Nick's Blog

I’ve got a lot of free time now school is done for this year! Doing nothing in your school vacation is nice, but not all the time! So I have decided to re-design my website so it looks better. The visual design of my current site isn’t so bad, I kind of like it, but it’s a real mess with all the info on it! I also miss a introduction page with the most important stuff about me and the website. So that’s why I am working on a new web design at the moment.

Some features of my new website will be:

• A front page with a slider with my latest portfolio items, 3 columns with information about me, what I do and my latest blog posts.
• A portfolio page where my latest work will be presented. People can select what they want to see (Photography, design, school etc.) or they can see the newest thing.
• Blog pages with some useful or useless information about me.
• Big photo on the background because I love photography! (that’s the theme of this Design)
• Simple and minimal design to improve readability.
• And much much more!

The design is already done, at least the basic design! Menu items will probably be smaller in the final, and I have some doubts about the color use and my logo. Maybe I will change that in the final version, or else later when it’s all done, it ain’t really big issues that need a lot of work when it needs to be changed.  I’ve started coding my design right now, and I have no ETA at all It’s done when it’s done! Oh alright… screenshot!!!

I’ve been to a great Muse concert last Saturday in Nijmegen! It was a outdoor concert, and we (me and a friend) where a bit afraid that it would rain. It did rain occasionally, but it wasn’t that bad! To be honest, we didn’t feel anything of it!

Anyway, the concert was really great! They did a great work with the lights and all! Great show, and they just play so good! The end was the best. Sounds bad, but it’s because they played “Plug in Baby” and “Knights of Cydonia“, two really great songs! Anyway, pictures below:

My new computer arrived today! It’s an iMac 27″ with a i7 processor! It’s really beautiful and it works great! I just wanna brag a bit with a photo , so here it is:

Yes, that’s right, my computer is for sale! I desided that I want a iMac as my main computer becuase I just really like my MacBook Pro so much. Besides, Windows is really getting on my nerves now…

Maybe you are interested in it, here are the specs:

• Antec Performance One P182
• Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio
• Hitach Deskstar 7K400 (400GB)
• Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 (500GB)
• Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 (500GB)
• Intel Core i7 920
• Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3N9K3/6G
• Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
• Logitech LX3 Optical Mouse
• MSI Eclipse SLI
• OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W
• Sapphire HD 4870 1GB PCI-E
• Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7170S

Asking price is about €850,- but for friends I have a special price Ask me about it if you are truly interested! Some pictures below.

I’m selling my old Canon EOS 400D camera with a lot of extras. I’ve put it on Marktplaats.nl now, but I can only upload 3 photo’s there. So in this post are some more photo’s of the Camera and the extras.

The sale includes the following:

• Better kitlens (18-55 mm USM)
• Canon AF 80-200 lens
• Tamron AF 70-300 lens
• Battery kit
• 2 Battery’s
• Macro filter for the kit lens
• UV filter for the kit lens
• Official cover for the camera.
• Lowepro bag (place for at least 2 lenses, camera and extra’s)
• Official manual and software.
• 2GB Sandisk card

You can find the advert on markplaats here: click. (It’s Dutch!)

What’s this? Some kind of ad for the movie Avatar? No, not really… Well actually it kind of is! Yesterday I saw this movie in the theaters, and I must say that I like it very much! Yeah oke, the story isn’t that great, I call such story’s Walt Disney story’s because of their happy ending and the common way of the story line. I liked it because of the great graphics! The alien graphics, harsh contrast between humans and nature, and most of all the colors! Damn, I thought my eyes where dropping out of my eye sockets. When this is going to be released as a blu-ray then I sure am going to buy it, just because it inspired me so much already. O yeah, I saw it in 3D, and that was kind of cool, but I think I would liked it equally if it wasn’t in 3D

So, it’s official; I’ve got a Canon 5DmkII! I bought it not last Saturday but a week before that. I wanted to upgrade my ‘old’ 400D anyways because I was getting annoyed by the noise that was rising it’s ugly head after ISO 400. Also it’s a good investment for my new study, I can use it for lot’s of things like making pictures for commercial practice, or making a film!

With the camera I got a 24-105mm L USM IS lens, which is great also! You can definitely see that quality of the L lens compared to the other lenses I got used with my 400D. It’s much more sharper and the quality is so much better! At the moment it’s the only lens I use with this camera. I also bought a polarization filter last week for this lens, that should help me with some landscape scenes and water scenes

Some visitors may remember the macro lens that I bought a few months ago. Yes, that macro lens should fit this camera. But I am trying to sell this lens so I can buy his L brother that came out a few months ago. The new L macro lens (also 100mm) has IS which is very handy with macro photography and of course the quality should be better then the normal one although it may not be much.

I’ve been playing with my new camera some time now. In the last post I showed you the movie I made with it and today and last week I made some autumn pictures. I’ve got to tell you that it’s quite hard in this time of year! It’s quite difficult to find a scene that has all the right colors and no rotten leaves or berries in it. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible and I think it’s just something you got to learn to look for. So below are a few pictures I made with my new camera. The blue glass I made just tonight, it isn’t edited much (only removal of a few spots) so it has a lot of black space that should be cropped. I hope you like it!

Another J-Rock song I really like very much! I’ve been following this group since this year actually and I think they are pretty good. Vocals, guitar and drums are really good and it sounds really great! Maybe some people can recall some English sentences in this song?

A lot of people don’t know that I listen to Dire Straits frequently, well it do! I am a person that has many different interests and favourites, I mean comeon, first Japanse rock music and now Dire Straits from the 80′s? Well, you may have noticed that I like guitar very much, and that counts for a lot of instruments like the piano and the saxophone! This video below is one of my favorite songs from dire straits, and believe me this live is better than the original and you don’t see that often Also, this video is dedicated to my dear dad who I miss very much.

One of my favorite Japanse rock bands released a new music video, they are called -OZ-. They’ve got a new style, it’s quite nice a think although some people think it may be to girly. I really like the music as well although I can’t understand it, it has great instrumental sounds I always buy their music when I see them for sale online, I think it is important to help my favourite artists. Well, just have a look if you want to.