Fantastic lightning photo by one of our regular customers, Gareth Pinckard from the Isle of Man. This fantastic image is a rare glimpse of mother nature at her most powerful. Capturing a photo like this needs preparation and thought.



A Canon EOS 50D was used set at f5.6 for a 30 second exposure at ISO 100 using a Canon 28-135 F3.5-5.6 IS USM lens, set at 28mm. The exposure was set for 30 seconds and the lightning struck 10 seconds into the 30 second exposure. Then the lens was covered with a piece of card so that no more strikes would burn out the picture. 

The camera was set on a Velbon CX-640 Camera Tripod. A Hahnel infra red remote control was used to activate the camera so there wouldn't be any vibration. No filter was used, the purple colour of the sky is all natural. The image was captured on a Sandisk Extreme 111 4GB Compact Flash, although no longer available, these were the best at the time. These have now been replaced by the faster SanDisk Extreme Compact flash 4gb, 40mb/sec!

Many thanks to Gareth Pinckard for this unusual photo, he took it whilst on holiday in Florida at Plantation Key.

Take a look at some more of Gareth's fantastic images at: Manxphoto.com
 

"You cannot imagine my surprise when I got a call from PicStop letting me know that I'd won their "Dream Car for a day Competition" last year. From the choice of Aston Martin DB9, Ferrari F430 or Lamborghini Gallardo, I had chosen the ferrari.From the choice of Aston Martin DB9, Ferrari F430 or Lamborghini Gallardo, I had chosen the Ferrari. This was because you don't seem to see them around as much and being a once in a lifetime opportunity, i wanted to make the most of it.

The day had arrived and the car was being unloaded in front of me by Dreamcarhire in a nearby car park - I couldn't wait. I had decided to go down to the Lake District for the day. The weather was not exceptional but it wasn't raining so grip shouldn't be a major problem. I had driven the route previously and knew there wouldn't be any speed bumps to damage the bottom of the Ferrari.

The car was started by a little button on the steering wheel and I was greeted by the the impressive roar of the V8. After a short practice in the car park, getting to grips with the paddle gears and strange reverse gear system I was away. The engine roar was particularly pronounced in built up areas where the sound bounced off the surrounding buildings quite loudly. It took quite a while to get used to people stopping in the street to stare but soon I was out of town and into the countryside, and could truly feel what a true supercar was like to drive. Amazing, cornering was a dream and there was always more power available, you normally end up driving within the safe limits of the car, road conditions etc., but this car opened up those limits and made driving a fun and exhilarating experience.

Thanks PicStop for a great driving experience and a wonderful day.

SDXC Memory Cards are the latest SD memory card standard. SDXC stands for "Secure Digital eXtended Capacity" The new SDXC format increases storage capacity from 64 GB up to 2 TB. It utilises the exFAT file system, enabling it to cope with large amounts of data. The speeds standards for most SDXC cards is known as UHS class. UHS-I transfers data at up to 104 MB per second and up to 312 MB per second for UHS-II.

The Extended capacity of SDXC allows the user to store more video and pictures, or any other type of data, all on a single memory card, this removes the need to keep upgrading digital cameras and camcorders as more capacity is required.

Some important notes on SDXC cards:
- SDXC memory cards can only be used with SDXC devices.
- SDXC devices are backwards compatible and can use SD and SDHC as well as SDXC memory cards.

If an SDXC memory card is inserted into a computer or device that does not support the SDXC standard, you may be prompted by a message asking you to format the card. It is important you do not format the SDXC memory card in a non-compatible device because it will erase the data on the SDXC memory card and format the card for a different file system, making it incompatible with SDXC devices. Should you require to format an SDXC card, you can normally format it by using your SDXC device or by using the SD Formatter 3.0. Click here:  http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter_3/eula