Measurement and efficiency were some of the themes for 2009, and I’m sure they will be for 2010. Through Homecamp I learnt about monitoring home power use, and with Redcatco we got even better at measuring things and making business cases.

In 2009 I experienced my first ever SXSWi, which meant heading to Austin, Texas, with Chinwag and the Digital Mission crew to meet with lots of new and familiar faces from the digital industry.

And I got to see a few bands while I was out there too, including The Webb sisters, for the second time in the year!

A fair amount of the year was taken up with psychology study – reading, experiments, write ups and an exam. Probably the highlight of all of that was attending the CAPP conference, hearing some very well grounded, but inspiring lectures, case studies and talks. I ended the year with a First in cognitive psychology, so it feels like the hard word paid off.

The summer was an eventful one. Although a lot happened in the spring, Redcatco social media work started to build up over the summer, and I seemed to be speaking and doing social reporting at more and more events. I even bumped into this chap…

There was still time for fun side projects, one of the most memorable was the Twitter Cook Off, watching a chef judge a set of sandwiches via Twitter, as you do, and listening to Caalie relay the results to Nicky and Maggie Philbin.

I was involved in quite a few NESTA
related events over the year, and also a couple of Reuters ones. The meant that I got to work with some bright, fun people, and chase political leaders around London. A very different perspective from the Cabinet Office events I helped with earlier in the year. This was also the year of the Digital Britain report.

The 1pound40 event at Reuters was one of the highlights of the year, although presenting at SMiB09, Online Information 09 and the Dell B2B Huddle was close to top of the list too.

The number of meet ups seemed to grow over the year, and I added to the mix by kicking off the Thames Valley Social Media Cafe, inspired by the model Lloyd Davis pioneered in The Tuttle Club. One of the evening highlights was the Cozytweetup that ended up with a candle lit picnic in St. James Park, before everyone was moved on, in a very friendly manner, by the police.

During the summer our eldest son managed to break his arm not once, but twice. Oh, and he burnt the other arm just for good measure!

VannFest was, as the previous year, the highlight of the summer. And for the record, I didn’t get a tatoo… Although did this photo of me ever cause a saga! I’m assuming it was the QR code on the T shirt .

VannFest wouldn’t be VannFest without a picture of some sky candles…

There were quite a few business trips during the year. Too many to mention, although the visit to Bonn, Germany sticks out in my memory. Amazing place:

Very oddly I appeared in a Vodafone advert in Germany, both on-line and in posters. You’ll have to look closely, but you’ll see me on the screen of the phone, next to Robert Scoble (remember what I said about those faces at that dinner!)

Over the course of the year my photography set up evolved, with some new cameras and lenses. I started to shoot some video – having been won over by the Canon 5D Mark II.

I squeezed in a photo walk or two, including a memorable afternoon with friend and Flickr super star photocillin.

And Canon let me try out some amazing gear, at just the right moments during the year, including the largest lens I’ve ever handled. The photo doesn’t do it justice – that’s a full size camera body on the lens in the picture there. It takes two hands to lift and gets comments everywhere – including during the Legoland fireworks, where more than one young lad said “I want one of those!”. Needless to say, it captures some amazing images.

Seeing real-time Time-Slice photography in action at the Canon Pro Solutions Exhibition was a definite peak camera-geek moment.

The expanding photography set up meant the chance to shoot some memorable pictures at various places around the planet, as well as Sara’s amazing body painting art.

I read lots of books, not just psychology ones, including reviewing quite a few, and featuring in some too.

Oh, and printed one of my own…

Back at home, the apple and pear trees and the vines were fruitful, the kids grew up some more and the recording studio remained sadly unused – something I hope to fix in 2010.

In the autumn I got to watch two of my favourite bassists play, at the same time! Michael Manring and Steve Lawson played together in London:

And I even managed to edit together this video for the bass guitar blog:

That wasn’t the only music in the year. Later in the autumn I went up to Birmingham and photographed and interviewed behind the scenes at the UB40 Live Loud and Local gig:

In November Kate showed quite how much interest a fox on the underground can create! By then I’d also set up SocialOptic with Jim, something which will be very much at the centre of 2010. With November on the scene, I dived in and took part in Movember – growing a moustache to raise awareness of men’s health issues, including prostate cancer. It opened my eyes to a few things I will write a lot more about in 2010.

To round out the year, snow arrived. Followed by more snow, and lots of it! The roads were chaos, so I holed up in the home office and click-clacked away to close of projects, ready for a clean start to 2010.

As the snow subsided, visitors arrived, and finally the family managed to squeeze in a break down to the west country.

Including a morning on the beach in Devon, before heading home for the New Year…

If you aren’t familiar withGoogle Analytics, it’s basically a bit of code that you embed into your web site. Although essentially invisible to the user, the code reports back information to Google, including how long you were on the website, which web pages you visited before and after, what web browser and operating system you are using and if you are a new or returning visitor. It’s great for web site owners. We get to see what content is popular, where readers are from and so on. Of course we aren’t the only ones using the data. The terms around how Google can and can’t use Google Analytics data are quite vague  - you might want to read them before you next visit a site that uses it.

If you have your own server, you could look at Piwik as an alternative, it requires a database and a little setting up, so it isn’t for everyone, but I’m using it on the SocialOptic Blog and main site now, and it seems to be doing a sterling job so far. The data stays with the server you are accessing. If you don’t want your browser sharing that data, you’ll need to turn off javascript and cookies or run a third party plugin. Good luck with using your favourite sites once you’ve done that. When I changed my browser settings it pretty much broke the Internet experience for me – I couldn’t even comment on blogs anymore.

“if you have something that you really don’t anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” – Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google (via Huffington Post)

Maybe someone should tell Merrill Lynch that (see Paul Clarke’s post on Civil Liberties) – Google Street map seems able to publish pictures that I’m not even allowed to personally photograph, or at least I’m told I’m not. It was a curious statement from Schmidt for two reasons:

1. If that’s Google’s philosophy on web privacy, it would have been nice to know that before we all started using their products!
2. Much of what businesses do is company confidential, or is private information for legal/financial reasons. Not everyone with something they don’t want in public view is doing something wrong.

The idea that people who want to hide their data from Google are doing something immoral isn’t a very user friendly position – publish or be dammed (as opposed to the usual publish and be dammed!)

Being out and about has helped to keep me away from Google – my Nokia phone has the Ovi maps product, so I’ve been using that to navigate – although someone did try and tempt me with a Google Maps print out on Tuesday evening when I was lost. Of course even the mobile world won’t be a safe haven for much longer. One of my favourite products, Evernote, is now available on Google Android phones. There is a whole eco-system growing around the Google Android phone, it there are some great products and services emerging. It’s a whole new world for Google – now the have an operating system, and full visibility of everything you do with the device. Great for providing more targeted advertising. Great for putting a free turn-by-turn navigation in your hands. Access to your Google shared calendar. Access to Google Street Map.

Based on my experiences so far, I think I want a lot more visibility and control of what data is being collected, how it is being used, and how I can opt out of that data collection. Google has some great products. I’m going to be glad when Monday comes around and I can start using them again – they really make life easier and make me more productive. However, after this week, I’m starting to think I’d prefer to pay for them in cash, rather than in my personal data – Unless Google is going to be a lot more open about its use of our data. In the works of Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google:

“if you have something that you really don’t anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

A Week Without Google… …For me at least. This week I’m going to be going without Google in my life. It was a conversation with @monkchips that finally pushed me over the edge.

As he held up his Google branded phone to take a picture that with probably end up on a Google-powered photo site, indexed by Google search-bots, published on Google powered blogs, with Google-powered ads, viewed in Google built web browsers, maybe even on a Google built operating system, I thought of something I over heard recently:

“Big Brother won’t come in via the front door, he’ll come in via the backdoor, and pretend to be your friend.”

