The Gadget Show – Film vs. Digital test

Film vs Digital blow-up test

apparently this was The Gadget Show's 'biggest and most audacious test ever'. So what did we learn?

Apart from the fact it was the female presenter's chance to dress up in a cat suit a la The Avengers, and, excuse my language, they were using Nikon cameras, the D700 (digital equivalent of the F5) was set to mimic the film speed used in the F5 and they both used an 85mm lens.

The studio was set up with a white backdrop and they rattled off a bunch of photos with both cameras.

After shooting and choosing their photos it was time to blow them up. And blow them up they did, to an enormous 17x5 metres! Pyramid Visuals can print anything from vehicle livery to building wraps.

The images were so big they each had to be printed in two separate parts and then stitched together to produce each 170 sq m poster which they hung on a building in London.

I have to admit that when I saw the final images I picked the wrong one! I felt sure there would be a better clarity in the film but no, digital won outright with much better colour and less grain.

Digital camers have come on leaps and bounds and this test definitely proved that fact.

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Well the competition has ended with some terrific winning images.

My favourites are 'Troublemaker' by Stefano Unterthiner (Italy). I love the expression on the macaques face and Andy Bigg's Wild Places winning photo of the Skeleton Coast, Namibia. I am hoping to travel with Andy one day in the future.

Onwards and upwards to the 2009 competition!

Finally! The new Canon 5D MKII announced

The rumour mill has been circulating on this one for months and now new 5D is actually here. It's had a few names over the months too 6D, 7D but Canon like their MKI, II, IIIs so we get the 5D MKII. The spec on this camera sounds phenomenal and I will definitely be saving up my pennies to buy one of these beasts.

Check out Canon's website for full into:

Canon http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/index.html

Looks like it's due for release in November.

Get saving!

Big Cat Diary news

Direct from The Big Cat Team...

The BBC team is now in the Mara searching for the stars of the show. You can catch a sneak preview of the Big Cat Live site at www.bbc.co.uk/bigcatlive.

The live updates start next week, but you can get stuck in now:
- join us on Facebook at www.new.facebook.com/pages/Big-Cat-Live/72685000470
- follow the Cats on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bigcatlive>

I'm really looking forward to the live show, all the news from the site and catching up with some old friends like Notch.

Big Cat Diary Live starts 5 - 12 October on the BBC.

Bellagio, Italy

I wasn't sure what to expect from this trip, especially being somewhat of an actual holiday and not a safari! My husband and a few business colleagues had organised some business/strategy meetings in the mornings with the afternoons free to sightsee etc.

The area of Lake Como turned out to be pretty spectacular on the scenery front, a little reminiscent of the Rockies. Our hotel (Hotel Belvedere) was in a fantastic position with views out over Pescallo on Lake Lecco and a view north up Lake Como.

The weather was lovely for the first three days but then turned to some rain during the day with thunderstorms in the evenings. One night we had the worst storm. We were sitting in a restaurant when the mother of all bangs shattered the air followed by an absolutely torrential downpour. The unfortunate people who were sitting outside under the canopy ended up with a river running over their feet. Needless to say we took our time and ordered more Grappa!

My daughter and I enjoyed some time down at Pescallo harbour. She liked to throw rocks in the water whilst I photographed the boats. Pescallo is a very pretty little village with a lovely restaurant called La Pergola where we had our farewell dinner.

Other nice villas to visit include Villa Monastero at Varenna, Villa Balbianello (Star Wars and 007 movies were filmed here). On one of the more dreary days we took a boat down as far as Cernobbio just to have a look at all the pretty little villages along the lake side. Unfortunately we didn't see George Clooney or Brad Pitt, must've been the day we heard they visited Menaggio. Oh well.

There is a lot to see in a week and it is definitely worth a trip back to explore more.

Viva Italia!

This weekend I'm off to Italy and, hopefully, to some much needed sunshine. This will be my first trip to Lake Como and, from what I've seen from friends' photos, the scenery looks absolutely stunning.

I will be spending the week building up my landscapes collection so look out for some new photos on diffanglephoto.co.uk.

Big Cat Diary Goes Live!

e-mail direct from The Big Cat team:

Big Cat returns this autumn, but in an exciting new guise.

