VIDEO: REVIEW - MIOPS Smart Trigger
This is a review of the MIOPS 'Smart' - a remote camera trigger that is exceptionally useful for a variety of photographic situations. Watch the review to get a full idea of all the possibilities. Check out the MIOPS website at: https://www.miops.com You can buy a MIOPS Smart here - https://goo.gl/uBXsPe (affiliated link) Don't forget to Like & Subscribe for more videos!
GIVEAWAY: Win two A3 Framed Prints!!!
I still can't quite believe it's Christmas already, it certainly sneaks up on you! As this time of year is all about giving, I decided it was time for another giveaway! I regularly try to let everyone know that I really appreciate all the support I get, but nothing says 'thank you' quite like giving away some free stuff, so I'm giving away two A3 framed prints!
The two images featured are from our recent bout of snow and offer views of Colmore Row and Temple Row looking particularly Wintery! So what do you have to do to win? Find out below...
HOW TO ENTER:
Entering couldn't be simpler, head to my Facebook page, find the post about the giveaway and either 'Like', share, comment or tag a friend (or all of those!). It's really that simple! A winner will be chosen at 6.00pm on Christmas Eve! Follow me on Facebook - CLICK HERE
PICKING WINNERS & COLLECTING PRIZES:
The winner will be picked at random using WooBox or a similar app. The winner will be contacted within 48 hours and arrangements made for the winner to collect the prize (it will be in Birmingham City Centre so please make sure you will be able to collect - though I will, where possible, help with delivery if it is easier, though there may be a cost).
TERMS & CONDITIONS:
- The competition is open to anyone via my Facebook page.
- Each individual may enter once with a 'like, comment, tag or share'. Multiples, i.e. a 'like, comment and a share' by one individual will still only be classed as one entry.
- The prize is not open for exchange or exchange for monetary value.
- The competition will close at exactly 6.00pm on Christmas Eve, 2017. The winner will be chosen at random and will be notified within 48 hours of the competition closing.
- Delivery - Where possible, I will try to assist with getting the print to the winner. However, I accept no responsibility for the cost or condition of the framed prints being delivered. Where possible, I can arrange to meet individuals in Birmingham City Centre to hand deliver the prints. For national & international shippings, delivery will be arranged by the recipient at their own cost. I am happy to provided reasonable packaging for the item but any further costs will be accepted by the winner.
- The competition is in no way endorsed or run in conjunction with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Youtube. the competition may be suspended or terminated without notice at the discretion of Ross Jukes Photography and no alternatives offered.
- The competition is for the prize documented and no alternative or cash alternative will be offered.
- By entering the competition, you are automatically deemed to accept these terms & conditions.
FINALLY...
Thank you once again for all of your support, I hope you have an amazing Christmas and good luck!
VIDEO: Birmingham - The City Under Snow
It has been a crazy few days here in Birmingham with a deluge of snow and cold weather gripping the city. For us photographers, the wintery weather has been a real treat, making for some great images!
With rain forecast and temperatures finally due to rise (a little!) the snow should finally be on it's way. For many, in particular, the emergency services, this news is very welcome. However, I thought I would run out and grab some video before it goes!
I only had a couple of hours to spare so I headed to Edgbaston Reservoir with the hope of a nice sunrise, and I wasn't disappointed! The reservoir looked great, lined by snow-covered trees. Best of all, due to it being around minus five (that's what my phone said at least!) I had the place practically to myself, well apart from the wildlife!
After exhausting every shot of the reservoir possible, I jumped on a bus and headed to the City Centre. Thankfully, many of the main roads/paths were now clearing making moving around a little easier. However, there was still enough snow & ice around to keep you on your toes (or your back if you're not careful!).
The snow has been fun but like many, I'm looking forward to it melting so we can get back to some kind of normality! Though judging by all of the great images I have seen on social media, it may feel a little boring without it! See the full video below and don't forget to click the link to YouTube and hit Subscribe to see more videos from me! Stay safe & warm ;)
The Birmingham Blizzard! it's Snow beautiful...
