Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

I know how difficult it is to get a good shot at an event, this weekend, I was at an event where we took around 500 images in 2 and a half hours and 2/3 of these were not used. It's easier where there are more photographers 'camped' but this increases costs. Once ISO, Aperture and shutter have been set up, the 'camped' photographer can wait and capture images quickly and efficiently.  Here I was adjusting all of those settings on the fly for different light, poses and action shots (clarity over quick focus/fast shutter) a real challenge, but a rewarding one as the images we got, for the most part, I'm happy with. But there are a number of things I really dislike about current event photography set ups*. Firstly, the all round cost for participants and photographers. (*Ignoring the issue that a number of event photographers look like eyesores in tatty jeans, unkempt beards and old T-Shirts) . The session we ran was a specific photography afternoon, the cos...

Rough Cuts make video content for others to enjoy. We also make commercial videos as well as videos for local schools that are creative and fun. You Tube is our number 1 sharing platform for these, we can create private videos, unlisted videos or public and we can choose whether it's ok or not ok to use copyrighted material. For anything commercial it really isn't ok. We respect that, it's part of our T&C's and with the exception of one client, for the most part, so do our customers. But occasionally, sometimes, for non-commercial videos, someone else's song has to be used. Case in point, in the week before last, I helped Ysgol Maesglas create a video. They raised over £200 for Children in Need and created a video to celebrate it in their school assembly. The song for Children in Need is Jamie Cullen's "Love is in the picture". For the video, the children held their drawings up in front of the camera and told us what they loved, for the most ...

People think 'techy' people are great with complicated processes and that we enjoy fixing problems. While that's pretty much 100% correct, we do prefer it when technology just does what it's supposed to. While the complicated problems do give us a challenge to overcome, on a day to day basis, when we're just trying to get work done, we prefer it when things are simple. Very simple. Where the skills come into their own is when we're looking for the easiest way to do something. Tomorrow I'll be working in a office which hasn't had a 'tech' visit or upgrade for a number of years. It's clearly been run on a budget, and at the time the best solution for 'sharing' might have been the Western Digital drive that they're using now. Sadly the network that they had has been decimated, and they're leaning on powerline adaptors for network access. Network access that is hampered by something electrical in the system which is causing one...

Many people, myself included, were both excited and fearful of contactless payment. On the one hand buying a few spuds by simply wafting your card close to a terminal, is convenient, on the other hand, worryingly easy. Indeed it wasn't long before the media cottoned onto our fears and started feeding us stories of 'skimmers'; people with erroneous card payment devices like Square and iZettle, and people got worried. Having said that, here's the latest story (at the time of writing) from 9 hours ago. So the fear is not without justification. Companies have been selling NFC secure wallets, bags and purses, for some time so the signal won't emanate too far. So advancing this technology into smartphones would surely be more risky? Not at all. Because the NFC chips in Android phones sit dormant until they've been enabled. They're only enabled when your phone is unlocked. So skimming isn't possible. If your phone is in your back pocket (far more likely than ...

It may seem like a relatively simple statement. "Today, looks good for a flight". If a customer is waiting for drone work to be completed and it's the morning of the scheduled flight, or the drone pilot has turned up unexpected, they may reassure the client, by saying something along the lines of.... "Today, looks good for a flight". This would be the same of someone who is qualified, and a friend who 'flies drones'. But there is a huge difference between these statements when spoken by a qualified drone pilot and someone who isn't. If a qualified drone pilot says 'looks ok' what they actually means is .... They will have completed a site survey and found a location safe to take off from, within the limits laid down by law. It means they will know where the closest airfield is and have contact details for the local ATC, they will feel confident to alert them should anything relevant happen. They will have checked the wind spe...

So I did decide to use the e-bike for work today. Didn't need much equipment, so the rucksack wasn't too heavy. It was 28c outside though, so I took a clean t shirt with me and showered before I set off. The journey to the local school is a mere mile, but although they're on a level with where I'm setting of from, there's a 375ft valley in between. Obviously getting down is no problem, but well hill is a steep climb. Despite this when I got to the top I took a detour to 'life on wheels', a cycling shop just outside Holywell up a further mile slog. The bike (and I) coped with this climb far easier though. I'd guess, on the step inclines I'm probably only achieving 4-5 mph, yet on the slow gradual inclines, it feels more like 10 mph. Anyhow, I made it, and bought myself a new lid. As I'm hoping to spend more time on the road, it seems like the site thing to do. Even if I did read some research earlier this week to suggest motorist give you less spa...

I've had a reply from Anccher about why there is no thumb throttle as advertised. Nancy is looking into it. I rarely go out on my old mountain bike, about once a month. I live at the top of a steep, steep long hill. So the prospect of ending every journey with either a long hard slog and agony, or, as is more often the case, humiliating defeat, is not an exciting prospect. However today I wanted to stretch the Ancheer's legs and see what it could do. The Groves River Dee Chester Last night my eldest daughter and I did 11 miles from just outside Chester near Sandycroft, down to the River Dee and back again. She has a normal mountain bike so, for the most part, I just used the Ancheer as a normal bike. We took it in turns on the way back to have a blast, so I got a real workout, as all 6 ft 1 of me struggled on a 14" bike! Today however, I was on my own, so I parked up, just south of Talacre and set 'record' on the Komoot App (I prefer this to Strava as it al...