For the first time in its 12 year history, Big Cat will be broadcast as a live event on the web and on TV, bringing the thrum of the African wilderness to your desktop and living rooms 24/7 for three weeks.

From late September, when the recce and filming begin, the crew will start to upload regular field reports on the feline and other animal stars direct to the website via mobile phone.

We'll bring you special video reports about the animals, people and place, building up to a fully live, round-the-clock experience on the website a week before the TV show begins.

Streaming wildlife webcams will reveal the hidden lives of Africa's favourite - and some lesser known - creatures. There'll be scheduled appointments to view including live reports from the presenters and others, as well as opportunities for you to contribute.

-------------------------------
On TV
-------------------------------
All this and you haven't even turned on the TV yet... At the peak of activity, a week of live, night-time broadcasts on BBC One and Two bring the event to a climax, with even the smallest viewers catered for in a special CBeebies series.

Jonathan Scott will be filming the live event and then he and Angie will be joining a group of other photographers for a week's safari in the Masai Mara staying at Rekero Camp.

Leopard versus Crocodile

For one lucky photographer, Hal Brindley, this was the catch of a lifetime. On safari in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, he witnessed an attack on a crocodile by a leopard. Click link to see photos: Leopard savaging a crocodile caught on camera

You can also check out Hal's website and the full encounter story here.

This is one of those right place, right time moments we all wish for.

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008

I decided to enter the competition for the first time this year and I just got notice yesterday that 6 of my 11 submissions made it to the semi-final stage. I am really pleased with this result, especially with it being my first time in the competition.

As a guide, the competition had over 32,000 photos from more than 3000 photographers.

I look forward to choosing my submissions for the competition next year.

Below are the 6 semi-finalists.

Royal Livingstone, Zambia

The Royal Livingstone Hotel

After 6 days on safari this is a wonderful place to relax. The grounds are immaculate and the staff are very attentive to your every whim.

We had a king room with a fab view of the falls from our patio. The room was very clean with a very large bathroom and walk-in shower, which blasted all the cares away. We were warned to keep our patio door shut as the monkeys can be troublesome and will take anything that is not nailed down. We witnessed this a couple of times during breakfast and also had one jump on our table at sundowner to steal our nuts. It made for fun drinks.

Breakfast was amazing with everything from cereal to sushi. You could also order pancakes, waffles and eggs by separate order.

The main restaurant served almost Michelin class meals. Although one night we decided to try the Assiette Gourmand (chef's dessert plate) and it turned up with almost every full size dessert on the menu. We were expecting bite size so as you can guess quite a lot was left on the plate.

The grounds are open to wildlife and on our last morning we had 6 zebra walk past the pool to stop and eat the freshly watered grass. An excellent opportunity to get good close up photos.

The hotel is also within a 10min walk of Vic Falls, which is spectacular. We headed off with our bag wrapped camera and raincoats - neither of which lasted long against the Zambezi shower we were soon to encounter.

Sunsets are gorgeous from the sundowner deck but the mosquitoes are also out in force so take plenty of repellent. The hotel supplies mosquito patches but not sure these were terribly effective.

A couple of days here is enough if you just want to relax after a safari.














breakfast with zebras video

Little Kwara Camp, Botswana

Little Kwara is part of Kwando Safaris and is a lovely camp with wonderful tents built on stilts. The rooms are luxurious with proper doors to loo and shower. The outdoor shower is wonderful especially due to the fact that they have hot and cold running water all day. It was wonderful to come back to after a morning game drive and a lovely bonus as we were used to the 3-minute bucket showers.

The food was of a high standard with 3 courses being served every night.

Our guide, David, and tracker, Kenneth, were both fantastic and without them we would've missed half the sights we saw.

Sat pm
Transferred from Lagoon Camp to Little Kwara with enough time to unpack and rest a little before having some high tea at 4pm and heading out on our first game drive at 4.30pm.