I feel like when I was a kid, it always snowed around Christmas time. However, in recent years, you're about as likely to get snow in April as we are December. So when it actually does snow during the 'correct' time of year, it's like some sort of Christmas miracle! For us photographers, it is an extra special little gift as it gives us a chance to take pictures of all the same streets and scenes that we've shot a million times before, but looking completely different!
The snow certainly brings a few problems with it, notably the impact the freezing temperatures have on your ability to get out of bed and not being able to feel your fingers five minutes after leaving the house! On a series note though, it leaves thousands of people vulnerable and makes the simple task of walking to the shop a potentially life-threatening journey! (EDIT - It really is grim out there, cars getting stuck and all sorts) So going out just to get some pictures is not as pleasurable as it may seem!
However, the results are always worth the extra effort! Seeing Birmingham bathed in a blanket of the white stuff is a rare and enjoyable treat, albeit in small measures before the Hypothermia sets in! By the time this is posted (sometime on Sunday morning - EDIT - I'm back, it was too cold!) I will be out again on a shoot and will be doing my best to take advantage of 'Ski-Sunday'! If you are venturing out, please be careful! For those lucky enough to be staying in the warm, here are a few images of (what I am unofficially calling) the Great Birmingham Blizzard! Have a click through the gallery below and keep an eye on my social media for more soon... (Find me on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram)
Important Christmas Information
Does anyone else feel like the years are getting shorter? Christmas is once again upon us and that means the inevitable rush to get everything finished off and sorted so that we can finally calm down and enjoy this festive time of year!
Last day for Print orders:
If you are considering buying a print, then you don’t have long to place an order! The last day for placing a print order to ensure delivery before Christmas is Sunday 10th December 2017 - Any orders placed after that may not be ready in time to be delivered before the big day.
Can’t see what you’re after?
As always, any of my images can be made available for print so if you can’t see an image you are after on my shop page, don’t despair! Just contact me and I will be happy to make alternative arrangements for you!
How about 2018 calendars, Ross?
Well, I had planned to do a calendar this year and had even started mocking up images etc. However, life did that nasty thing of getting in the way and unfortunately, finding somewhere to live and going through the subsequent move meant that I did not get the calendar finished in time! So, I am afraid there will not be a calendar in 2018. I promise I will start prepping 2019’s calendar from January 1st!
Alternative gift ideas:
Please also be aware that I also offer a range of 1-2-1 tutorials and also do a gift voucher, so if you are looking for alternative gift ideas to prints, there are some other options! If you would like to use one of my images for an alternative use, such as printed on a mug or maybe a cushion (if the mood takes you!) then contact me and I can work something out!
I have also teamed up with the good guys from the Culture Card to bring you a very exclusive offer, which you can find more details about HERE
One last thing…
I will do a proper ‘end of year’ post but I would just like to say a massive ‘thank you’ for all of your support. It keeps me going and it goes without saying, it is much appreciated! Have a great Christmas!
The end of an era...
St Paul's Square is, for me at least, one of the most beautiful parts of Birmingham and I have been very fortunate to call it home! However, this weekend that all came to an end as Laura (my girlfriend) and I moved out. We haven't gone far, less than a five-minute walk, but for me, it may as well be a hundred miles away.
Six years ago (almost to the day) Laura and I got the keys to our first home together a little less than a year after meeting. As soon as the apartment came on the market, we snapped it up and have been enjoying the views over St Paul's Square ever since. The place was almost perfect for us. However, it wasn't ours and we wanted somewhere of our own.
So why is all of this important? Well, for the last few days I've felt really down about the move and the more I started thinking about it, the more I understood why. We had been through so much there, good and bad. We had made a home for ourselves and it was the impetus for me to get a new job and certainly made me take my finances more seriously! It was like a security blanket for me after losing my Mom and is possibly the only place that has ever felt like 'home' since leaving my childhood home.
Most importantly though, it was one of the main reasons I ever picked up a camera! Many people probably know by now that I started out a little over four years ago as a car photographer. Yet it was my 'practice' shots of Birmingham that really got me motivated to push my photography further. Many of my first images were of St Paul's and are still some of my most popular.