Now for the record, I have nothing against Google – I normally use lots of Google tools (and even paid-for Google products) – But I’ve realised that I don’t have a grip on how pervasive a part of my Internet use Google is.

The basic nature of the challenge is to avoid using any Google products – either through conscious choice or even indirectly. That means not only not using the products, but also not letting Google get hold of any of my behavioural data (information about sites I visit or things I search for). People have  variously said:

• That will be impossible – we’ll see!
• That will be easy – we’ll see on that too!
• Why would you want to?

To answer the last is that I’m just curious as to how pervasive a part of my Internet experience Google has become and how much data they really are amassing.  The only way to really know is to pay some attention to it for a few days, so why not a week? At the end of day 1 I have to say I’m quite shocked. I’ll post a full summary at the end of the week, but here are some of my observations from today:

The easiest thing to sort out was my iPod touch: I switched the default search engine to Yahoo, then didn’t use it all day. Done. Why can I only choose between Yahoo! and Google from the iPod touch browser, Apple? On my desktop machine I’ve been using Microsoft’s Bing, but that hasn’t been easy, what with my machine being an Apple Mac.

Firstly, I didn’t realise that Safari uses a “Google Safe Browsing” service, so that had to be switched off in settings before I could do anything else on my Mac. It actually looks like it is broken at the moment, as Safari says there have been no updates for two days.  One click in preferences and it was gone.

Here’s an insane thing: I couldn’t change the default search engine in Sarafi – the setting that I’m SURE used to be there is GONE! The site with instructions on switching Google off in the Safari web browers, returned by the Bing.com search engine, had both Google Friend Connect AND Google analytics, as well as google ads and google blog search on it. Doh! Foiled there as each of those services passes data back to Google, and so is off limits this week.

Then a found a YouTube video showing me how to change my default search engine – but of course I couldn’t watch that as it was on YouTube, which is another Google service and, incidentally, the world’s number two search destination.

Finally I thought, ok, I’ll just take “search” off of the safari tool bar. Would you believe I can’t remove the search box with out removing the address bar too? Apple, what where you thinking? Do they really love Google that much?

So, in the default Apple Mac web browser, I can either have Google search, or not surf the Internet. Nice touch. Time to find a new browser. Luckily there is a new browser for the Mac, Chrome, from ummmm… Oh, Google.  Time to fire up Firefox then, and change the default search engine on that…

Incidentally, Google launched five new services last week: 5 Fabulous New Features Google Unveiled Today. I know that one, Google Goggles, has already had some functionality disabled (the face recognition piece) over privacy concerns. I’d tell you more about the other new services, but the post is on ReadWriteWeb, which has ads from DoubleClick on it. Can you guess who now owns DoubleClick? Yup… That would be Google.

Sometimes my Nokia N95 battery seems to last forever, other times it just dies – it depends on coverage, what Gravity is doing, and if I’ve been using WiFi. Similarly my iPod touch can last days or suddenly die. NEED POWER. Or rather, I need portable power.

I’ve seen both @ilicco and @documentally using powertraveller products (and they had won a Queen’s award for Enterprise), so when I saw a discount code on Twitter for 20% off I caved in. I also wanted to grab the opportunity to reduce electricity consumption (saving on stand by power is going very well so far), so I went for the powermonkey-eXplorer. It’s basically a booster battery which can be charged by mains, USB or solar power.

It’ll live in my rucksack,  so if my phone or iPod go flat I always have a way to charge them, even on the move. On longer trips I’m hoping I can charge them from the powermonkey and then recharge the powermonkey via it’s solar panel.

The whole experience so far has been great – the powertraveller store is really well laid out and nicely written – got to love the way that “i want some” is in the shop url. I got an email when I placed the order, confirmation of delivery, and an email when it arrived (so I knew before I even got home). All very slick. I’ll see how I get on with it… …In the mean time if you want to see some vintage tech, check out Maggie Philbin’s blog post on Kingswood Warren, ahead of the program on BBC Click.

I’ve raved about the PowerShot S90 before – it’s a very high quality and very small camera in a very competitive market space these days. I purchased the SX200is for times when I go without a Digital SLR, like these shots at the movember party. The S90 is a notch above the Sx200is, in terms of both price and features, but it turns out it isn’t a straight forward comparison. Firstly, playing with the camera in the darkest corners of LEON, here is a mix of shots taken with my 5D Mark II and the S90:

Some shots from Canon Tuttle (on the S90 and the 5D Mark II of course)

It lived up to my expectations. Remember, the shots there are a mixture of the S90 and a big DSLR that is almost ten times the price. Yes, you can tell the difference, and no, I’m not trying to compare them (click through on a photo and look at the additional information on the right hand side of the Flickr page to see which camera took which) – Just saying that you can use the two together or substitute when needs must – it isn’t always easy to carry the 5D Mark II around all evening during a party.

The S90 is quite a bit more compact that the SX200is, and better in low light. It goes up to 3200ISO compared to the SX200is’s 1600, and the aperture range is f/2-f/4.9  versus f/3.4-5.3 – remember, small is good . Combined, that’s a quite a bit of extra range in the dark. What I’d loose in going to the S90 is the hyper-zoom capability  - the SX200is has a lens that is equivalent to 28mm-336mm, while the S90 reaches to 105mm. A 105mm zoom is none too shabby, and is more that enough for most photography. However, 336mm is an insanely long zoom, and one of the things that attracted me to the SX200is – I can’t travel with a zoom lens that large for my DSLRs, but the SX200is fits in my pocket. I can’t say I’ve used that level of zoom very often, but it does come in handy.

The S90 fixes one of my minor niggles with the Sx200is – it has a motorised flash that only comes up when it is needed. Only a cosmetic thing, but a nice touch. The s90 also has an extra dial around the lens, which is configurable for fast one-handed adjustments. It is one of the features that really grabbed my attention. The two cameras seem to share the same lovely 3 inch wide-view LCD display, and both support video – the S90 also adds in stereo sound recording. And here things get a little odd. The S90 doesn’t record HD video, or support 16:9 (wide screen) video – unless you count 480p as HD… to be fair, 720p is probably over kill in this format, but the lack of it might put off the ‘box ticking’ buyers, which is a real shame as this is a great camera.

Now, I’m going to let you into a secret: I looked at the new PowerShot G11 as well. I’d ignored it, because quite frankly it looked like a bunch of kids had gone nuts with mecano. It’s got dials and buttons EVERYWHERE. It’s another step up in price from the S90, but still a 10.4 Megapixel camera (the Sx200is is 12.4  - there really isn’t much in it). However, it shoots in RAW mode, which means more chance of rescuing borderline photos in editing back on the Mac/PC. The lens is 28-140mm equivalent, giving a bit more zoom. It’s quite a lot bigger, and double the weight at 12.5oz /355g, but it’s an all together more serious camera. The screen is a little smaller, but flips out and angles, and there is a hot shoe connector for an external flash. It also has a built in view finder, which I actually found quite fun, compared to holding a camera at arms length and looking at a screen.

You’ve probably figured out by now that there are some subtleties to picking out a high end digital camera, you need to think carefully about your budget and what features are most important to you. The S90 nicely slots into the range – if I was after something very high end, like the PowerShot G11, but in a much more compact form, then the S90 looks the business. For a compact camera with full DSLR features, I’d now give the G11 a serious look. All those dials and knobs make it very fast to operate. It is quite big and chunky, but there again it really is pushing the envelope of what a little digital camera can do and is a fraction of the size of a DSLR, even the diminutive 1000D. The PowerShot range now goes in almost every direction from waterproof to bullet proof (almost).

