Hello everyone, hope you’re having a great week.

I've been really busy this week, finishing the wedding photos and getting them printed (the print shop did a great job and they look superb), as well as printing out more of my own stuff for exhibition and print sales.

I've been finishing the article on ND grad filters (which I'm hoping to be able to submit here as a news article) and also getting on with another one about long exposures.
Like I said last week, more information about these when I can.

And obviously I've been working and as ever, my wife and I are busy with the Turismo Rural project.

I'm also trying to get hold of a 1980s Nikon FE2...a classic film SLR. There are plenty of them for sale on ebay, but they are pretty collectable so the good ones tend to go for a pretty high price. I've set myself a limit on what I'm willing to pay, and hopefully I'll get hold of one soon.
The reason I want one is that when I upgrade camera, it's going to be to a big pro body, which is fine for my landscape and travel work, but I'd like to have a smaller camera that is easy to carry everywhere. I'm going to sell my D80 to raise funds for my upgrade, so it makes sense to me for the small camera to take the same lenses as a D3. Of course the FE2 is a manual focus camera, but some of my lenses will work fine on it, just without the AF. Likewise old lenses work fine on a D3.
I also think working with film will improve my exposure and metering technique.

As for the upgrade, well I always planned to get a D3 late summer, but was thinking of getting one sooner as the dollar is so weak (I'll be getting it from the US) and I'll save something like 1000 euros on the EU price.

However, the Nikon rumour mill is buzzing again, and people like Thom Hogan (who always seems to know what Nikon are going to do next) are starting to drop heavy hints, not only about a 24.4mp D3X, which has been a pretty open secret since the D3 came out, but also about a small upgrade to the D3 as well as the possible announcement of the mythical 18mp D10 (a full frame camera in a smaller D300 or F6 body, like the Canon 5D).
Of course it's all rumour and speculation at the moment, but people who predicted the D3 and D300 correctly seem to be sure at least 2 of these cameras will happen this summer, so I've decided to hold off again till my original plan of upgrading at the end of summer…just in case.

If anyone's interested, Photography Bay have a nice summary of the rumours here [link]

In the meantime, my humble D80 still takes pictures just as good now as when I first bought it

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Featured Artist


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Maximillian is a great landscape artist and really deserves to be seen by a lot more people. Check out his gallery.




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Features

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Some of my work





Take care everyone