So needless to say, I am going to miss the old place. I am going to miss the views and waking up in the morning, looking out of the bedroom to see 'what the sky is doing' and deciding whether to go out and take pictures! However, the new place may not have the same views or the character, but it sees us move deeper into the heart of Jewellery Quarter and is undoubtedly a great move for us and one we are very fortunate to be doing! Obviously, I will still be taking pictures of St Paul's Square, but it will always have a certain special place in my heart... Here are just a few of my favourite images...
REVIEW - Benro TSLO8AN Tripod
The Benro TSL08AN is an affordable, lightweight, portable tripod that is a fantastic companion to any photographer’s gear. Whether you’re a travel, cityscape or landscape photographer, this tripod is small enough to fit on the side of almost any bags with a length of 51cm as well as not weighing your pack down at just 1.2 Kilograms it’s not much heavier than your average Full Frame DSLR with a lens!
With the tripod being folded to such a small size you’d think it would lack in quality, well think again. Fully extended the tripod offers a working height of 146cm which is the same as most other travel tripods. The legs can each lock into three different angled positions providing flexibility whilst shooting, the leg sections also use aluminium twist locks instead of the usual plastics that are found at this price point, this will provide durability to the locking mechanisms, twist locks are quick to set up and most importantly will ensure you can’t accidentally knock them loose during a shoot.
This tripod also includes four quite big features that are all hard to come across on one tripod at this price point. Firstly, the tripod has two bull’s eye spirit levels, one on the ball head and another on top of the spider legs frame so you can level both sections of the tripod for a level shot or panoramic shot. Working on from panoramic shots, the tripod also features degrees’ markings on the ball head to make your panoramic shots that bit easier.
At the bottom of the centre column is a hook, this is extremely useful because the tripod is extremely light and so anchoring it down with you bag allows you to get sharp images even with quite strong winds. (The tripods maximum carrying weight is 4 kilograms, due to the head, the legs can take a lot more, allowing you to add balast). Lastly, one of the best features I found when using this tripod was that you can invert the centre column by just unscrewing the hook, allowing you to get those super low shots still with the stability of a tripod.
This is a fantastic little tripod that has many great features packed into a small form factor travel tripod and the best thing about this tripod the Benro have produced is that there are two variants, Aluminium and Carbon Fibre both priced at £74.99 and £109.00 respectively; so if you wish to shed even more weight off of your gear then maybe the extra £34.01 might be worth it.
Building Brum: Westside meets Eastside
It's not every day that you get the opportunity to stand on one of Birmingham's tallest buildings, let alone two of them! So when I was asked by Steve Townsend and Ben McPhee from Associated Architects (and all-round badass photographers) if I would care to join them for a spot of 'rooftopping' - I said 'Yes Please!'.
The event would see a group of Birmingham's most talented photographers... and me... scale the McLaren Building and Alpha Tower, two landmarks of the city skyline, to capture the dramatic transformation that both sides of the city are going through. Judging by the sheer amount of cranes littering the horizon, there is a lot of development going on!
Associated Architects play host to 'Building Brum' a series of networking events exploring the built environment and celebrating our great city. This particular project, as you have probably guessed by the title, aims to bring together the two sides of the city and look at how each site has evolved and how they will continue to progress in the future.
The event culminates in a photographic exhibition featuring work from a plethora of local photographers including Kris Askey @krisaskey, Tim Cornbill @timcornbill, Ben McPhee @benmcphee, Fay Loewy @Faylouiseloewy, Fraser McGee @frasermcgeefoto, Beth Astington @bethastington, Martin O’Callaghan @ocuk, Jon Crampton @joncrampton, Rachel Mason @heyrachelmason, Matt Beach @matt_beach_photography and Verity Milligan @veritymilligan (all of which are well worth a 'follow' on Instagram!)
As for the views, well they were amazing and I don't think my images do them justice! However, Instagram has been awash with brilliant images from fellow photographers - so be sure to search the hashtag #westsidemeetseastide_bham for more! I'm always inspired by how many great photographers there are in Birmingham and to watch them battle through the wind and the rain on top of Alpha Tower in the dark, was a testament to how great they all are (and embarrassingly, I had packed up a long time before them!).