Do remember in all of this, that I’m a bit odd in a) doing lots of candid photography in dark venues (that doesn’t sound good does it? ) and b) my general refusal to use a flash. All of these cameras have very nice built-in flashes which will get you great shots. Flash just isn’t my style. I’m still very happy with my SX200is, its extended zoom range, HD video support and it’s good looks will keep it in my kit bag for a while to come!

Thank you to Canon for coming out to play, and supporting Tuttle. It made for a great morning!

Photo by Josh Russell (cc) via Flickr

As predicted, I received a huge amount of flack for my moustache at the 1pound40 conference. I’m pictured above,  squeezed inbetween Sam Brook and Kate AG (who is currently working on the BBC’s Treeoclock project) – off to the right of the photo is Christian (aka @documentally – the man who first taught me to take photos), Hannah Nicklin and Sue Thomas. You can’t see the tache these, but it did end up in a sketch…

Sam Brook, myself (+Mo) and Kate AG

(used with kind permission of the chaps at Drawnalism)

Anyway, back to the Mo. First, thank you to those who have tried to make donations and succeeded – a very big thank you! For those that tried and failed, or haven’t tried yet, because of the way the Movember website works, you’ll need to click on this link, then click on it again to actually get to the donations page. Trust me, you’ll want to – the latest pics will be there, and you can even rate my mo! It would make me very very happy if together we could get that total to £1,000 by the end of the month.

There are some very good resources around the web about prostate cancer – remember, that is what Movember aims to raise awareness about. This NHS prostate cancer resource is very helpful: Introduction to prostate cancer. It includes a video, with the very soothing voice of a prostate cancer expert. There is a fair amount of research that suggests that diet and exercise can play key roles in reducing the risk and impact of prostate cancer – webmd has some specific recommendations.

Be healthy, and have a chuckle at my mo .

]]> http://benjaminellis.org/2009/11/14/mo-of-the-mo/feed/ 0 http://benjaminellis.org/2009/11/04/facial-hair-explained/?&owa_from=feed&owa_sid= http://benjaminellis.org/2009/11/04/facial-hair-explained/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:05:55 +0000 Benjamin Ellis http://benjaminellis.org/?p=412 This post is three days late, for which I beg your forgiveness, and not easy to write – for reasons that will become clear. First, a public notice:

• I am growing a moustache.

At this point, some of you will know what I am about to say, for the rest, an explanation is in order. It’s movember:

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer. Mo Bros, supported by their Mo Sistas, start Movember (November 1st) clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. During Movember, each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and, via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partner – The Prostate Cancer Charity.

On Nov 11th 2005 Alex Porter, my father-in-law, died of prostate cancer (Guardian obituary by Bernard Crick). Cancer is the second largest killer of men my age -  the only one that claims more lives is heart/circulatory disorders – you can use this tool to see what your health risks are (adjust it for your age, sex, …).

One man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK, more than 35,000 men will be diagnosed this year -Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

To date, Movember has raised over £30 million globally for the fight against prostate cancer and depression in men. And, more importantly, as a direct result, male awareness of health issues has improved with Movember helping to spread health messages directly to millions of Mo Bros & Sistas around the world.

Hear is my polite request:

1. If you would like to, please make a donation on my movember page (it’s looking a bit empty to start with thank you for lots of donations – you can give directly here).
2. Spread the word.
3. Don’t be rude about my mo when you see me – well, not too rude!

The team behind the effect

I met the Time-Slice Films team at the Canon Pro Solutions Exhibition, and recorded this intverview with Tim Macmillan. The company was established back in 1994 by Tim, who originated the effect in his days at Bath Academy of Art, using film-based cameras and manual compositing. A far cry from today’s rig, here’s the interview:

The set up at the show

Time-slice films are at the leading edge of 2D/3D animation, with an impressive portfolio that includes work for the BBC, ITV, Capital FM and a host of other household names. These are a few stills (taken with a Canon 5D mk II and aloaned 35mm F/1.4L  prime lens at the show – nice one Canon!):

The set up at the show consisted of 55 Canon 450D’s, with stock lenses. The set up is modular and can scale to a much larger number of cameras, and the rail tracks can be configured to almost any shape. Keeping it less than a 120′ arc is essential to reduce post processing (more than that and you have to edit the cameras out of the shot). Each camera has to be aligned, zoomed and focussed. A bit of a job! You can check out their gallery of film clips shot at the Canon show here.

Adverts Film and Wildlife

I’ll leave you with this piece from Time-Slice Films, produced for Cat Clothing, which includes both Time-Slice(R) shots and high speed video:

Cat Clothing from Time-Slice® Films on Vimeo.

I’ll blog on some of the specific products over the next week or two, but first a few highlights:

Good news for Canon 5D Mark II users in Europe – it sounds like we can expect a firmware update in the new year to give us 24p & 25p frame rates. If that means something to you, you’re probably dancing in your seat. If it doesn’t, just take it that it is good news and will be something to look forward to early in 2010.

1D Mark IV. The 1D keeps its crown. The body feels a little vintage – surprised not to see more new buttons on it – but the innards have been bought bang up to date. It now has video, catching up and overtaking it’s siblings. Hold down the shutter button for machine gun sound effects (10 frames per second), and it would probably lock focus on a speeding bullet too (45-point AF system). It’s definitely not cheap, but it really is top of the range and top of the technology curve. Should be hitting the shops in December.

Canon 7D. Want one. That’s all. Yes, it’s a crop sensor, but if you are doing both photography and video, as I increasingly am these days, then the simple switch to toggle between the two modes, together with the start/stop buttom and the ability to shoot 720p as well as 1080p, make it a joy to use. The focus functionality felt better than the 5D mark II as well (as it should from the spec sheet – 19-point cross-type sensors). Oh, and 8 frames per second shooting. Nice. It isn’t going to display by 5D Mark II, but would be a really nice back up, given the built in flash and built in speedlight controller.

The surprise of the show for me was the 70-300mm DO IS USM lens on the fellow in the shot of the 7D. It isn’t as big an aperture as I normally like (at f/4.5-5.6), but it is VERY compact for such a long zoom and great quality – I assume this is down to the DO (diffractive optics).

The new Canon Powershot S90 looks like a mighty fine product. Think every thing I said about the SX200is as a pocketable alternative to a DSLR (going without a DSLR), but a good few steps up. F/2 aperture (nice and wide ), 28mm wide angle lens with 3.8x zoom. Very compact, very easy to use with it’s function select and rotary dial around the lens, and a worthy pocketable alternative to a DSLR.

Lots of steady-cam type set ups for the EOS DSLRs on show, and a veritable see of LED based lighting that was low heat, low power and VERY bright.

Oh, and this…

But I’ll tell you about that in the next post… In the mean-time, a massive thank you to the Canon team for being wonderfully welcoming and helpful, and to the 1000heads team for being the social media stars that they are!

A little while later, and I’ve got a sea of interesting suggestions. Of course some just start at the basics…

Well, it is a start I guess. I do remember struggling as a teenager, with my mother trying to teach me a simple two category system, as practised by Rita, Robert et al.:

Some take a more technical approach…

Sorting by type, then by colour seems reasonably popular too.

Even if it doesn’t always go according to plan…

I like the idea of “chromatic sorting” – it sounds suitably geeky. The idea was just plain weird to others though…

You could even go multi-dimensional with the organisation.

I like Meriem’s use of two dimensional space, sadly my storage is strickly 1D – tall and narrow. You could just subvert the whole need to sort, with a lifestyle choice…

But sorting by some category seems to be the norm! Sorting by use is another popular theme, which is how Josie tackles her non-super-hero outfits:

Or by taking a seasonal approach:

That’s a big pile in the middle. Seasonality has its own challenges…

I think I’m going to go for storing “off season” clothes separately, then sorting by type and – yes – by colour. We’ll see how it goes.

