel shot would be quicker than taking multiple 16 mega-pixel pictures and stacking them into one image.

Exciting stuff! See you all on the bounce.
  

4 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Ashley.
    Enjoying a lot your novel, honestly. Almost 50% through by now
    If the remaining 50% is as good as the first half I'll be eagerly waiting to buy the sequel.
    Congratulations

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My other readers have told me they think the second half is even better. Let me know what you think when you finish.

      And, if you have time and the inclination, a review on Amazon would be most welcome, because word of mouth is everything.

      Delete
    2. You’ll have that review in Amazon, don’t have any doubt

      Delete