This should have been posted from last month, but I can’t find any time to mess around with my photography hobby. Actually, that was not my only problem. I have bad memories of that day; while I was busy taking photos with my Nikon D40, a pick pocket was taking advantage of the thick crowd and stealing my new Sony Ericsson cellphone, a gift from my brother.

Anyway, the Jamaican athletes were treated to a massive welcome in Falmouth, Trelawny on October 7, 2008. Trelawny was chosen as we had by far the most representatives of any parish. Trelawnyites Usain Bolt, Marvin Anderson, Michael Frater, Ricardo Chambers, Veronica Campbell and Rosemarie Whyte were all present. Some elder residents of Falmouth remarked that it was the first time they were seeing the Falmouth square full to capacity. Asafa Powell, Melanie Walker, Shelly Ann Frasier, Kerone Stewart and the rest of the team were all also there.

Usain Bolt returned to his home parish as a king and reveled in the attention and adoration. The tie of his alma mater William Knibb Memorial High School (which was just a mile and a half away), was wrapped around his head and another was around his neck. The athletes spent about an hour signing autographs until they were ready to leave. Here are photos from this memorable occasion.

The gold medal winning, world record breaking run of Usain Bolt in the 200 meters men at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, China (19.30 seconds) further strengthened by the Olympic record breaking run of Melanie Walker in the 400 meters hurdles final (54.62), sparked off wild celebrations starting in Usain’s hometown of Sherwood Content, near Falmouth in Trelawny. There was a massive motorcade and partying throughout the day and night.

Productivity was at its lowest in history as almost everyone took to the streets in wild celebrations that end with a street dance in Sherwood. I was too tired to make it to Sherwood in the night but here are some photos taken during the day, The full photo set can be found here on my photo blog.

photo credit: rich115

What a day it was for Jamaican athletics, as the increased dominance of the world by the tiny 4,411 square miles island continued. The twelve year old 200 meter record seemed so impregnable, but Usain turned the doubters into believers today as he broke the 19.32 seconds record previously held by Michael Johnson in easily winning the event in 19.30 seconds ahead of Churandy Martina of the Netherland Antilles and Wallace Spearmon of the USA. Martin and Spearmon were both disqualified for running out of lane and the Americans Shane Crawford and Dix Walter were handed silver and bronze in 19.96 and 19.98 respectively.

This has been the single greatest sprinting achievement in the history of the sport as he became the first person to set World Records in the two events (having previously done 9.69 in the 100m) at the Olympic games and the first person since Karl Lewis in 1984 to win the double (100m and 200m). Not even the great Jesse Owens accomplished that double world record feat. after the race Bolt did his version of the popular Jamaican dance, “Gully Creeper”. After the 100 meters record, he did the dance called “No Linger”, which means “don’t waste any time”.

Melanie Walker

Fifteen minutes later, Melanie Walker continued in the footsteps of fellow countrywoman Deon Hemmings by taking the 400 meters hurdles in a National and Olympic Record of 52.64 seconds. Walker, unbeaten in the event this year, executed her race perfectly by accelerating in the last 100 meters to win by over a second over Tosta Sheena of the USA in 53.70 and Tasha Danvers of Great Britain in 53.84.

Melanie, is from Gordon Lane off Maxfield Avenue, located in a tough, violent, gang plagued area in East Central St. Andrew. Like 100 meters silver medallist Kerron Stewart, she went to  high school at St.Jago High where at various times in her school career she ran 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters and 110 meters hurdles. That made her a rounded athlete and her considerable sprinting speed helped her in the last 100 meters when she won moving away from the field.

Melanie’s victory was very special to Jamaicans as Usain was expected to win, but people were wondering if she would fold under the pressure. she did not disapoint and had the entire nation in a frenzy. Before the race she gave a small demo of the Jamaican dance called “Dutty Wine”, thereby underlying the importance of dancehall reggae to the athletes.