Finally, there are those who are left cold by the whole idea of the topic…

Update: Turns out not everyone is so chilled

]]> http://benjaminellis.org/2009/08/29/getting-the-wardrobe-organised-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends/feed/ 1 http://benjaminellis.org/2009/08/22/with-out-hope-youre-just-making-it-worse/?&owa_from=feed&owa_sid= http://benjaminellis.org/2009/08/22/with-out-hope-youre-just-making-it-worse/#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:59:50 +0000 Benjamin Ellis http://benjaminellis.org/2009/08/22/with-out-hope-youre-just-making-it-worse/
Hope uploaded by edmittance

My personal view is that hope is a rather special thing. There are a number of psychologists who are currently researching its effects and its causes. That is a whole other post. For now, just take it that it is a powerful force that sustains us.

The picture is of a mural in Stokes Croft, in Bristol – it is linked to the original posting on Flickr by edmittance.

Bristol council removed the mural, blacking it out. Almost symbolic. Cheo and 3Dom – the artists behind the piece – were less than impressed, and responded in the medium they had originally used.

Council vandalism uploaded by edmittance

Again the council painted over the shop front.

As it turns out, Bristol Council’s actions were actually incorrect, and you can read their apology on the Bristol graffiti blog.

Any way, the next response was a little more terse than the first, although more wordy than the original art piece that was removed!

It simply reads:

“When will you learn?”

“You’re just making things worse!”

When will you learn uploaded by edmittance

Don’t they know that hope keeps you going, even in the face of defeat?

You can deny it, decry it and smother it, but hope doesn’t die. It goes beyond the let downs and disappointments, the challenges and the set backs.

We need hope.

Organisations rarely recognise hope, or act out of it. That is a great shame.

As individuals, we can. Nurture hope when you see it.

* With thanks to @paul_clarke for bring the photos to my attention and the pointer to the post on Bristol graffiti blog.

We all need things to aspire to. There is no person that is perfect. There is no place that is perfect. We stand astride the great river of life, caught between two banks. We can not choose where the tide takes us, but we can paddle in the right direction, for all that we are worth. We do not know where that might take us, or the difference it will make, but we can, at the very least, try.

John Wesley said this:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

A raft of wonderful suggestions came back – things that I have now read, watched and pondered over. Friends, you are, of course, uplifting and inspiring! I’m going to pick one item to share back for now. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it is a TED video.

Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success – from this year’s TED in Oxford. 17 minutes worth watching, but if you can’t hit play, or are after my thoughts, then read on…

Start with “The Sunday Evening Career Crisis” – that moment when the gap between our hopes for ourselves, and the reality of life starts become painfully apparent – and, as Alain says, we end up weeping into our pillows.

Our lives are regularly punctuated by “career crises”, when what we thought we knew is challenged by a threatening kind of reality. From my own perspective, I know only too well how fragile our perception is. The more deeply I study psychology, the more I am amazed that we get through life at all. Our grip on reality is, at best, tenuous and fractured.

It is easier than ever before to make a good living. We live longer. We earn more. We eat more. We have more. But it is harder than ever before to remain calm. There are a myriad of reasons for that. I lay a fair portion of the blame at the feet of the media, in all its forms. Not through malice-a-fore-thought, but through accidental complicity. Alain touches on the topic in his talk: Magazines make us feel that any one us can (even should) achieve something, anything, everything exceptional. The press has also become an instrument for delivering ridicule. Highlighting the mistakes people make. We fear the judgement and ridicule of others like never before.

“it is as unlikely that you would, nowadays, become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, as it was unlikely in the 17th century that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy, but the point is that it doesn’t feel that way.”

Snobery, Alain says, is a global phenomena. The idea of taking a small part of someone and using it to come to a complete view of who that person is. Today’s snobberly? Job snobbery, at pandemic levels. We are obsessed by people’s career achievements and social position.

People make a strict correlation between respect and our position in the social heirarchy. In my experience that is an anachronism that has hung around too long. I’m inspired by people like Zarine of Just Giving, who’s view is that the CEO is at the bottom, not the top, of the organisation.

I’m perplexed by the reactions I get from people when I describe myself variously as a geek, a photographer, a bass player, a CEO or someone who has spent $35 million building a business. None of those things makes me a better or worse person, or any more or less interesting. Yet you would never know that from the different reactions I get from some. Alain’s advice? Don’t judge people. That should be a familiar phrase. Simple advice, but more of a cultural battle that we realise.

We aren’t materialistic Alain says, we have simply pegged certain emotional rewards to the acquisition of material goods. It isn’t the goods we want, it is the rewards we associate with them.

“The next time you see somebody driving a Ferarri, don’t think this is somebody greedy, think ‘this is somebody who is incredibly vulnerable and in need of love’ – in other words feel sympathy rather than contempt.”

There you go. One of the big problems of our society, he says, is envy. The closer people are to us in status, the bigger the risk of envy. We live with a desire for equality, combined with inequality all around us. The hope we have for our careers has never been so high, and tiny differences so large.

This meritocracy that we live in has a flip side. If anyone with talent, energy and skill can get to the top, then by implication those without them end up at the bottom. People’s position at the bottom becomes merited and deserved, rather than unfortunate. The consequence? Increased incidence of suicide, in fact the highest incidence of suicide in the world. People own their success like never before, but also take their failure at a deeply personal level.

The reality is that today’s “meritocracy” is far from being that. It simply doesn’t work that way. The system isn’t efficient, or rather the real-world isn’t that meritocratic – there are too many random influences on where we end up for us to be ultimately culpable for our destiny.

Alain makes another interesting observation about society. We’ve ended up worshipping ourselves, rather than something transcendent that can provide us with an escape from our own human ant hill. Alain, even as a secularist, sees that as a loss.

We think we know what success means, but our ideas of success are fickle, changeable and impressed upon us by others, rather than coming from within. Winning someone else’s battle can be a very hollow victory. Make sure you are fighting a war that you want to win, at a price that is really worth paying. Perhaps there is a kinder, gentler philosophy of success?

This month’s competition has less to do with cooking and more to do with making. Last month’s winner chose a Summer Sandwich for this month’s competition, so the only heat was in the competion, rather than the food… Well, apart from the occasional chilli in one of the sandwiches.

The usual host for judging, Maggie Philbin, was being held hostage by family, so Caalie and I headed across the county border on behalf of Nickie Philbin, to meet the judge and show off the entries in a slightly rainy Farnborough in Hampshire. This month’s special guest judge was Darius Zvinis, Executive Chef, at the Landings Restaurant in Farnborough. I’ve blogged about the Landings before, over on the Redcatco blog, for their use of Twitter in their business.

Darius turned out to be a very diligent judge! He is Canadian, with Polish roots, and thoroughly enjoyed himself as we bemused him with antics from the Twitter community. The Landings is a wonderfully presented restaurant, with great food, so it was interesting to hear Darius talking about the importance of high quality ingredients and presentation that is practical as well as attractive - the dish has to make it to the table in one piece! “Less is more,” he said, “Great sandwiches can be spoiled by being too busy.” Caalie and Darius huddled over my laptop as they thumbed through the entries:

There were 15 entries in total. Here’s is the judge’s feedback for each:

• @M4ryDeNovo – great bread!  Too bad crusts were cut.  Good example of less is more.
• @Andyqsmith @nicolarse51 – prob v tasty, great marinade. Presentation not best, but  looked a lot of fun!
• @Redmummy – Not too keen on presentation. looks very tasty, especially smoked salmon.
• @edwardclarke – Pastrami looks good – this is key. Maybe too much flavour – perhaps gherkin, mustard and chilli would be enough.
• @squidge1997 – you’re like me in the kitchen – who needs recipes?!  Very Creative and a lot of fun!
• @caalie – looks like a real sandwich! Some good flavours.
• @annraulston – this made me laugh. More art than sandwich
• @shar13 – very nice, very creative, an interesting combination which  is definitely worth trying.
• @stu_art_ist – very creative and the flavours are there. How practical is it? It needs to make it to the table!
• @JimAnning – you know something about food. Great ingredients,  properly put together, looks good.
• @bubith – this looks really great and really tasty
• @maggiephilbin – a little crazy! (sandwich not person)
• @TrinityRhapsody – Nicely done, perhaps a little fussy
• @TrevorLamont – it should have been a stella!
• @nickiephilbin – too many ingredients, but a great steak sandwich

And last but not least: @handbagpets,  best unjudged entry and best bikini!

