Broadband – Are We Getting What We Pay For?

Posted on July 24, 2008 | 14 comments

I’m probably one of few who have two ISPs. I have Demon ADSL using copper wire and Virgin Media using Fibre Optic for my broadband at home.

I took out the Virgin Media because as a bundle with cable TV it was working out cheaply.

I just did a speed test at 4.30pm and the results are astonishing!

For Demon, I pay for an 8Mb connection but get 0.52Mb download. Upload was 0.36 Mb.
For Virgin Media, I pay for a 20Mb connection and get 17.98Mb download. Upload was 0.7Mb. To get these speeds with Virgin you need to make sure you’re in an area that has fibre optic; don’t go for the copper wire ADSL as it’ll be just as slow as everyone else’s.

This isn’t Demon’s fault as its the technology which is terrible. Using copper wire has many drawbacks; distance from phone exchange and number of people using the pipe. Most ISPs have a 50:1 contention ratio. Fibre Optic doesn’t have these issues.

In this day and age of doing almost everything via the computer these slow speeds are crazy! Naturally for us upload is often more important and I use Virgin when filing from home or doing off site backups. Its so much quicker. As “Cloud” services begin to grow and we’re beginning to use off site virtual storage providers, internet service providers really need to start looking at raising these upload speeds.

Copper wire is dead; bring on fibre optic for the masses.

14 Comments

Posted in Computers and Software, viewpoint

Apple iPod Touch and iPhone Version 2.0 Update

Posted on July 23, 2008 | Leave a comment


I’ve written about my fondness of the iPod Touch before, so I won’t be going over those comments.

What I did want to share though was the amazing Version 2.0 update. I don’t have an iPhone yet, so my comments are from experiencing the update on the Touch, but the same should hold for the iPhone.
I upgraded around a week ago and I must say its turned my unit into a completely new piece of kit, making it even more useful than ever.
The most obvious change is the “App Store” which can be accessed either from iTunes or the iPod Touch itself. There are already loads of applications available, ranging from utilities to games.
I’ve installed a few things:
1-File Magnet which allows you to transfer files across from your computer.
2-Vicinity which finds your location using WiFi triangulation and lets you know where nearby places are, including banks, bars, hotels, convenience stores, hotels, restaurants, taxis etc. Absolute genius software.
3-Google Mobile App which works like Spotlight for the unit. Superb.
4-Backgammon which has got me hooked, and
5-Super Monkey Ball which is a very entertaining game where you control game play by tilting the unit! Very novel!

One of the other big changes is “Mobile Me” which is the new name for “.Mac”. This “pushes” changes to your calendar and phonebook straight across to your unit (its having some teething problems and doesn’t happen immediately yet) and also pushes new email to the unit without you having to do this manually.

Just moving away from the iPod and iPhone, the “Mobile Me” service works perfectly with your other Macs. I now have all my Macs fully synced automatically. Its absolutely superb!

Leave a comment

Posted in Computers and Software

Rates For The Job – PR & Commercial Work

Posted on July 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

As photographers, one thing we are all universally good at is moaning. We moan about work, lack of work, our picture desks, the light, lack of light, wrong type of light, cost of everything and pay, or more correctly, the lack of pay.

Editorially, shift rates have gone up very little over the past decades. However, the cost of equipment has gone up astronomically and the job is no where as well paid as it used to be. Our workload has also gone up as we now do all the post processing as well.
In the days of film you could have a descent professional camera system for around £10,000, now days you’re looking at more like £30,000. To top this, you also need to change cameras a lot more often as digital is changing and getting better at a very speedy rate. Lets not even talk about the computing technology making leaps and bounds.
Where we do have some control on the rates of pay is in the PR sector of the market. However, we choose to shoot ourselves in the foot. My rates haven’t changed in years, and I stick to them no matter what the client says. Everyone tries it on; the client doesn’t have enough money, the job’s a quick one, its a hospital, its a charity etc. One thing you can be sure of is that the PR companies charge full wack, but they will always try and get the photographer for cheap so they can have a larger profit margin; why not? Its a business and they have to make money – but so do you.
The problem we all face is that less established and less experienced photographers are under charging massively for this type of work. PR rates have always been three to four times that of editorial work. However the thought process seems now days to be “well, some money is better than none” or “its better than doing an eight hour shift”! Painfully, its not just the less established photographers who have this philosophy; alas a few established names are also doing this.
In the short term this does mean more income. The thought being to make money. One of the excuses being “well the economy’s not that strong”. Be warned though; once you drop your rates and give discounts and do things like editing or wiring for free, you will never be able to get back to your normal charges when things get better. Its a one way street; there’s no going back.
My advice and my way is to stick to my rates and not budge. For very regular clients I’ll do DVDs for free, or drop a wiring charge as a token of appreciation for doing long term business. I know that once I give in to a cheaper rate, this rate will then be always expected regardless of who the end client is or how well the economy is doing.

Leave a comment

Posted in Photography

24mm to 60mm f2-2.8 Lens On A Compact!

Posted on July 22, 2008 | Leave a comment


Panasonic has announced the new Lumix LX3 which has a 24mm-60mm f2-2.8 lens. Thankfully the manufacturer has stuck to 10 Megapixels rather than jumping on the bandwagon of cramming more in (although in my opinion 10 is still too high for a compact with a small sensor).

According to Panasonic the low light capabilities of the camera are an improvement on its predecessor.
It can go up to 3200ASA at full resolution and shoot at 2.5fps.
Accessories include an 18mm wide angle converter, external optical finder and a flash.
No idea how this camera’s going to perform, but the press release makes interesting reading and on paper the camera seems superb.

Leave a comment

Posted in Camera Equipment

Natural History – How Flashguns Are Made

Posted on July 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

As I’m in a silly mood, I’ll share a funny one!

Those who were under the impression that flashguns are made in a factory might want to check out this.

Leave a comment

Posted in Camera Equipment

Screen Calibration

Posted on July 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

This is such an ignored practise that its astonishing!

We all put a great deal of effort in getting to the right place at the right time, take our pictures making sure they are technically correct, download the images to our computers and then completely mess up the colour on an uncalibrated monitor!
Every single monitor, be it a separate screen or a laptop’s screen behaves differently. No two are identical. Each one shows a completely different tone to the colours we see on screen. On top of this, we change the brightness on our screens (especially on laptops) depending on the ambient light and then proceed to change levels, curves and saturation settings on our images.
These are then saved as jpegs and sent to the office where someone on a calibrated screen proceeds to try and correct our mistakes and as a result the image becomes degraded.
One of the most important things in image processing is to start by having a calibrated screen. For those who have never tried this, it seems a scary and expensive prospect. Surprisingly, its both easy to do and relatively cheap.
You can pick up a good screen calibrator from around £150 up. My personal calibrator is a Gretag McBeth Eye One Display 2 (now owned by and rebadged X-Rite). This came with its own software which was pretty decent. However, I discovered something called Color Eyes by Integrated Color which gives even better results and supports a host of calibrator pucks. You can download a free trial and compare it to the results you get from the supplied software that came with your system.
I’ve used this on Apple 30″ Cinema Screens, an aluminium iMac (which doesn’t calibrate perfectly as its screen is way too bright) and several MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air (which calibrated perfectly).
Go on, invest a little money and get your screens set up properly; you won’t regret it!

Leave a comment

Posted in Computers and Software