Saturday August 30th saw the start of the Shoreham Airshow 2008. As I had previously attended the 2004 show I was very much looking forward to this one, however the weather in August has been nothing short of awful and so there was a big question mark over weather we would bother to go as the £20 each entrance fee was too much to loose if it were to just rain all day.

Thankfully August 30th was not only one of the few dry days this month but actually a beautiful day with blue sky's, a gentle breeze and high temperature. The actual display started at around 11:30am but at this time we were still stuck in an almighty traffic jam in which we queued for nearly 90 minutes and so we missed Christian Moullec flying in his microlight with his Geese and Cranes and also sadly missed Caroline Grace fly my favourite aircraft of all time, the Spitfire. Fortunately there were many more Spitfires flying that day.

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One of the biggest advantages of Adobe's Lightroom is the use of Presets. For those that may not have yet experienced the joy of using presets, presets are a quick and easy way of applying 'preset' processing commands to your photos. This means that at a click of a button you can make your photo appear as though it's been Cross Processed, Split Toned, shot using various Film Stocks, have a boost in saturation or convert it to Black & White.

There are numerous presets on the Internet to download some of which are free whilst others you have to pay for. Some of these are excellent whilst others are a little too 'whacky' for general use and the vast majority don't actually create a true Black & White image but a desaturated colour one, i.e. the photo is still a colour one but one that is absent of any visible colour. Whilst this is fine for on screen viewing it can cause numerous problems when you print the photo because your printer will try to interpret the colour information that isn't there which can result in colour casts in your prints. One thing became very clear to me when searching for presets is that there are very few 'good' Black & White presets out there. I love Black & White photography and in particular High Contrast Black & White with really punchy blacks however high contrast doesn't suit all photos or subjects so Black & White 'digital processing' is very much about the enhancing specific tones to give the result you want to achieve. As Lightroom gives you 25 - 30 different controls that will directly affect how your photo will look in Black & White, converting your photos to Black & White in Lightroom can be very complicated and a real art form in itself, this is where Presets come into their own as you can achieve instant results at just the touch of a button.

I have developed 20 Black & White presets (2 variations of each preset one with a vignette and the other without making 20 in total) for Lightroom that produce true Black & White images which range from subtle tones to punchy high contrast all of which can be bought for just £5 from my new Store or click on the link in the main menu.

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Like many anglers the concept of travelling light just doesn't seem to apply with me. Even as a teenager when I could only get to waters I wanted to fish on foot or by public transport I always insisted on carrying an amount of gear that would make a Sherpa think twice all because of the thought of "what if?"

"What if" I needed that Carp rod, even though I was actually after Bream that day?
"What if" I needed the Pole even though I was going to be ledgering that day?
"What if" I needed a spare reel, scales, weigh sling, multiple rod rests, ground bait riddle, multiple bait boxes, float boxes, bite alarms, rod pods etc etc etc?

As a result I've always taken just about every piece of tackle I own every time I go fishing and this involves lugging with me:

• 2x Carp Rods
• 1x Medium Float Rod
• 1x Quiver Rod
• 1x Multi Tip Rod
• 1x Avon Rod
• 3-4x Reels (including 2 baitrunner)
• Large Tackle Box
• Large Float Box (I can't stand float tubes so I have a heavy wooden float box)
• Scales
• Weigh Sling
• Unhooking Mat
• Nets (several)
• Landing Net Handle
• Bank Sticks (Loads)
• Rod Pod
• Umbrella
• Rod Rest Heads (several)
• Bite Alarms
• Catapult
• Bait Boxes (several)
• Bait Bucket
• Stink Bag
• 2x Chairs (second one for my wife)

Plus lots of other little things and that doesnt include bait which usually consists of 2-3 bags of groundbait, 1-2 tins of hemp and 1-2 tins of luncheon meat.

Whichever way you look at it, this lot weighs a hell of a lot!

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Like a lot of people I do burn quite a lot of DVD's. Many of these are backups of photos and other files whilst others are DVD movies that I've created in iMovie and whilst the iMac's Superdrive is a pretty good drive the one big problem I have with it and with almost all burners is labelling.

In the past I've tried using those stick on labels and whilst these are quite good, ink jet labels never look that great and more importantly a stuck on label, even one that covers the entire surface of the disc, unbalances the disc which then causes slower ripping speeds or, as in the case of my iMac's Superdrive, means that the disc can't even be detected. I've also tried printable CD's and whilst these are considerably better than stick on labels I personally find it a bit of a pain having to add the CD loader to my printer, make sure that I have enough ink and that the nozzles are clear and getting text and images to appear exactly where I want them to. I've also tried using a simple pen to write on the disc and whilst this is the simplest and fastest option it is also the ugliest and also makes it harder to actually find the disc you want when you have a whole box of them to sort through.

This is why I've now switched over to Lightscribe.

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When I bought my first DSLR, a Canon EOS-10D, I had a Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM and a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. With the 10D's ASPC sized sensor this meant that the widest focal length I had was 38mm which, lets face it, isn't exactly wide. Although I don't often shoot what would be considered to be landscapes in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. rolling hills or rocky cliffs under a dramatic sky, it quite quickly became evident that I needed a wide angle lens.

After a few years 'struggling' with the 24-85 sold all my lenses and invested in better and faster glass. One of these new lenses was the Canon EF 17-40 f/4 L USM. There can be no doubt that this lens is an excellent lens and all test reports confirm that it barely suffers from any aberrations that some other wide angle lenses suffer from like pin cushioning, barrel distortion, chromatic aberration etc. In fact the only two things I ever thought where 'bad' about it was the fact that it was 'only' f/4 when all my other lenses were now f/2.8 and the price, £520 is a lot to spend on any lens. At the time I bought this lens though there really wasn't much else to choose from, at least not much that was as sharp or fast.

I used this lens for a few years but during this time companies like Canon and Sigma were developing wider lenses and I started to see the results they could capture. One lens that particularly grabbed my attention was the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM.

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