Darius opted for two categories in the end, a “fun category” and a serious one! First, the results in the fun category:

• 1st @Andyqsmith and @nicolarse51 – “well done!”
• 2nd – @squidge1997 “fantastic fun and clearly loves being creative.”
• 3rd – @TrevorLamont “(might’ve won if it had been a stella…)”

And, in the highly coveted serious category, the winners:

• 1st – @edwardclarke – this just looked so tasty, maybe it’s my Polish  roots.
• 2nd – @shar13 – really like that combination of flavours.
• 3rd – @nickiephilbin – it was the ginger with the steak that won me over.

With @JimAnning, @caalie and @bubith as runners up. As Nickie Philbin said, well done to Edward for winning for a 2nd time!!! Winner’s privilege is to choose the next challenge, and this time Edward has chosen “Summer Starter” for next month.

Well done to everyone who took part, and a huge cheer for Landings Restaurant in Farnborough (@landingsrestaur), and, as ever, to Maggie and Nickie for creating a little global community around food! Check out the pictures of the all the entries here. I look forward to next month’s adventures, huddled around a laptop, talking food. Once of these days I’m going to get to eat the winning entry!

There is also a two finger gesture, for “replay” – but I thought I’d keep that one out of the video .

And he’s posted more about What to Expect at TweetCamp:

The aim, is to bring people together in person who know each other through Twitter, but don’t necessarily know each other well in person. Given that, of the people coming, there is the full spectrum of people who have never been to an unconference style event before, aren’t technical, and just use twitter as a social tool. There will also be hard core geeks and techies who make social platforms that use twitter, and regularly go to unconference style events. It’ll be an interesting mix of people, with one thread in common we all use twitter.

Looking through the attendee list, it is certainly a diverse crowd, which will make for some energetic conversations.

Unlike previous BarCamp events, where there’s been a high level of structure to the day, and clear starting and stopping of sessions, TweetCamp won’t be so defined in the same way. Since we’re not focussing on the ‘learning and sharing’ element of BarCamp as much as building relationships with people we know, we want for people to take as little or as long as they need to have the conversations they want to have with the people they want to talk with. There’ll be plenty of people there who will be having interesting conversations, and will warmly welcome you to join them!

The usual BarCamp / unconference two feet rule applies – if you decide you don’t enjoy the discussion you’re in, then you can vote with your feet. There are some knowledgeable and creative people going along, so most angles will be covered. I’ll put photos up in the usual place after the event, and I’m sure I’ll have something to write up on the Redcatco Blog too!

More on the logistics of the day by Jon: The Fun stuff happening at Tweetcamp.

I’ve been out buying gadgets to save on standby power. The exciting one mentioned in the video is this fellow:

It is a Standby Saver Energy Saving Unit – as seen on Dragon’s Den, apparently. As explained in the video, it shuts of the power to all of the sockets when the computer powers down. There is a version for for AV equipment too, which works off of the infrared remote control, and apparently one for use with games consoles in the works.

There was an alternative which I looked at, the Intellipanel – Desktop version, but it was a fair bit more expensive, and had things like a telephone line filter that I didn’t need.

The other device mention in the video doesn’t seem to be on-line, other than in the Maplin shop: Remote Powered Extension lead. If your plugs are more spread out, the Bye Bye Standby Energy Saving Kit might be a better alternative.

It turns out that the standby saver has a little button to turn the computer back on, which turns out to be a bonus. The PC it is wired too is tucked away under the desk, so the standby saver button acts as a remote power switch, on the desk itself and right by the keyboard. That saves reaching under the desk to switch the PC on.

The RF remote powered extension seems to be doing sterling service so far too.

Well, the 5DII went back to its true home quite a while ago and since then I’ve been shooting with a 1Ds, a 40D and an old 5D (mark I). Now seems like a good time to reflect back on having the 5D Mark II and what I remember of going Full Frame and Becoming a Videographer.

Looking back on the 5 Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo (shot, +2, looking into a mirror, a couple of months back).

The odd thing that really sticks in my mind was the battery life – it was brilliant. I normally have 2 or 3 batteries when I cover a long event. For the trip I had just one. In over a week of using the 5D it only got charged every other day, as I dived into my hotel room to change into evening clothes, then unplugged shortly after as I headed out. It didn’t get charged over night, as I only had one adaptor. Despite all that, it never even got close to having a low battery. Stunning.

Low light performance. This gets talked about a lot, and I mentioned it in my posts at the time, but it is a fact: the 5d Mark II seems to create light where there was none. I’ve used dozens of cameras from different manufacturers. Never experienced anything like it. With my love of night time photography and shooting events, it is a killer feature.

The size – it is not a full body – I’m playing with a 1Ds right now, boy is it a monster (and I love it in its own sweet way), but the 5D is big enough to get you into the press enclosure without being laughed out, and compact enough that you don’t end up looking like rambo.

The full frame sensor made my 70-200 IS f/2.8 L series lens a joy to use – a perfect zoom range for what I do. The 24-105 f/4.0 L IS lens I had on loan was a great walkabout lens, and ideal for shooting video (the image stabilisation a big plus).

I was stopped several times each day by people enquiring after the camera, “is that a Canon 5D Mark II?” Who knew there were so many camera geeks in the world! When I was shooting in New York a photographer brushed Julia to one side and started to ask questions about the video and image quality. It wasn’t so much Benjamin with a 5D Mark II, as the 5D Mark II with Benjamin. Anyway, my ego survived, and I got some great photographs to show for it.

There was just one thing holding me back from rushing out and buying one, and that was the lack of manual control in video mode. That’s now fixed in the latest firmware. Oh dear!

I think the trouble started with @Andyqsmith, @Maggiephilbin and @NickiePhilbin. I couldn’t begin to cover all of the details, but safe to say several days later there were summer puddings all over the place, and Maggie Philbin was battling with traffic as she navigated her way across the UK, taking the technology to celebrity chef Anton Edelman, at Great Hallingbury Manor, so that he could pass his expert eyes over the submissions. He was suitably bemused:

No smells via Twitter, sadly, but here are photograph slide shows of each entry, together with Anton’s comments on each submission. I’ve saved the winners until the end…

Canine tease (see the photos) @maggiephilbin ” Good shape and presentation” said Anton:

@flapjack50 ” This a little pale but had tremendous shape, well done”:

My personal favourite  @Caalie ”Loved sense of family and friends enjoying food and that is what cooking is all about”:

With video too:
 

And the ‘tip out’ – stop the film says Caalie!:

And enjoying the results with the wonderful @solobasssteve and @lobelia and @tapps – who flew in all the way from the US especially (oh, ok, she did come over for some other things, but Caalie’s pudding was the main reason, really):

@NickiePhilbin:  ”Collapse in centre has marred entry”:

 @M4ryDeNovo ”Mary’s entry is promising but not quite there yet, bit pale, but has lovely shape”

Mark Littlewood “Fun entry, well done”

The Gold Award winner was @edwardclarke for his #summerpudding! Congratulations Edward:

Super hero @andyqsmith (raising some money along the way, supporting Amanda Wilkie) at Silver “Outstanding sense of fun and joyful entry”:

Joint bronze went to: @annraulston and @handbagpets.