A huge thank you goes out to Steve Townsend, Ben McPhee, all at Associated Architects, Bruntwood, Alpha Works, McLaren Building, Alpha Tower and anyone else that played a part in making this happen, thank you!
REVIEW: Samsung EVO Plus microSD Card
Good things come in small packages and they don't get much smaller than the new Samsung EVO Plus microSD. Storage makes up the cornerstone of any digital photographers workflow and it's no surprise that when it comes to memory cards, there are a lot of choices! The daddy of the lot (and my personal go-to-card) has always been the Sandisk Extreme Pro, with blisteringly fast speeds and great reliability, so could the Samsung stack up against the king?
Samsung certainly has a great reputation when it comes to storage, so I was keen to see what kind of a punch the little card packed and right out of the gate, I was stunned by the 128gb, which amazingly is only the 'middle' of the range, that includes a 32gb, 64gb and a whopping 256gb! That's a lot of storage to carry around and certainly gave me the peace of mind that I wasn't going to fill a card on a shoot.
The new range boasts extensive performance improvements, including the advanced NAND technology and UHS-1 read speeds of 100 MB/s - which is good! With speed class of '10' and grade of 'U3' - it is certainly a quick card! So data transfer, shooting in burst modes etc. are all very rapid. The all-important write speed is 90 MB/s - which certainly gives the Sandisk a run for its money!
Performance
In short, it's excellent! Having used the card for over a month, I basically forgot it was there. The huge amount of storage lets you shoot and shoot, the only real fear is remembering to occasionally take the images off the camera to edit! Even shooting RAW, the huge amount of storage lets you capture thousands of images before you even touch the sides of the huge capacity.
One of the biggest tests of a card like this is shooting in burst mode. The write speed of 90 MB/s is very close to what the Extreme Pro's achieve and I certainly didn't notice any difference between using the two cards. On a recent car shoot, where I was capturing 'panning' shots, the little SD card sucked up everything I threw at it and it didn't miss a beat.
Even more impressive than photo eating capabilities though are its video storage ability. The huge 128gb would allow you to soak up 6 hours of 4K UHD footage, 6 hours! The challenge there is finding something interesting enough to shoot for 6 hours! I regularly swapped the card from my 5D MKIII to my Sony RX100V and even my Mavic Pro and not once did it bulk at whatever was thrown at it.
Overall, the performance was excellent and to think that these things can be thrown into a smartphone, used as external storage for laptops/tablets etc. is crazy, all in a (genuinely) tiny package. Better yet, the cards all come with the microSD adapter, making transferring data to MAC's/PC's unbelievably easy (even if you have to use a dongle!) in particular when using USB3. I was more than happy with the overall performance and never once hit an issue, top draw stuff!
Conclusion
The card performed extremely well. Considering this card is around £79.00, I think it offers amazingly good value for money. As a mass-storage card, it works a treat and really takes a lot of pressure off your workflow. For anyone focussing on high volume storage, I really can't think of a better option.
So how did it compare to the daddy? Well, in short, very well! The Sandisk would possibly edge the EVO Plus in out-and-out performance. The Samsung will certainly be more than capable for 95% of users' needs. In addition, Samsung is possibly one of the world's best producers of storage, so you certainly are in safe hands!
Random Rally fun and a little-known fact about me...
Earlier this week I got the chance to go to the DayInsure Welsh Rally preview day. As many of you will know, I am also an automotive photographer - you can see more HERE - so I often get invited to this kind of things. However, this one was particularly special as I always wanted to be a Rally Driver, but never could because my eyesight isn't good enough! In fact, I don't actually drive for that reason (I know, I know - car photographer that can't drive, what a joker!).
However, there was also another good reason why this was special to me, as I got to meet a childhood hero, Nicky Grist, who had played co-pilot to some of my all-time rally heroes (and incidentally, nearly ran me over some twenty years prior at the RAC Welsh Rally with a certain Mr Juha Kankkunen!). All-in-all, it was a great day out and I would love to go back for the actual rally itself, but here is a little highlights video of my day....
Read all about the day at Dayinsure Welsh Rally