Coach Stephen Francis

Her winning performance underlined the success of Coach Stephen Francis and the MVP club located at the High Performance center in Kingston. Coach Francis needs to be given his credit as the greatest coach in the entire world today, having his athletes cop the following medals:

1. Shelly-Ann Fraser - 100 meters women: gold.
2. Sherone Simpson - 100 meters women: silver.
3. Sherika Williams - 400 meters women: silver.
4. Melanie Walker - 400m hurdles women: gold.
5. Jerome Mason (Great Britain) - High Jump men: silver.

He is also the coach of 100 meter 5th placed finalists Asafa Powell (former world record holder) and 6th place Michael Frater; Markino Buckley (7th place in 400 meters hurdles men final)  along with seven other top class athletes.

Melanie Walker

Coach Francis started the MVP track club after being tired of seeing Jamaica lose talent in the tough collegiate system in the USA. Many of our most talented athletes over the years gave up the sport due to various problems caused by the relocation. It is now reaping rich benefits as more and more of our athletes are staying or coming back home, thereby realizing their true potential.

The double victory sparked wild celebrations and a huge green, gold and black motorcade in Trelawny.

Jamaican Lips -celebrating Jamaica's Olympic victories in Falmouth ,Trelawny on Wednesday

Little Jamaica, the poor developing country of less than 2.7 million people is now leading the athletics medal table with strong medal contending performances expected to come in the women’s 200 meters in which we have 3 ladies who have the potential to win (Veronica Campbell, Kerone Stewart and Sherone Simpson) , men’s decathlon (Maurice Smith), men and women’s 4×100 meters relay and to a lesser extent, women’s 4×400 meters relay.

Scorpion disco will be playing in Sherwood Content tonight to celebrate Usain’s 22nd birthday after Jamaica plays Canada in World Cup Football qualifying against Canada in Canada. Photos of the motorcade and celebration in his hometown can be found here and the full set is available on my photo blog.

Usain Bolt

It was pandemonium and wild celebrations as Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won the Olympic 100m sprint in a World record time of 9.69 seconds (breaking his own record of 9.72. What was so surprising about this performance is that he started celebrating with about 20 meters to go. Second place went to Trinidadian Richard Thompson in 9.89 while Walter Diggs of the USA was third in 9.91. Official Results.

This is a sweet victory for me as I know Usain personally. He is from Sherwood Content in my parish of Trelawny. When he was at high school (William Knibb Memorial High) almost every evening he used to hang out in my video store before going home so I have always watched his progress over the years.

It was a bitter sweet event as his teamate Asafa Powell, who was expected to challenge Bolt for the gold medal, once again failed to perform to expectations in a final and finished a disappointing fourth in 9.95. Another Jamaican (also from Trelawny) finished fifth in 9.97 - going below 10.0 for the fist time in his career.

At the moment, there is a motorcade in progress in Falmouth, so I am going to celebrate.

photo credit: anton hazewinkel

photo credit: anton hazewinkel

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Dancehall Divas in Concert, a live reggae dancehall event at Club Naz in Falmouth, Jamaica took place last night.It showcased the leading female artistes in Jamaican dancehall. Miss Thing, Diva, Sasha, Spice and D’Angel were there, but missing were Macka Diamond, Patra and Lady G. The undisputed Queen of dancehall Marion Hall, aka Lady Saw was not billed, but gave a surprise appearance and as expected, stole the show and made us forget about the two absentees. Here are a few of the photos I took, but the full photoset can be viewed here on my photoblog, amateurphotoblogger.com.

The rest of the photo set can be viewed here

It just dawned on me that I have a relatively unused Panasonic GS-90 in my drawer. I bought it 2 years ago at Abe’s of Maine with an extended life battery, all the accessories anyone could need and hardly ever use it. I’m so in love with still photography and my Nikon D40, that I sometimes forget I have this camcorder. Yesterday (Independence Day), there was a wonderful civic ceremony that included a marching band made up of teenagers.

Drummers perform at Independence Day Ceremony in Falmouth

The band did a really good job, especially playing the National Anthem and there was no video camera there to preserve that exceptional rendition. I took still photos and they will be uploaded to Amateur Photoblogger.