@annraulston ”Very adept, great use of location and exotic flowers”

@handbagpets remarks from Anton “Very stylish and beautifully dressed entry, with a great topping”

Well done to everyone, the conversations on Twitter  included much fun and japes!

The winner gets to decide what next dish is… Are you hungry yet?

Rather than trying to write up exhaustive notes, I’ll give some pointers to resources and I will link to the speakers talks as they blog them – please feel free to add links in to the comments. First, a big thank you to the sponsors, the event couldn’t have happened without them, and it just so happens that they are cool companies worth checking out too:  CurrentCost, Greenmonk, Pachube , ReactionGrid and Onzo.

HomeCamp2 showed real progress since the last homecamp. I found that really encouraging, as one of the challenges I’ve seen with the way barcamp format events are run is that they end up thrashing over the same issues. The HomeCamp crowd were pushing the boundaries further, and arguments had matured and discussions deepened since the last event.

Martin, of CurrentCost, talked about an exciting little device from the currentcost stable that has a switch sensor and some analogue inputs, which it transmits to the CurrentCost meter. Short translation: The HomeCamp community can get to work using CurrentCost to monitor gas and water consumption. That’s very exciting, well, it is for me. For those on oil rather than gas, it could also be used with an oil tank sensor. As someone once said, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Well, current cost is giving a way to measure household energy consumption. Still more to do, but progress. I’m enjoying the graphs from CurrentCost at home.

There will be new software coming down the pipe, the model is that the main LCD won’t have to be plugged in all the time. It only uses about 7 Watts, so I’m not too concerned about that, but it is a good idea. There are now over half a million Current Cost units in the wild, which is great news!

Joe Baguley, active in the BCS energy monitoring group, talked about his journey in home energy monitoring. He started using the Watson, but didn’t like it. Then he discovered Green Energy Options. It is a pretty comprehensive solution, which puts clamps on every fuse in the consumer unit, meaning that it monitors every loop in the house. It also has remote units that allow remote switch on/off of appliances. There will also be a touch screen as a control point, and the software looked very sophisticated, including profiling energy use patterns. Drop Joe a note and I’m sure he’ll tell you more about the Trio unit.

The next session focussed on gas usage. Ken, chief electrical engineer at Onzo, talked about the history of gas meters and AMR, circa 1999 – and the 7 rules of gas meter logging. First rule of gas meter logging, no-one talks about gas meter logging. – More seriously, there are number of challenges. It is, rightly, a tightly controlled industry and there are obvious safety issues with electrical things near gas meters. You aren’t even meant to have wires passing near gas pipes, let alone connected to them. Many gas meters are very old, and there is huge variation in meters. One of the gas meters down the road at Sandhurst academy is apparently date stamped 1922. Gas data is also privacy concern, since you can tell people’s life style from their gas consumption – e.g. when they are in and out, on holiday, etc.. – so it is best anonymized.

As Paul Tanner pointed out, unattended continious monitoring is essential. Plotting gas usage against outside temperature is a great way to assess the effectiveness of insulation and efficiency measures, but smart meters probably won’t be in full force until 2015. Some more modern meters do have sensor outputs, but there doesn’t seem to be an approved way to tap in to them. The gas companies need to step up to the plate and support the home monitoring industry. Gas is expensive, we use lots of it, and it is a finite resource. Are you out there gas folks? We want your help!

It was good to meet Mike / @Mikethebee – someone I’ve followed on Twitter for a long time, likewise good to meet @ribot. He lead a good discusion on water usage. Water meters are tricky, because not everyone has them (cue heated debate) and they location makes them tricky to connect to. Mike talked about using metering to check for leaks, drips etc… as well as monitoring usage. Optical monitors (for both water and gas) can take some tweaking, as Usman / @Pachube pointed out, but you can get them working.

Steve Lamb has a post about the morning: “Homecamp is all about using tech to reduce energy consumption“ As a side note, a couple of people talked about moving to using DC, so that they can use a wind turbine and battery, without inverters, to power their computers. I’d been thinking along those lines too, but didn’t catch their names to get in touch.

Discussions after lunch focussed on Energy and there was even some virtual world to real world interaction, thanks to ReactionGrid and people were joining from the US via video stream too (we had people from Belgium and Switzerland in the room).

Jamie Andrews, formerly of thecarbonaccount fame and now at AMEE (a neutral aggregation platform – enabling data portability), who are behind the magic in the act on Co2 campaign, talked about methods of building profiles for a domestic building energy usage. There are three main information sources:

• Estimated energy performance – via SAP or RDSAP
• Behaviour Surveys
• Empirical Data

Having more data means that refined methodologies can be built. Better methodologies means better policies. AMEE are active in some interesting areas:

• Demand response – Remember not all electricity is equal.
• Carbon intensity awareness – How’s your kettle? (usually a power hungry little monster)
• Geographical models – Facilitating local grids and community co-ops.

Bart, from Flukso, talked about some interesting things they are up to. Although at the early stages, they have converted a Fonera 220 wireless router into a power monitoring device. One to watch.

Usman, of Pachube (pronounced “ptach bay” ) has built an amazing community and set of resources. Pachube takes all sorts of geo-coded data and then allows it to be shared, manipulated and graphed. 

Tom Raftery joined via Skype video to give his Electricity 2.0 (which I first heard James / @Monkchips give in the US last year) – Tom’s slides, at least the version from eTech, are here. Some meaty ideas for the future of electricity.

The talk on The Web of Things  was a great bit of future-that-is-happening now, thinking about the impact of more and more ‘net connected devices. From iPhones to Nabaztag  and  Chumby’s (a gadget I’d not heard of – slap me with a wet fish!)

I spoke about “A nudge and a wink – changing behaviours with software” – I’ll do a write up and post over at the Redcatco blog in the next few days.

All in all a great day, wonderful people and lots to mull over. I’m looking forward to Homecamp 3 already!

If I haven’t mentioned someone by name, I’m sure they are in my photos somewhere:

The Camberley Tweet Up on 9th April seemed to go rather well. It was great to meet @adrianmoss, @andrewgerrard @PaulSloane. The photo here was taken by a member of  the  Good Taste Coffee staff. I think my camera was actually bigger than she was (it was the 1Ds), but it was well held!

Although I’m up in London at lot, there are an increasing amount of meet ups happening locally. Tonight I’m at Camberley Speakers, which is the local Toast Masters International club (where I’m currently president). The Reading crew manage fairly regular Tweet ups – via @dtsn or the upcoming page - they met last night. Don’t forget, there is also the next Thames Valley SMC / Tuttle on the 30th of April.

There were a bunch of other people who wanted to come along to the Camberley tweet up, but couldn’t make the day time, so another meet up/tweet up is being planned. If you are in or around Camberley, then drop a note in the comments with your Twitter ID and I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop! I’m on Twitter too - @BenjaminEllis - obviously!

This is me, camera in hand, with its little SXSW press tag on. Videographer – Photographer it says on it. It does make me scratch my head and set one eyebrow lower than the other, quizzically. I wouldn’t really describe myself as a journalist. Yes, I’ve been paid to write articles for a publications, and taken photos that have too, but I’ve spent my career at the other end of the process, ‘creating’ news. Either way, my perspective on the whole process has altered dramatically over the last year or so, and that change was crystalized this last week.

I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an activist. However, I do care about the conditions we live under. There’s nothing especially noble about that, it just makes good logical sense. Living under oppressive conditions isn’t conducive to happiness.

