RantMachine

@RantMachine might have a few things to say I certainly could comment. But I think the forum automatically replaces a lot of the words I'd use.

Nice of you to include that option for Glorian and Xtreme at the bottom!

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Gotta love how working from home made Hoggs post less frequently

I'd be far more inclined to believe the "parts made in China, assembled in Europe" marketing nonsense from these companies if they were actually designing the bikes themselves then just outsourcing manufacturing of the components to China, as opposed to the reality of it where they're buying Chinese bike parts, as designed by a Chinese manufacturer, to assemble a Chinese designed bike, using Austrian bolts and labor "Hard to break into the market as a new guy" really doesn't count for much if literally all you're doing is buying the bits of someone else's bike and adding your own bolts into the mix.

Ah hell, this prompted me to check how much my flights at Christmas are going to be and it is not looking pretty. Definitely would recommend travel insurance whenever booking transatlantic stuff! Years ago Lou and I nearly lost $4000 on our trip to Disneyworld after her crash meant we couldn't fly, thankfully our insurance bailed us out

I am very sad to announce that it looks like I have misplaced "RantMachine's map of the UK", which is a real shame as it would've been incredibly relevant right now. I believe Cornwall was labelled with "Racist Hobbits and Retired Pirates"? But it's been a while since I last looked at it. But I did find this gem in my TMBF Sh*tposting folder...

Head over to this forum and extol the virtues of buying Japanese? http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/forum.php

I can't believe how many people have them pulled down to below their nose! Guess it doesn't matter when you're a f**king mouth breather

7 people need to sort their act out!

And if it's Chinese, it's not the miles or the maintenance - it's the years, because as soon as it's old enough to need an MOT, chances are it's not going to pass

Or CMPO https://www.chinesemotorcyclepartsonline.co.uk/ CMPO is run by the same company that imports Lexmoto. If they don't have it, I don't know who would.

That's always the first thing on the list to check Also everything external being tight is good On a serious note how old is the bike? Well, it's a Lexmoto so it can't be more than three years old or it wouldn't be on the road any longer

Peterborough: oh for a nuclear bomb (or a really big bulldozer) Peterborough – you shouldn’t be that close to your cousin I love this website

Packing yet more junk into boxes! Had been hoping to be building furniture this weekend but the useless gits delayed delivery again

Really lanky skid plate?

The incredibly brief return of paulggriffiths?

Race to Dakar is a good laugh! Charley Boorman sure does get the piss taken a lot for just being Ewan's not so famous mate, but honestly when he had a show to himself he did pretty well.

I once saw someone on here describe the Busa as looking like a condom full of walnuts, and honestly that's the best description of them I'm ever seen. On the topic of hideous bikes, I've wanted a '95 KLR for a long time. But it has to be in these colors:

I'd buy number 5 in a heartbeat if I had the money

Congratulations on the promotion to Grumpy Older Git

I vividly remember this one time where I was doing the dishes while looking over my shoulder to talk to [mention]BikerMooFromMars[/mention] who was in the next room, and succeeded in drawing a very large kitchen knife across one of my fingers. The blade just went straight through until it hit something hard, which was fun. SO much blood and in my initial panic the most reaction I could achieve was shouting loudly "LOU! LOU! BAD THING! BAD THING!" Didn't bother going to the doctor, just improvised a splint with a lollipop stick and some plasters and kept it one for a few weeks until it had closed up. Healed pretty well, aside from the permanent indent in that finger!

But don't take it to a shop where you have to sign anything saying they aren't liable if they screw up. I've heard some impressively awful horror stories about certain stores using customer's cameras to train their staff on sensor cleaning, with predictable results.

It’s not easy. 34ABA8BE-DE9F-4321-ACCA-E6A3CFA11A5A.jpeg This was at f9 1/40 sec manual taken with a Canon 7D using a canon 70 - 300 lens at 300mm. That was a good lens wish I had not sold it. I find a full moon hard due to the amount of reflected light. This is what I got from my balcony earlier, using a 300mm on a 2x teleconvertor so what's that... 900mm equivalent? Handheld it because I couldn't be arsed to set up my tripod and so it's more than a little noisy; had to crank the ISO to get a good enough shutter speed to make that focal length workable.

