Review: Roman Mask

Roman Mask by Thomas M.D. Brooke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved it. I didn't read the synopsis before starting, it came as an offered book on bookbub and I'm trying most freebies because why not? With friends we chat about what we are reading and I was unable to describe what sort of book this was (no zombies!) but turned out to just be an gripping story with a decent historical basis. I did promptly go and "purchase" (kindle unlimited) the sequel.

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Lindfield Fireworks 2018

Having had some success with fireworks photos at the Wivelsfield Bonfire Society event mid October I took advantage of the good weather and went with Alex to Lindfield for their annual firework display on 5th November.

Not coming from too far away and realising how busy the event would be we did park suitably close to the main event whilst being sufficiently far away that getting away would be no problem (top tip, turn your car in your escape direction before parking up, we saw plenty of people trying to turn around in the heavy traffic after getting very little sympathy).

I think for really good positioning a recky in daylight hours would be in order but I was still in experimental mode so not too concerned.

The plan for the evening was to test different F-stops to see at what point the fireworks looks their best.

everyone was in good spirits and the evening's events started with a torch lit parade leading a massive guy to the bonfire and a youth marching band playing followed by the fireworks.

My favourite of the evening because of the range of colours present is :

Olympus E-M10 mkii, 14mm, iso200, f10, .5s

I took around 100 shots in total and the display was long enough to ensure plenty of changes to settings, although unlike the Wivelsfield fireworks, which were set to music with a movies theme this year, Lindfield felt very much like "we've got a pile of fireworks and we're going to make some noise" kind of organisation. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, fireworks are always great to watch and there were plenty.

My final conclusion is that around F8 - F10 and 1/3rd to 1/2 a second exposure time is about right. Higher F-stops do work and whilst there is scope for more capturing more fireworks there is a danger of losing that punch that fireworks deliver by being so bright and whilst tweaking in Lightroom assists, nothing replaces a good initial shot and there is an element of pot luck as to which colour fireworks happen to fire off, so this picture just doesn't cut it :

Olympus E-M10 mk11, 14mm, iso200, f10, .5s

But that isn't universal truth as this shot at F16 demonstrates :

Olympus E-M10 mk II, 14mm, iso200, F16, .5s

The complete set of pictures can be seen here.

Review: Aftermath

Aftermath by Devon C. Ford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Still shaping up into a good tale with a good focus on the interplay of people causing themselves so many problems with the zombies being just zombies.

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Review: Apocalypse

Apocalypse by Devon C. Ford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Loved it, British zombie romp, a dated setting but spot on for my age although younger readers may be confused by an absence of mobile phones :-)

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Review: Dust to Dust: Deconstruction Book One

Dust to Dust: Deconstruction Book One by Rashad Freeman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Another post apocalyptic romp, this time failing to build connection with the characters, yes it does make a change to have an ineffective hero but it just doesn't work well in the light of the competition out there. More importantly, no zombies.

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