Almost a year ago was the first WordCamp (there’s another one soon). It threw together a spectrum of people, from technical geeks to traditional newspaper editors. We discussed and argued about the differences between blogging and “the press” and how new technology is changing the process for everyone – a light bulb started to go on in my head. Then, a few months ago I sat and listened to Clay Shirky talking about the role of journalists in the local press holding local politicians to account. The light bulb went on a little brighter. Journalism, even just the act of recording things, creates accountability.

You might have heard about Peter Gabriel’s “witness” charity. Yes, that Peter Gabriel. “See it. Film it. Change it.” is the organisation’s slogan. It is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns. You can listen to Peter Gabriel’s moving talk about his reasons for setting up Witness in this TED talk (warning: adult themes).

Earlier this year, a piece of legislation was passed in the UK, which makes it illegal to take a photograph of a police officer, military personnel or member of the intelligence services, which “may be of use for terrorism”. That’s a very vague definition, and open to interpretation by the police – who under Home Secretary guidelines can “restrict photography in public places”. The law is part of the Counter Terrorism Act. In these days of Google’s streetview, it is hard to see how this law really adds to our safety. What it does do, is to restrict our ability to be witnesses. That became all the more important in the last week.  That light bulb I mentioned is now flashing, red.

Ian Tomlinson is now a name that should be familiar to you. He died during the G20 protests. The Guardian ran a piece on his death as did the BBC. The Guardian posted an update today, which mentions something called “Kettling” – something I’d not heard of it until the G20 protests. It is a strategy used by the police to contain the protesters, which consists of surrounding the crowd and then not letting anyone go. No arrests. Just detainment. But it wasn’t just protesters. A number of passers by were held, without any charges, and with no access to toilet facilities or water, for hours. Take a peek behind the media head-lines and read Roo’s account of what happened to him On the ground at the G20 protests. I met Roo at HomeCamp, trust me when I say he isn’t a trouble maker. You can read Steve Lawson’s account  on his blog: G20 protests – a change is gonna come.

The fact is, everyone needs to be accountable. Us. The police. Our politicians. Photography and videography has an important part to play in that process. If your mobile phone has a camera or a video recorder, you can be a witness. If you do that in London right now, you could be detained or arrested. That’s not right. Local photographer Simon Taylor has lodged a petition on the Number 10 site. It has been mentioned in the British Journal of Photography and you can go directly to it here. As Roo says: This is why we need more photographers at public events.

Try the VisualDNA shop Beta:

When: Thursday 9th April, 10:30am.

Where: Good Taste Coffee, 67 High St, Camberley, England, GU15 3RB

(awaiting review on Trusted Places and Yelp,  WiFi mentioned on jiwire.

Why: Just Because… Business conversations and coffee.

Who: At least me (Benjamin Ellis), Paul Sloane and Andrew Gerrard.

Getting there: Camberley town centre is all shiny new. You can park in one of the two official car parks, or there is free 2 hour parking on Gordon road – a bit of a walk and across the railway line.

If you are interested in coming along, please DM or @ me: twitter.com/benjaminellis or add a comment here (so I can be prepared if it turns into a twitter mob!).

It is a big thing moving from photography to video, but the 5D II has really opened my eyes to the posibilities. Traditional handycams just left me cold, and there was no way I could justify spending 10,000’s on a pro-video set up. But with the 5D you really can get great footage from day 1, and without the need for post-processing – important to me, because that is one of the things that makes video production so time consuming, I’m shooting events live and can’t spend days editing before getting things uploaded.

Entering the world of the videographer means understanding pulling focus, if you want cinematic shots, and thinking about movement as well as framing. It’s a big jump, but a fun one. Using the 5D is a very different experience than running about with a miniDV camera, there’s more to think about, but it is also a very rewarding experience.

While I was at South by South West Interactive I spotted Tim Vetter across the floor. He was shooting vox pops using the 5D Mark II and his unusual home made rig caught my attention. Here’s an interview I did with him, shot on the 5D of course, and uploaded in Blip.TV:

And for reference here’s the same clip in Vimeo:

A Canon 5D Mark II Video Set Up from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

To my eye the video looks a little better in Vimeo, but there again, lots of people have told me that Vimeo doesn’t play on their machines.

Tim’s obviously thought about his set up a lot, and his DIY rig gave me some food for thought. Personally I’m more than happy with the built-in sound (I have a sound engineering background and I’ve mostly been using an external stereo condenser mic from my studio). Using the 50mm lens and the 24-105 f/4 lens with image stabilisation got me very good results during the show, even shooting hand held (JetBlue managed to loose my monopod on route – the joys of international travel)!

So, back to cropped frame sensors. A couple of things happen:

• Not all the light from the lens gets though.
• The focal length is scaled up.

The first means that not all of the light coming into the lens gets used (as some of it spills outside of the area of the frame). Canon turns this to their advantage by making some more affordable (and lighter lenses) – the EF-S lenses. It also means that you get less vignetting, since the edges of the lens, where you get light fall off that causes the darkening of the corners, don’t get used.

The second feature means that everything ends up a “zoomed in”. If, like me, you’ve never used a 35mm camera or a full frame camera, then you probably won’t notice. It does mean that some of the photography tips might be a bit off (a 50mm lens acts a lot more like an 85mm lens, so you have to ‘adjust’ accordingly). For 35mm traditionalists, it drives them a bit mad. For the rest of us, it means a smaller lens will get us closer to the subject than with a full-frame.

There is a lot of snobbery about frame sizes. The purists view full frame sensors as the only ‘true’ cameras, and point to lower noise and better light sensitivity for the big SLR beasts. That’s not always going to be the case, given the different generations of technology. These days there are bigger things at play.

So, how is full frame land for me? I have to say, I’m loving it. People have asked how it is loosing the ability to really zoom in tight on a subject. Answer? Wonderful. Why? Because all my lenses are wider – I can get more into the frame and stand closer to the subjects. If I want to get a longer lens, I have an EF 2x extender, which turns my 70-200 lens into a monstrous 140-400mm. The high ISO of the 5D Mark II means that it is more than fast enough to make up for the couple of stops of light I loose in using the extender. I’m using my 85mm for portraits, rather than my 50mm – which is now much more useful for capturing the scene. The 70-200mm L-series lens I have was too tight, now it is getting a lot more use.

Using the 5D Mark II, it feels like it is much more sensitive to light than my 40D, even at the same ISO settings. I’m putting that down to the full frame size. The 5D also has a “peripheral illumination correction” setting, which is a very grand way of saying that it reads what lens you are using, then digitally corrects for the vignetting. Personally, I like a bit of edge fall off – it adds some interest to conference shots, which can otherwise be a bit bland – so I’ve switched the feature off. However, it is very useful to have it there, and it works very effectively (it is calibrated specifically for each lens).

As I mentioned before, I’m loving the feeling of a larger viewfinder too. As you can probably tell, I’m very sold on full frame photography. Not for the technical specs (although I am blown away by the 5D Mark II’s image quality – as it everyone who sees the shots), but because suddenly my lenses feel right. That makes sense, as they are EF lens (designed for full frame use). Moving up to a 5D means leaving the EF-S lenses behind – actually, I have them on the back up body I have with me. I can’t say that I’ll miss them though. Oh, and do I miss the flash? With the 5D’s sensitivity, I don’t think so!

Then I got to unboxing something very special…

This is what I’ll be using to photograph the Digital Mission to South by South West. A HUGE thank you to the folks at 1000Heads and Canon for getting this beast into my hands in time for the trip. Getting hold of an EOS 5D Mark II is like getting hold of gold dust, so I really am very grateful!