Ok [mention]Troy[/mention], done talking with them so here are a few answers: 1) Software wise I'm (probably unsurprisingly) biased towards Photoshop because I've been using it for so long. But, at my previous company we had 90% of the retouching team working in Photoshop Elements and at the current one I'd say 95% of the work is done in Lightroom, and so both of those are really nice as no-fuss alternatives. The learning curve on Photoshop is pretty terrifying these days, I'm glad to have grown up with it - learning it all from scratch at this point is no small task. In contrast, you can do a whole lot with Lightroom or Elements and they're much more learner friendly. Hardware wise, you can go nuts on setting up a computer for post production but honestly any computer should do the job reasonably well (especially if you avoid the resource hungry monster that is Photoshop) so long as you don't mind giving it a second or two to do the bigger tasks. But obviously, if you did want to upgrade a machine to be better at it, I can share one heck of a lot of advice. As a general rule, RAM RAM RAM. The more the better. A decent processor helps, too. People will always suggest high end graphics processors - largely a waste of money in my books. Good cooling doesn't hurt, but only if you're really pushing the machine. My team are constantly thermally throttling their processors, it's a right headache. 2) On the camera front, I would never encourage anyone to drop money on something bigger or fancier until they've well and truly hit the limits of what their current gear can offer. Back when I was running a Nikon professional dealership I used to outright encourage people new to the hobby to split their budget between the camera and lens and buy a setup remarkably similar to what you've got, and to hold off until they really know what they want to be doing before investing in fancier or more specialized gear. All I can really say is, don't hesitate to use some of the higher ISOs. A lot of people upgrade too soon just because their entry level camera doesn't handle high ISOs that well, but honestly unless you're selling your images or hanging them in a gallery, a bit of noise isn't the end of the world. Don't be afraid to turn the ISO up so you can be a little more flexible in experimenting with your aperture and shutter speed to get the desired results. Only once you're regularly maxing out your ISO, shutter speed, or minimum aperture would I seriously recommend buying newer or fancier kit. If you're using your minimum aperture all the time but not getting enough light in or not getting shallow enough depth of field? Maybe a higher end lens is needed. Lenses just don't give the look that you need, and want to be able to focus closer in, or get more in the frame without stepping back, or get closer to the subject without stepping forward? Maybe a more flexible lens is needed, not necessarily one of higher optical quality (after all, the two don't tend to go hand in hand). Maxing out ISO or shutter speed all the time? Could mean a brighter lens is needed, or it could mean a new camera body. Depends on how flexible you can be on your apertures and whether any other features of the prospective upgrade appeal. Again, I can give advice on what to invest in once you're at the place where it feels like you've exhausted everything your current gear can deliver! Helping people pick the right gear was my job for about 5 years and in every job since I've spent a lot of time building company policy around what equipment our teams can/should use. 3) Honestly that really depends on what you feel passionate about photographing. Photographers are always specialized to some degree or another, even though most of them will dabble in a bit of anything if it means a paycheck. I've known guys who owned tens of thousands of pounds worth of wildlife shooting gear but then used a two hundred quid lens for occasional portrait work! It's a noble endeavor to want to practice all of it, but honestly I would always encourage people new to the field to try doing a little bit of everything (and not hold themselves to a particularly high standard) until you find what you actually enjoy capturing more than anything else, and then work on getting good at it. My personal recommendation has always been to try to score a copy of Hedgecoe's New Manual of Photography, read the whole thing, and try recreating some of the tricks he demonstrates in the book. I believe it's out of print now, which is a real tragedy. If you can't find a copy, there's a PDF of the predecessor here: https://photoart.zone/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-Book-of-Photography-by-John-Hedgecoe.pdf Some of the info about digital shooting is a little dated, but the photographic theory is top notch. I've always been impressed by Hedgecoe's ability to convey the more complex stuff in such a straightforward manner. One of his earliest books (focused entirely on 35mm film photography) was the mandatory reading for my University course and I still re-read it pretty regularly. In general, the practice of trying to recreate a shot that someone else has taken is a great way of learning - just like you were doing with that stock photo. And I'm happy to help with picking apart images and working out how they were taken, as far as I'm able to. It's a refreshing change from all the other work I've got going right now