The importance of the camcorder became more evident to me today when going over some old DV tapes used last year, I saw a brief but absolutely priceless clip of a close friend who was killed earlier this year. It was really touching and made me realize that if I  had not used it that day, I would not have such a precious memory preserved.

I will have to start using my camcorder again and upload videos to YouTube as a motivator so that I can preserve and share all those memories. Learning YouTube stuff like editing, outputting and uploading video to the web should be fun.

The day in Falmouth was a memorable one, starting with a civic ceremony (that was poorly attended as usual) and then a Street Dance and concert featuring L.U.S.T. (Tony Curtis, Singing Melody, Thriller U and the 4th member that I can’t recall right now ) and Turbulance. I finished the night at the local hot spot, Club Nazz, ending up at Donna’s till daylight. Incidentally, there will be a live concert inside Club Naz on Friday called Divas of Dancehall featuring Macka Diamond, D’Angel, Patra, Lady G and Sasha. I should be there taking some photos which I will post to Amateur Photoblogger. Well, got to go catch some well needed sleep!

This is a letter I sent to a friend looking for advice on buying a DSLR for the first time. He doesn’t have much experience with cameras but wants to make one buy and get something good. This might help anyone in a similar position:

Check out DPReview if you want a new camera. It is really detailed and will tell you every single thing about the cameras. It also has a side by side comparison if you want to compare different cameras.

The big two DSLR manufacturers are Nikon and Canon. Other manufacturers have good cameras (some may argue that they are better) like Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Panasonic and lately Samsung but Nikon & Canon are still untouchable due in no small part to their huge market share . The lens and other accessories for them are easy to find. I won’t get into the technical stuff as most of the features are quite similar between brands and will mean nothing to someone owning a DSLR for the first time. You will have to do more detailed research to find out how things such sensor size, autofocus points, exposure bracketing, burst speed, ISO range, etc., will be of importance to you.

Here are some simple but very useful features you should think about when buying a DSLR:

1. Dust Removal is included in most newer models. Important for a DSLR as changing lenses causes dust to build up on the sensor and will eventually show up in your photos. My Nikon D40 doesn’t have the feature and I am having a hard time getting the dust out which shows up especially in photos of the sky. I have tried several cleaning methods to no avail.
2. Size and Brightness of the LCD screen should be at least 2.5″ so you won’t struggle to read the display,  especially if you have reached that 40 year old barrier…like me.
3. Compatible Lenses: not every nikon lens will fit every nikon camera, the same is true for the others. The drawback with Nikon D40, D40x and D60 is that only a narrow range of lens will work on them. See this article on my website to help you understand.
4. Live View: This is an added bonus coming out with newer cameras that allows you to take pictures with the LCD screen (without having to look through the viewfinder). This is handy for taking pictures in crowds or if you want to take photos without anyone realizing your camera is focused on them.

5. Kit Lens: make sure it comes with a good lens from wide angle to short zoom (anywhere between 18-55mm at least). the lower thesmaller figure (18 in this case), the wider the viewing angle of the lens and the more the larger number (55 in this case), the longer the zoom. A good kit lens is extremely necessary if you don’t have the cash to spend on expensive add-on lenses right away.

6. Face Detection: shuts off the LCD screen when your face goes up to the viewfinder so you are not blinded by the bright LCD at nights. I suffer with this problem using my D40 at nights because it lacks this feature.

8. Vibration Reduction: extremely important especially for amateurs to reduce blurs in the photos, even if your hand shakes. Some cameras employ VR in the camera (which is the better option) and others place it inside the lens. If you buy a camera without VR (Canon calls it Image Stabilisation or IS), ensure it is included in the kit lens.

7. Price…of course (needs no comment). I shop at Right Price Camera. They have some really good prices.
For other more technical advice check out DPreview and you may also look at these links:
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/discovering-the-great-dslr-features/200187 and
http://alatest.com/digital_slr_cameras/c-248/
Check out Ken Rockwell’s Reviews of Nikon and Canon cameras at the bottom of his home page. Ken is considered an expert on digital cameras.
Finally, check out what I’ve done with my photos at my photography site Amateur Photoblogger or check out what else I have to say at my blog http://dejagib.com/blog.