Initial impressions of the 5D Mark II? Well, the body. Very sturdy – and looks all the better for not having a pop-up flash (my 550EX flash will be coming along to Texas). Putting a lens on and firing it up took my breath away. I’m of the generation that started with a Digital SLR – I’ve never used 35mm film. So, forget the technical arguments about full frame cameras versus cropped frame for a minute, and imagine the difference between looking out at the world through a port-hole and looking out at it through French windows. That’s the best description I can think of.

Pretty much everyone who has seen the camera today has asked about it – even when I was on the train in to London. Lots of interesting conversations. I’m really pleased with the shots I got this afternoon – I’m looking forward to some good subjects. Anyway, I better go and get some clothes packed for this trip, or I’ll just be wearing the camera… In the meantime, here’s what one of my sons says about it (filmed on the 5D of course):

Nathan – on the 5D Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

That’s shot handheld with an 85mm lens, and transcoded (recompressed) by Vimeo to host it… There will be much more in my flickr stream and the digital mission blog as the week goes on. South by South West here I come…

Finally, after a few tweets between Drew Benvie, Matt Brady, Neville Hobson and myself, it is all systems go…  

Drew has written a post about his hopes for TVSMC, and Neville gives a good background on Tuttle/SMC. There are a number of people out this way who regularly trek in to London Tuttle, so that gives a great start. It is wonderful to have something local to the Valley here, which will hopefully open up the opportunity for many more people to experience what happens when on-line and off-line merge.

As Matt Brady says, “[Reading] and its environs is chock-full of digital talent“, so it is time to show your stuff, if you are in the area sign up on the Thames Valley SMC  wiki. Any problems signing up, catch me on twitter or drop me an email and I’ll sort you out. I’ve built three RSS feeds into the site so far:

• RSS feed of the Wiki pages, to keep up with changes/sign ups.
• RSS feed for TVSMC blog (first post pending!).
• RSS feed from the calendar to keep track of dates.

The first gathering is at 10AM on Friday 13th of March. I’ll be there in spirit (since I’ll be in the thick of South by South West Interactive), but there is a healthy crowd going along!

One of the secrets to getting good at photography is to carry your camera everywhere, and that’s pretty much what I do. However, there are times where lugging around my trusty red rucksack with a full Digital SLR, a couple of lenses and a flash, just isn’t practical.

Then there’s the impact of whipping out a full sized SLR camera with a big lens. Seriously, last week at an event I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the speaker (I’d asked his permission before he started talking). I would probably have caused less disruption if I had drawn out a firearm and waved it about whilst shooting at the ceiling. Some people are nervous of cameras, and REALLY nervous of BIG cameras. Sometimes, small is good.

So, back to that Canon PowerShot SX200 IS. I ignored it at first, even though it was shiny-new-not-even-available-in-the-shops-yet. I was distracted by the small, sexy IXUS 100 IS - there was even a red one, what did you expect me to do?

Then I picked up the Powershot. I looked at the screen, which felt strangely like looking through the view finder of my DSLR. It is big, clear and fast. Then I fiddled with the very familiar dial on top and set it to Aperture priority mode. Ooo… Nice… Then I took a couple of shots. Ooo… Really nice.

It has got a 12 X optical zoom (equivalent to a 28-336 mm lens on a full frame camera, which is about the range I carry in the lens set with me when I’m using my DSLR). The sensor is 12 Megapixel with ISO up to 1600, and Canon’s DIGIC 4 chipset handling the image processing.

You can put the Powershot into auto mode and use it as a (very clever) point and click – it has face detection and scene detection with really good image stability – or you can twist the dial and go all Tv/Av/M and make like you have your DSLR with you, tweaking the settings to your heart’s content. The aperture is wide for a compact camera, so you can even get shall depth of field for arty portrait shots.

Here’s the clincher for me: it supports 720p HD Movie recording, complete with an HDMI output ready to plug into an HD screen. Something my current DSLR won’t do! This thing is ideal as a complement to my full bodied DSLR when I want something I can just slip in to my pocket. Very neat. It is also a nice step up for someone moving from the point and click world towards a full on digital SLR. I’ll be recommending it to a few folks.

Try the VisualDNA shop Beta:

That beasty is a Canon PowerShot D10. Now, if you don’t like its looks, don’t worry. That’s a clip on cover, so you can change the appearance if the camouflage isn’t to your personal taste (although it was a popular choice with people I’ve shown it to – I think that relates to the next bit). Love or loath the looks, you have to respect this little camera’s capabilities!

Yes, you are seeing right. There it is, hanging in a bowl of water. No protective cover. No magic. It is waterproof up to a depth of 10m (which happens to be about the deepest I’ve ever dived to). Let’s see that again shall we?

It will happily take shots – although you’ll probably want to find something more interesting than the inside of a bowl to shoot. The snake in the picture is the D10’s lanyard, which attaches to special fixings on the case. This isn’t your average camera, so it doesn’t have your average camera strap. The chord and fixings are robust enough to use in rock climbing, skying and diving. But what happens if it gets dropped? Let’s give that a try too shall we?

Now, here’s a little confession. I’m not great at timing shots. This one is from about the 6th attempt to time it right. I was feeling bad about dropping it so many times, right up until the moment someone had the idea of filming it falling down a set of stairs (a set of stairs which had The Hoff walking up them a few minutes before). And after all that?

Well, it was ready to take snaps. The lens and buttons use sealed-in-gas to ensure that there isn’t any condensation when moving between different temperatures (it will work down to -10′C). It is a 12.1 Megapixal camera (much higher resolution than my last D-SLR) and its has a 3 times optical zoom with image stabiliser.  Oh, it shoots VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second too.

A very impressive piece of technology I’ll be recommending to my skiing/rock climbing/canoeing/diving friends. They can email me the photos – I’m keeping warm in my office!

I’ll be writing more on the other models, but if you are impatient, check out Machines that go Bing. A big thank you to the 1000Heads team – Canon can!

Try the VisualDNA shop Beta:

It might not look like it, but that is a wondrous thing. It represents the next step in home hacking with the current cost meter. It is a lead which connects the current cost meter to the serial port on a lower power PC that runs a simple Perl script that records our power usage. The PC runs a script that captures the information from the current cost meter (current power used, in Watts, and temperature in ‘C) and build pretty graphs that are then published on a local web server.

Here are some of the useful resources I used to get it done:

• This original post from jibble.org: making graphs using the current cost device.
• Crouching Badger’s experiences with the USB version of the cable with links to a simple perl script.

The Jibble post got me started, although not being a PERL programmer or RRD user meant some of the “easy to make” changes weren’t actually that “easy to make”. Having learnt RRD a bit more, I’m impressed with it – great for performance monitoring of all sorts of thigns. It will take something more to move me to PERL as a programming language – PHP is as non-visual as I’m going to get. Some other pointers that helped (and give you an idea what it is all about):

• Dale Lane has done a fair bit – it was good to meet him at HomeCamp (I like Dale’s daily electricity bill too – I’ve build something similar, but taking the Kilowatt hours figure from the Current Cost Meter).
• Likewise Nicholas O’Leary has a series of posts.
• There is also a Google code repository.
• Ben Smithurst’s posts were also very helpful – a full script that updates rrd and an sqlite database too.

A slight warning: the commonly used PERL script fails when the temperature goes bellow 10′C though (since the current cost prints a leading space then, which causes the perl string matching clause to barf) – keep your current cost warm or fix up the script .

I have been amazed at the power of measuring usage in changing behaviours. Measuring really is the first step to managing. Even more excitingly, I have noticed that my gas meter is readable (via a magnetic or optical sensor) so I should be able to track that too soon – as if I’m not driving the family crazy already. Here’s a day of our electricity use (with min, max and average power):