Gethin Hill .net - Random Ramblings

well, time has flown by an all the work i’ve been doing and money i’ve been saving is about to payoff, and be spent

In the morning, i’m off to Nepal, with a nice stop-over in Thailand first.  I shall be giving my camera and equipment a serious workout while i’m away, snapping pics of anything and everything!

When i get back, i plan to do several reviews of various bits and pieces, including my Lowepro Daypack 250 backpack, Canon 50mm 1.8, Vosonic and Nexto storage devices and possibly various other bits and pieces that i’ve put through field tests while i’m away.

So i’ll be back in a few weeks.. It should be awesome, but no doubt, it will fly by!! seeya all soon!

Being the avid video-gamer that I am, I am signed up for the Playstation newsletter. In a recent email, was a quick competition in promotion of the new Buzz trivia game that was being released on PSP. It involved a few AFL related questions, of which good old Google and Wiki quickly solved for me. I ran through the quiz, pressed submit and forgot about it as always.

A month or so later, i get a phonecall from a lovely lady named Leah from Sony to let me know that i’ve been chosen as 1 of 5 runner up’s in this competition i’d entered, and therefore, had won a Sony PSP and Buzz game pack! I couldn’t believe it, and almost didn’t until this week, when in the mail i recieved..

PSP, Buzz and Win Letter

I’ve always been one of those people that think ‘i never win anything’ but that’s stopped this week. I won a PSP! I do actually have one already, so this new one will most likely end up Ebay to pay for more photography stuff.

So big thanks to Sony.. i was already a fan of their games consoles and this will certainly reinforce that!

just a quick note about an upcoming game that i heard about a little while back.

It’s called Afrika and is a safari game where you are a photographer and are given various missions to go and capture specific shots throughout the wide open land of ‘Afrika’. It will take advantage of the PS3’s sixaxis motion controlled controller, where if you aren’t holding it steady, it will show in the photo results, just like in real life.  Better photo’s will earn better cash, allowing you to upgrade your camera equipment.

Sony’s camera division have worked closely with Rhino Studios (the makers of the game) to incorporate the Sony Alpha series of dSLR cameras into the game in detail, down to shutter sound and lens operation.

National Geographic have also been involved in the project, with editors of the magazine supervising the in-game animal antics such as behavior and animations, and also allowing use of their videos and photos for the in-game animal encyclopedia.

This is one game I’m definitely looking forward to checking out.. Should be great for those video gaming photographers stuck indoors when the weathers bad.. and who hasn’t wanted to go on an African safari!

it’s released on the 28th of this month (August) in Japan, not sure about when for the rest of the world. here’s a video with the trailers.

hi all,

been busy with workin to save money for my upcoming trip to Nepal in a little over a months time and so haven’t had much time to dedicate to photography.. however, in saying that, i have taken quite a few photo’s and have some to upload to the gallery, im sure, but i haven’t had time to sort through them yet!

also, got my first trojan/virus in quite some time.. somethin called Virtumonde or Vundo. It took a few days to figure out what it was as the only thing it was doing was not allowing me to access certain websites, mainly those requiring cookies such as ebay and facebook and most forums i use, and also not allowing me access to my own websites! crazy virus but its all sorted now.

So i’ll try get onto sorting through these photos so i can post some new stuff up in the gallery.  Also, i have recently aquired some new camera/photography accessories so i plan to start reviewing some of the equipment I own.. I know that i personally like to research things before spending hard earnt money on them, and for some pieces of equipment there’s very little information out there to be found so I figure i’ll do it and hopefully someone out there may find it useful one day.  So keep your eyes out for that..

Just a quick update for today.. I’ve finally upgraded my internet connection to ADSL2 and i can definitely tell the difference. This will help in the uploading and maintenance and updating of my websites so stay tuned!

Also, i decided to sign up online for the Playstation Network to get the multiplayer thing going with my PS3. My ID is “inked3D” for anyone that wants to add me.

i haven’t had much time to post this week, but i’ll add a new post ASAP.

Well today, i decided to attempt, yet again, to get Wordpress going as a blog and content management system..  this time however, i stuck with it, kept reading and persevering, and eventually, about 6 hours later, here it is!

My blog, complete with custom theme!  I know, it’s basic, but i’m still getting my head around this Wordpress customization  stuff…  As time goes on, i’m sure i’ll slowly customize it more and more, until it looks slick and polished.

But for now, it’s fully functional and ready for me to write something in it..

well, i’ll keep you posted!