Harry's Blog

I'm sure that you're not surprised there's not been much blogging in the last week or so. We've been very busy with the newest addition to our family - little baby Will. Or Baby Woo asd Jo and I continue to call him following Will's big brother's lead.

Last week was tough for all manner of reasons. Firstly there was the obvious addition to our family of a baby. He's pretty easygoing as babies go - sleeping much of the time - but we've had major angst on how to feed him. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth we've settled on a pragmatic rather than dogmatic approach and everyone seems much happier, especially little Will.

Then there are issues of how two toddlers will cope with the little interloper entering their lives. Patrick has been a complete star. His behaviou over the last week has been something to behold, he's fascinated by baby will but also seems to have grown up to fulfil the role of big brother. He's hardly been on the naughty step since Will arrived.

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Low cloud made for a poor grey spectacle at the air show today - and it kept many planes from flying. The poor light and ugly grey sky meant that of 300 photos these are the only ones I thought had much merit.

Photos appear after the jump...

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Today Patrick and Kitty got to meet their new little brother for the first time. Hearing them say "Hello baby" brought a tear to my eye. When they left and Pat waved and said "Bye Bye Baby Woo" (his pronunciation of Will) it was adorable.

See the picture slideshow after the page jump...

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William Arthur Neary, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

This is our beautiful son Will who was born today at 15:25. He weighed 7 lb 13 oz. Mum and baby are doing really well.

Today I've made a slight change to the organisation of the site. I've merged the Photography and Grumpygamer blogs.

From now on Grumpygamer is where all my waffle about toys, games, gadgets, cameras and the like will appear.

And to start the new merged blog off I've written a brief review of the Cowon S9 32GB personal music player.

The Cowon S9 32GB is without doubt the best music player I've owned. Previously I had an iRiver Clix 2 4GB that I was very happy with as it combined good sound quality with the ability to read books. I've also got a Creative Zen 32GB which was great as I could get my entire CD collection on it. However the Zen didn't have a book reader.

I began shopping around for a player with a 32GB capacity but also a good book reader. Sound quality was the major factor and after reading many reviews I settled on the S9. I'm really glad I did.

The sound quality is excellent, both through my CX300 in ear phones and my PX100 open phones. The battery life is outstanding and the screen is amazing. It's a delight to watch movies on and TV programmes downloaded from BBC iPlayer.

The book reader is very good too - making it very easy and pleasurable to listen to music and read at the same time. The radio reception is the best I've had in any music player I've owned.

The user interface is very good indeed and tweaked via the freely available CLAW UCI it's even better. My only criticism of the player is that it uses a propriety USB cable rather than a regular mini plug. But that's no big deal. All in all I'm thrilled with the S9.

If you're in the market for a touchscreen music player with good format support, excellent sound quality, an amazing AMOLED screen and super video playback (including BBC iPlayer support) then the S9 is the player to go for.

My wife is a brave woman, she's nine months pregnant and yet decides to give the twins their first go at painting. But I guess with the rain pouring down that teacher training has stepped in and she's gone into "wet break" mode. What a trooper.

See the picture slideshow after the page jump...

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Dorset Sunset 2, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

This is very close to what came out of the camera as I tried to capture this sunset. The photograph was taken handheld and I had a soft ND grad filter on the lens.

However I did develop the shot three times with Canon DPP at different EV levels then recombine them - the aim being to capture what I saw rather than create a HDR monstrosity.

The result is actually so close to the image that came out of the camera I probably could have achieved the same result by fiddling with curves.

Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Lens: Tamron 10-24mm

Dorset Sunset 1, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

I must admit there's a little bit of HDR going on here. Three bracketed handheld exposures were combined. But the aim wasn't to create one of those weird halo-ruined monstrosities you mostly associate with the technique. The aim was to capture what I saw with my own eyes - and this is pretty close.

Pushing Up Daisies (Reprise), originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

Another shot of the gravestones here at the bottom of the hill in Charlton Down, Dorset.

I'm assuming there are no actual graves here anymore, especially now the chapel is a fitness centre. But the stones themselves have been left here.

There's something oddly beautiful about them.

I snapped these few shots this evening - I've not had chance to get out and about with the lens yet. All shots were taken on a Canon EOS 50D and developed using Canon's DPP software set to the Faithful picture style. The only post processing has been to resize the images and then add a little unsharp mask.

Photos appear after the jump...

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I had a lovely day today surrounded by my wife and children. The twins and I spent quite a bit of time this morning seeing how tall a pile of wooden blocks we could build before the epic crash of it falling to earth.

Then we went out and bought Pat at space rocket and Kitty a little toy house. Both loved their new toys, in fact it's all Pat could talk about all the way home from the shops.

And later I cooked roast beef and the four of us sat down together and celebrated what should be called Family Day in future.

Next time we do this there will be five of us. In fact there may be five of us this time next week. To some the idea of having a family is perhaps the dullest thing in the world, the bastion of conformity.

But for those of us in the know, we know that it's the most exciting and rewarding thing in the world.

Goodnight folks. See you tomorrow.

I picked up the Tamron 10-24mm wide angle lens today to replace the Sigma 10-20mm I stupidly sold some months ago.

I decided to go for the Tamron due to the extra 4mm at the long end which means for me that'll get more use on the camera than if it was merely very wide angle only.

My first impressions of the lens are strong, it seems well built and is quick to focus. As I suspected the 24mm is very usuable indeed for more general photography - it's the equivelent of 38mm on my Canon EOS 50D.

Meanwhile at 10mm it's very wide indeed and vignetting and chromatic abberation are well controlled. I do see a little of the latter but it's easily fixed with Canon's Digital Photo Professional or DXO Optics Pro.

So far so good. I'll have a more detailed review once I put the lens through its paces pointing at some more interesting views than our back garden.

Lulworth Cove 04, originally uploaded by Harry Neary.

I found myself clambering over some rocks at Lulworth Cove that had "broken ankle" written all over them, which is not idea when carrying a grand's worth of photographic gear with you. The rock pools are very pretty though and the algae and seaweed on the rocks a very vivid shade of green.

Photo taken with my Canon EOS 50D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I also had a Hoya circular polariser on the lens to remove the reflections from the pools and rocks.

Minimum post processing in DXO Optics Pro, just a little straightening and contrast.