super groovy

Super-groovy grey cards from Photocritic

Grey cards

Obviously I’m in a slightly spend-thrift mood at the moment. Following on from yesterday’s t-shirt, these much cheaper and probably more useful (unless of course I had no clothes, or something) grey cards have just caught my eye. Just what we need for making sure our white balance is spot-on.

There’re three A6-sized cards – one matt black, one white, and a neutral 18% grey – all neatly stashed in an envelope. The corners are rounded, there’s drilled hole for lanyard-securing purposes, and on the back of the cards there are instructions for how to use them as well as a rather useful cheat sheet of the aperture scale, zone system, and a pre-shoot check-list. How rather nifty!

All of this for only £6.99, which is bargain-tastic, methinks. Shipping in the UK is free; Europe costs €1.60 and the USA US$2.25. Available here!

Even more – if you want a swift introduction into how use a grey card, take a look at this video.

Our October Photo Competition!

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Hello Lovely People. We’ve a little treat for you. We thought that you might like to have a go at a monthly photo competition. We’ll set a theme or technique, you submit a picture to our Flickr pool, we choose a winner. If you’re really lucky, we might even try to rustle up some prizes. What do you say? Interested?

Thought you might be.

Cos it isn’t autumn all over the world, we thought that we’d avoid the cliched ‘Autumn’ theme and instead go for a technique this month. I’ve been obsessing over long exposures recently, so I’d like to see what you guys can come up with using a slow shutter speed that can dazzle and impress me.

You’ve between today and Wednesday 27 October 2010 (that gives you three weeks) to submit your, what will doubtless be stunning, entries here.

We’ll try to decide on a winner before Wednesday 3 November. If you’re the lucky person with the super-groovy winning entry, we’ll show it off here on Small Aperture and send you a copy of 365 Photography Days, which has some gorgeous inspirational shots in it.

Any questions? Ask away.

Being a competition, we have had to draw up The Rules. Sorry. I know it’s not that exciting, but it’s got to be done.

  • If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
  • You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
  • One entry per person – so choose your best!
  • Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
  • There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
  • You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
  • It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
  • Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
  • We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
  • You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
  • Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
  • We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.