Fr. Matthew Cashmore

Priest in the Church of England. Father, husband, son. Keen biker.

Page 15 of 45

Help find me a new camera

March 3, 2009 /

Since I’ve been bombing around the world my Casio Exilm Z850 has been a constant companion. I rate it really highly (must write a review soon) – it’s constantly dropped from the height of my motorcycle tank bag, it’s been soaked by sea-water on at least two occasions and still it ‘just gets on with it’ and takes photographs that when I got the camera I thought were awesome and now, think are pretty good.

The time has come to replace this stalwart of my gadget armoury and I need your help. I’m totally stunned every month when Lonely Planet Images release the photos that have been added to the library over the past few weeks – and I want to take photos that make people go wow.

Some background – when I was in school I desperately wanted to be a Photo Journalist – I worked for the local paper for free and I badgered my Dad until he bought me an Olympus OM-10 from the local second hand stor

e – complete with ‘manual adaptor’. It had a light metre inside but other than that I was totally on my own. After months of paper-rounds and being paid to take my friends band photos I managed to scrape enough money to ‘upgrade’ the the Olympus OM-2n .

It made a big difference to my shots, as did the purchase of a 2x adaptor and, at great expense, a 75mm Olympus lens.  I held onto the dream of becoming a Photo Journalist right through my engineering apprenticeship (where the camera managed to earn me some money on the side in Caerphilly town centre of a Saturday morning) and right into University in Swansea, where finally, the dream died and I sold the camera for much needed rent money.

Since then I’ve had a succession of crap compact cameras that just didn’t cut the mustard. The Casio has rather re-ignited that old desire to take wonderful photographs and I find myself slipping it into manual as much as the fully automatic settings – I’ve even bought an old Konica Minolta 35mm SLR to mess around with (it’s been out of the bag once).

My composition needs a little work , I need to get my head out of snapshot mode, but I feel the old juices still flow and can’t wait to get back into thinking through a shot properly before I take it. So now the tough part – I need a new camera.

Requirements:

  • Tough
  • Light
  • Compact
  • Decent video mode
  • Solid lens support
  • Easy to charge (I’m running this from the motorbike / powermonkey)
  • Easy to transfer images (no propritary connectors – worst case – SD cards are good)

Let’s ignore the money side of things for the moment and work the ‘perfect world senario’.

What do you suggest? I have a totally open mind and no legacy kit to support.

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Mashed is a no go this year

February 27, 2009 /
The people who made Mashed08 happen

The people who made Mashed08 happen

As you may have seen over on the backstage.bbc.co.uk blog Mashed isn’t happening this year. Ewan sums it up well

you put smart people in a room and great things happen. Put smart people in a room with their own DAB TV station and a red button service they can hack away with, and you get some gorgeous results.

Mashed will be missed this year – I’ll miss organising it again – it was one of the hardest things to leave behind when I left the BBC – but at least I get to run the Lonely Planet Travel Blogger Awards now – no crazy social flight sims – but still… loads of fun.

I think the beeb has made the right call on trying to concentrate on doing more smaller things all over the country but I do hope when things get a bit better out there that something like Mashed comes along again soon.

Comments….

February 26, 2009 /

So sorry everyone – I just found a pile of comments that had got tagged as spam – thanks to John Diamond for the heads up – I’ve just approved them all and white-listed you – sorry everyone 🙁

The Coffee Post

February 24, 2009 /

I’m not sure how long it takes to become a coffee snob, I would say that several years ago I was definitely a snob – but then I’d never been to Melbourne. This city serves the best coffee anywhere, with the exception of one or two little places in rural France, Melbourne’s coffee knocks the socks of anything else – so it’s no surprise that I’ve got to wondering how I’m going to get my fix on my next bike adventure.

Heading to Russia I was going to take this little portable machine

but after testing in the field I decided it wasn’t strong enough to survive my riding style… then, out of the blue came a piece of French pornography that I simply couldn’t ignore. Watch this video

Now, if you still have your coffee in your mug and not all over the computer screen let me tell you a little more about the device. It’s called the Handspresso – have a look at their site – I highly recommend watching the videos.

