Airshow August 6th 2011

Battle of Britain fly by Hurricane and Spitfire recon craft

RAF Falcons throw some shapes exiting the aircraft

 Yet again  the show did not disappoint . Great to see big crowds on the seafront in Rhyl to watch the show 

Borrowed a 300mm lens to get a bit closer to the action . Great to have but not very discrete to get on the train from Prestatyn to Rhyl 

Shame about the summer rain .......................... 

UPDATE : Over 130,000 people attended over the weekend with NOT EVEN ONE public order arrest .

First attempt at developing Black And White photos from my Coronet 1930's film camera

Today I have achieved something that I have wanted to do for such a long time . I have actually taken pictures and developed my own film ..... Quite an achievement for someone who has learned all he knows about this process from the internet !

 Any professionals in film developing really should go look at something else about now because I will probably cause you to be sick in your mouth and be really annoyed at my poor slapdash approach to doing this .


As you can see by my washing line I took the advice of drying the negative in a " dust free area" awesome except my missus was pi ..livid annoyed that she could not put any more washing out

As I do not have  a film scanner the following photos are photos taken with a Canon SLR of the negative then inverted in Photoshop ( Original on left and slightly light adjusted in Photoshop on the right 

White sports socks that were drying on the line came in very handy in keeping a negative white background although you can see the material on a couple of the pics


Never really had a darkroom either so I changed the reel under 2 duvets ( This was the 1st time I have ever used the developing tank so no chemicals have ever been in the unit ) . Any tech buffs out there I'm sorry but I don't know the Tog rating of the duvet sheets but I can tell you that they sufficiently blocked the light in order to transfer the film to the tank . ( I was however slightly hindered by my brother laying on my head and punching me in the kidneys whilst I was trying to get the neg on the film feeder reel )... TOP TIP lock your doors to keep all unwanted family members out of the way until you need their help 



Other than that I loosely followed what I could remember on from the internet . ( My brother at that point did admit to trying to open my camera to have a look at the inside so I really was not holding out for much . Just something resembling an image would have been nice .)  Anyway here are a quick look at the results ( Not scanned photographed and inverted in Photoshop)

One , two , three ... Blink . Not light adjusted just inverted and saved as is

I'm quite happy with the results but will try and be a bit more professional next time........maybe

Mynediad Blog rhif 100 !!!!!!!!!!! .... Eisteddfod Wrexham 2011

Rhaid imi gyfadda yn gyntaf ers imi gadael ysgol mae fy'n Nghymraeg 'sgrifeneddig i wedi mynd yn warthus ( Doedd o ddim yn wych yn y dechrau ond dwi'n trio)!!

Fel wahaniaeth gan fy mod i wedi bod yn yr Eisteddfod Genhedlaethol yn Wrexham heddiw ( Ac wedi llosgi yn yr haul rhyw ychydig ) dwi am ceisio gwneud y flog hwn ( RHIF 100 ) yn wahannol ac yn Gymraeg !!! 


Dwi'n barod wedi anfon y lluniau gradd "A" i'r Evening Leader ( papur newydd lleol ) gan ei fod yn gwneud llawer am yr eisteddfod yr wythnos yma ( erthyglau a lluniau ). Uwchben yw rhai o'm lluniau gradd "B" doeddwn i ddim yn digon hapus i'w hanfon


Gobeithio bod pawb o'r tros 17,000 o bobl mwynhau yn yr haul heddiw ac mae gen i'm fusedd wedi ei croesi am y tywydd am weddill y wledd

POP HWYL




( This blog posting was written in Welsh as a tribute to the National Eisteddfod being held in Wrexham this week . I did wonder what my 100th blog post would be )

Rhyl Airshow 2011

I don't normally put old photos up but these are what I took as a spectator on the beach at last years Rhyl Airshow . It is a fantastic free event and will be on again the weekend of 6th and 7th August . If you are anywhere near I fully advise going . What a fabulous free event . The link below will take you to the show homepage

( I'll posting some pics of it myself in a couple of weekends )


RHYL AIRSHOW WEBSITE

Fingers crossed for good flying / parachuting weather

#1 Camera Modification

My first attempt at a Camera modification . Bought a cheap 35mm camera , attached fishing wire so I can re-set the shutter trigger without winding the camera/ film on a bit like a Lomography camera

Needs a bit more work to stop the shutter sticking , ( if you look closely you can see the wiring where the metal shutter creates a circuit that sets off the flash.......

I used a Rambo knife to drill a hole in the side for the fish wire . I will be posting results when I have used a reel of film . This camera really is a heap of junk so I will probably have to tape everything up to stop light creeping in

1930's Coronet camera bought for £1 from a car boot sale

Enlarged view through viewfinder you should be able to make out the window

I hope this bad boy works because I have already have several rolls of film on order for it  ( the film costing wayyy more than the camera ) . If and when I can afford to get the film processed I will post the results


The shutter still works will just need to clean it up a little but that's what you can expect from a camera that was made before the 2nd world war 

Update couple of pics I have taken with the camera and home developed

So the camera does work but It is quite a struggle to keep it still and operate the shutter mechanism ( especially on a windy beach)

Cage fighting event Muai Thai and MMA Liquid Wrexham 17.07.2011

A few snippets from the evening

Fight Card and results Wrexham Liquid caged event 17 July 2011

Bout 1 Paul Evans Vs Matt Vernon ( WIN)
AC Muai Thai Chester        Russ Williams Will Killow Caerwys

Bout 2 Will Cains  Vs John Thomas ( WIN)
Stockport              Team Kilbride Wirral

Bout 3 Arwel Morris ( WIN ) Vs Chris Titley
Class Kicks Buckley and Ruthin                Gladiators Shrewsbury

Bout4 Alan Davies ( Draw) Vs Alex Royles ( Draw)
Taz Muai Thai         AC Muai Thai Chester

Bout5 Jay Williams Vs Jack Seymore (WIN)
Team Kilbride Wirral     Alex Gym Mold

Bout6 Mark Evans Vs Mahmut Icer ( WIN)
Russ Williams Caerwys  Russ Williams Wrexham

Bout7 George Sampson Vs Matthew Williams (WIN)
              Swansea Gym              Team Xtreme MMA Wrexham

Bout8 Liam Conwell ( WIN) Vs Grant Adams
Team Kilbride Wirral     Russ Williams Wrexham

Bout9 Nick Barratt Vs Jarred Southwall(WIN)
Swansea Gym           Team Xtreme Wrexham

Bout10 Shaun Sant Vs Rod Summers Jones (WIN)
AC Muai Thai Chester  Russ Williams/ Will Killow Caerwys

Bout11 Steve Wright VS Josh Roberts (WIN)
Swansea Gym         BANE MMA @ Russ Williams WXM

Bout12 Craig Allen Vs David Williams (WIN)
Swansea Gym   Team Xtreme Wrexham

Bout 13 Brett Healey Vs Pietro Menga (WIN)
                       MMAfia          MMA Academy Liverpool

Cage fighting event Muai Thai and MMA Liquid Wrexham .

Great cage fighting event yet again this evening , will be sorting and posting more over the next few days . This is one of my fave pics of this evenings event . The fighter on the left had won and went over to show his respect to his opponent whilst he was getting treatment ........ Now you don't see that in football . I have published this MMA image in tone mapped HDR . Hope you like more to come

Acrobatic jump from one of the fighters on his birthday !!

Summer League final 2011

Summer League Denbighshire . As far as I am aware the Summer League is the only football league in the UK where players MUST come from the town / village that they play for . More info on the league available here : Summer league home