Hope this helps you.

Dejagib.

Competition has forced camera manufacturers to include innovative features to gain advantages over other brands. There has been waterproof cameras for some time…now cameras have YouTube Capture Mode (Casio Elim EX-Z1080), shockproof, freezeproof, dustproof, face detection and vibration reduction to name a few. Fujifilm has given us a camera with special features for bloggers.

Fujifilm has chosen to exploit the possibilities from the vast and rapidly expanding blogging market with the Finepix Z10fd. Let’s face it, with the explosion of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace,HI5, LinkedIn (just to name a few), it is inevitable that soon everyone will eventually have a blog or two. Everyone now wants to express themselves to the world. Bloggers need photos for their blogs.

Blog mode

Crop & Resize ………………………… Save To PC…………………….. Upload to Blog

Auction mode

7 Color Choices and a Slim 18.8mm “Aero” Body.

Other features include: face detection, red-eye removal, picture stabilisation mode, intelligent flash, slide show with music, scrap book show, wireless communication and Powerful Technology in the Color.

• Catalogue &(PDF:7.6MB)
• Owner’s Manual &(PDF:4.4MB)

Specifications (DETAILED)

7.2MegaPixels - 2.7″ LCD Monitor - 4X Optical Zoom - 5.1X Digital Zoom - 6.3-18.9mm f/3.7-4.2 (35 Equiv. 38-114mm) - xD & SD/SDHC Card Slot - 54MB Internal Memory - Dim. 3.6x 2.2x 0.8″ - Weight 3.9oz.

Sample Image

Accessories

Finepix Z10fd on Flickr

Just completed a page about my town, Falmouth. A little about the past, present and future of this small, historic town. This was added to commemorate Emancipation Day, August 1st, which is 174 years since the abolition of slavery in Jamaica.

Whichever blog application you use, please make an extensive search of themes and templates until you are satisfied that you have chosen the right one. You DO NOT want to change it later as you will be adding code and scripts as you go by. You will have to re-insert all these codes if you change themes or templates, which is an arduous task.

I learnt it the hard way with my pixelpost template for my photoblog. There are certain html codes that were inserted for some add-ons. To change the template, I now have to remember which add-ons needed codes, find the installation documents for them online and re-insert the codes to it back to full functionality.

Think about moving from house to house every week (or however often you change themes/templates) and having to change each house to look exactly like the previous one. The home improvement guys would have to come in and tear down everything in order to make it look exactly like the previous house. That’s exactly what it is like to make these changes to themes or templates, especially after you’ve inserted some amount of add-ons to customize your site.

Spend your time using the search engines for your themes and templates. There are literally thousands of free themes online or you may be able to write your own. Here is a guide:

1) Colors - it is recommended to use either white black or grey as the main color and as few of other colors as possible.

2) Style – you want the photos to be the star so make it as simple as you can.

3) Number of Columns- depends on the type of blog. If it is going to have widgets, you may start thinking 2 or 3 columns.

4) Attractiveness- has to be attractive to pull viewers.

5) Sidebar/Widget ready- not all themes can take widgets.

6) Make sure it works well for its intended use- If you are going to write a lot of text, don’t choose a dedicated photoblog application such as pixelpost, sylverblog or atom photoblog. Instead, choose a blog application that can easily be converted to photoblog use such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. I highly recommended WordPress, not because it’s the one I use, but because I have tried all three and several more. If you are going to run a community based, text heavy photoblog, then Drupal is the choice. It is perfect for community sites.

7) If you would like a specific type, eg. A tech theme, personal website theme or a simple template.

Make sure it is ad ready if you inend to place ads in the future.

9) Size (how quickly it takes to load)

10) If the size pictures you use can fit on the pages without cropping the image – This is very important, there are some themes that cut off a piece of your medium sized photo because the sidebar is too wide.

It may take some time to choose, but in the meantime, you may write content and save it or upload photos until you feel you have the right theme or template. You can then publish the accumulated material and you have a website with lots of content to start with!

Happy blogging!