We head to find a cheetah the guys had spotted in the morning but when we got there the trackers were all out of the truck and a little confused as they could see tracks but no cheetah. David started to drive around when I suddenly spotted the cheetah lying in some long grass. We sat for a few minutes and then moved around behind her to try and get her to move. One of the guys in our truck was checking her out through binoculars when he was surprised to see 2 cubs pop up from under the cheetah. It turns out that when they saw her looking fat in the morning, which they thought was due to her eating a kill, was now obvious that she was pregnant and when we found her she had just had her cubs. It was such a wonderful sight to see these cute little cubs with their eyes still closed. We radioed to the other trucks to make sure she was left alone and we left the scene. The guys didn't want any tracks leading right to her for other predators to have easy access.

The sky was amazing that night with clouds that looked like they'd been blown across the sky and as the sun set it looked more and more like it was on fire.

Sun am
Morning drive was uneventful. Watched some giraffe and zebra for a while. Spotted a long tailed bird that looked like a dolphin swimming when it flew. Turned out to be a Paradise Whydah - a gorgeous bird.

Sun pm
Off for an evening boat ride down the Okavango to the hippo pool. Spotted lots of kingfishers along the way and also a very shy little crocodile and otter. We arrived at the hippo pool in time for sunset and moonrise, which was spectacular. David put us in the perfect spot, which made for some wonderful photos. The hippos were very interested in our boat and watched us the entire time we were there. It looked like there were approx 20 hippos. Unfortunately I missed the only hippo yawn of the evening so we will be having a repeat!

The ride back to the jetty was like something out of a James Bond movie as we sped down the channels. It was a sunglasses on and mouth shut tight moment to avoid a dinner of bugs.

Sun night drive
I decided to miss this as I was feeling exhausted but my husband went out and it's a good job as they came across the dead elephant we had spotted from the plane flying in. The government truck had already found the elephant so the head, feet and skin had been removed to stop poachers selling the tusks etc. There were 2 male and 2 female lions at the scene with some vultures and hyenas waiting in the wings.

Apparently it was quite a sight as the lions had stuffed themselves silly and were lying in the grass with big bellies and making all sorts of noise out of both ends!

Mon am
Off to see the elephant in daylight and to check out if the lions are still there. On the way we watched 2 male impala fighting for territory. It was very easy to spot the losing male.

Arriving at the elephant he two males were there with one lounging in the shade and the other munching on the elephant's trunk. It looked like a very tough piece of meat and he kept having to reposition his claws to get the best grip. He finally dragged the trunk over to his brother lying in the shade and then wandered off for a drink. This lion had a very bad injury to the right side of his head. Not sure how this happened and not sure how it will heal as he can't lick the wound to keep it clean. It was now his turn to start snacking on the trunk.

We followed the lion as he waddled to the water. I have never seen a lion so fat. He took a long drink and then walked in our direction. He walked within a foot of the truck and watched us as he walked by. We tried to follow his into the brush but it was just too thick and we had our own battle just to get out and find the road.

The trees and sky was stuffed with vultures and with the lions fed and happy, it didn't take long for them to move in.

Mon pm
Decided to go for another boat ride this evening to try and catch some hippo yawns. The ride was very relaxing as we meandered down the Okavango. Spotted a large fish eagle but he took off before we could even lift our cameras.

Saw green pigeons and pied and malachite kingfishers. The water was like glass.

Arrived at the hippos and this time they played ball and gave us plenty of yawns. The sunset was marvellous but moonrise was late so we headed back in the dark. This time it was a mild James Bond run back to the jetty.

Leaving tomorrow so no game drive tonight.

Tues am
Booked a private vehicle for our last morning as we wanted to head back out to the elephant. We'd heard another pride of lions had shown up so wanted to check them out.

Checked out a waterbuck and some baboons along the way.

Bouncing along the road when Kenneth, our tracker, saw something moving in the brush. We stopped and he point to what looked like a large white boulder. It turned out to be a dead giraffe and as we neared the animal we saw a lioness busy snacking on the head. The giraffe was still kicking but obviously this was final death throes. She stayed at the head for a while, eating the eyeball and chewing off the ear. Our guide told us she does this incase the animal tries to get up and she can easily grab it round the nose and suffocate it. She was one powerful lioness as she had managed to bring down a fully grown giraffe on her own.

When we left and followed her tracks back we worked out she had chased this giraffe for approx 2-300 meters before bringing him down. An amazing feat and not one all lions can do.