Could this be the answer to my prayers? It’s small, looks really tough and seems to make the perfect espresso. It does have a couple of issues – mainly that you need the little coffee packs and I’ve not found anywhere that sells those in Oz yet. Can you help? I’m also not convinced that it’ll push the water through at a sensible rate and at the right temperature – but hey – I’m on the road, sometimes I just have to rough it.

EDIT – I’ve found some people that serve the pods

Mashed rocked the world

February 19, 2009 /

Well London at least. Well, Alexandra Palace anyway.

Thank you to everyone who’s been contacting me about Mashed for 2009 – as some of you may know I left the BBC late last year to come and work for Lonely Planet – and as such I’m not involved with the organisation any more… but should I hear anything I’ll be sure to pass it on.

I’m just remembering why Mashed was so bloody fantastic…. and then I saw this on Ewan’s blog this morning…


Social Flight Sim from Cristiano Betta on Vimeo.

Planning the first ‘medium’ sized trip in Australia

February 12, 2009 /

I knew it wouldn’t take long to seriously get into planning my first extended trip here in Australia after I bought the XT660X – so here’s my first stab with some helpful advice from Mr Nigel Dalton (author of the Dalton Diversion) and Mr John Shippick.

Comments on this route greatly appreciated, thoughts on the towns I should visit, when I should ride – I need all the help I can get.


View Larger Map

Oscar

February 11, 2009 /


Oscar, originally uploaded by mattcashmore.

I miss the cats. In fact I think the hardest thing about being all the way out here is the fact I had to leave the cats behind :-/

The thing is I find myself wondering if I should get another cat out here as a stand-in before my two come out in August… and then we’d have three cats… but would the stand-in cat always be the stand-in cat.

I can’t decide.

Six months in Australia

February 9, 2009 /

Well very nearly six months – but near enough that I’ve started too look back at my short time here in Australia and take stock.

The biggest thing that’s hit me, is the things I thought would be important to me haven’t. When faced with a 25kg weight limited I tried to estimate what I HAD to have and what could be left behind – then when I had to work out what could go in my very small first shipment I tried to work out what I simply couldn’t be without. That boiled down to a bunch of electronics, my books, and my kitchen stuff. The only things that have come out of the packaging is the kitchen stuff – I’ve really enjoyed having decent pans, plates and tongs!

However, the electronics and books have, for the most part staid in the boxes since they arrived at the beginning of December, but as time has passed the things I’ve really missed I wouldn’t have expected at all. I regret not grabbing my camping gear, or my riding gear the first time around. Since I’ve bought the XT600 this month I’ve suddenly remembered what it was that enthralled me about discovering new places on two wheels. Not only the freedom that a motorcycle can give you but the complete ease at which you can throw your gear over the back wheel and stop where you please.

It’s fair to say that after the trip to Russia I felt slightly jaded about travelling. Actually that’s not fair, Russia, and the journey there are back was amazing. What didn’t sit well was the number of arguments that erupted between Patrick, Stace and I. It wasn’t my proudest moment, and seven months after the trip I’m only now starting to realise what it was that made it so amazing. It was Patrick and Stace, it was the arguments, it was the laughing, it was the tears and tantrums, it was the whole experience. I’d been concentrating on the negatives – but actually the positives far out-weight those – you only have to go back through the video updates, or look at the photos to see what I mean.

Last week I bought the entire Michael Palin travel collection on DVD. I’ve just finished re-watching Around the World in 80 days – I’ve not watched it since I was nine years old and sat, cuddled in blankets on my grandmothers leather sofa with tonsillitis. I think it was this programme more than anything else that gave me my taste for seeing the world as it really is – or rather seeing the world from the ground rather than a 747.

So back to the topic at hand, six months in Australia. I’ve got the house sorted. I’ve got the bike sorted, and I’ve got the panniers and other bits on order. When I get back from the states I’ll be bringing my camping gear with me from the UK. Autumn in Australia promises to be a season of exploration.

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