We thought this was such a terrific end to our stay until we came across the cheetah that we saw earlier with the 2 cubs. She was on her own this time and out hunting. We followed her for a while but ran out of time as we had to get back to catch our plane to Zambia. We did contemplate staying and David said we could share his tent if there were no free tents!

We had an amazing time at Little Kwara. It will take a lot to beat this Botswana trip.

Lagoon Camp, Botswana

Lagoon Camp

Guide: George
Tracker: AT

Wed pm
Unpacked and all gear stowed. The camp has hot and cold running showers which is a blessing compared to the usual 3 minute bucket showers of a lot of Mara camps.

First thing we do is meet up with the wild dog pack. Followed 9 dogs on the hunt. They chased 3 impala over the course of 2 hours without success. We left them to it an headed for our sun downer drinks.

Standing around chatting when one of the other guests said she could hear something coming. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes we were surrounded by dogs. Not sure what attracted them to our vehicle but it was very exciting and unnerving at the same time. Unfortunately I'd left my camera in the truck so no pics for me!

Drive back to camp spotted a giant eagle owl in a tree. This owl is the apparently the largest owl in the world and has pink eyelids.

Thurs am
After a good breakfast of porridge and muffins we set off at 6.30am. Caught up with a couple of hyenas but after that it turned into a bird morning.

Thurs pm
During afternoon tea we spotted a herd of elephants walking towards the river so we quickly hot footed it to the boat and dashed around the channels to try and catch up with them before they hit the water. We got there just in time to see approx 20 elephants swimming across the Chobe River from Botswana to Namibia. After the main herd had crossed we watched as a family of 3 appeared, a mother with 2 calves. The mother was helping the smallest calf keep afloat with her trunk but at one point stopped and gave us a glare with one of those 'don't come any closer' looks. It was a fantastic sight.

We moved off to find a nice spot for our sun downer and came across a few hippos but they were very shy and didn't surface for long. The sunset was gorgeous on the water and we motored back to the jetty checking out the kingfishers and storks settling down for the night.

Back at the truck we got word that the other truck had found a cheetah with a cub and a kill so George put his foot down and raced to the scene. The mother was resting and keeping an eye on her inquisitive cub. The cub looked around 2 weeks old. We left them to feed and drove back to camp.

Fri am
Off to check out if the cheetah was where we left her last night only to find the wild dogs. We followed them for about 1.5hrs until it was clear they were not going to hunt. We then decided to go and see if we could find some giraffe and zebra. We stopped by a watering hold for morning break where a large herd of wildebeest had gathered but they wouldn't drink until we have moved on. Very skitish.

Almost back at camp and we spot a baboon sitting like a buddah on top of a termite mound as though he was surveying his territory. At one point he stuck his legs straight out, it was a funny sight.

Fri pm
Woke up after our siesta to find baboons all around the tent. One had a peak as I showered and he is now scarred for life!

Well this afternoon we definitely found out what Lagoon Camp is famous for. We found the wild dogs and followed them on the hunt. It was hard to keep track of them all as they split up so we kept with the alpha male for a while. So, we're trucking along is some heavy brush when our guide hears an impala snort which is a dead giveaway for something wrong. We rush over in the direction of the noise to see an impala with one dog on the back leg and as we got there another rushed in and grabbed the throat. It was a very sad sight to see this poor animal about to be eaten alive.

Within seconds another dog came in at the belly and before long it was a complete feeding frenzy. The alpha male and female were very late to the scene and there was a lot of yelping when they turned up.

12mins later the whole thing was over. It was very intense and we were all completely speechless for a long time afterwards. We managed to capture most of the event on video.

Needless to say our sun downer was very subdued.

On the way back to camp we followed a honey badger, spotted an Africa wild cat and a pearl-spotted owl.

Sat am
Our our game drive this morning we came across a large herd of buffalo and then sat by a watering hole waiting for a giraffe to come down for a drink. Took about 20mins for him to be ok with us being there and we got some great shots of him drinking.

Tried to capture a lilac-breasted roller in flight but harder than we thought - lots of blurred photos. Did, however, manage to shoot a purple roller which we hadn't seen before.

Next stop Little Kwara...