Fast forward four months – and voila! I eventually dusted that long-forgotten project off and here is the outcome: a short video called “People of Sorrento”.

Apart from the chirpy pensioners playing cards, I’ve also included several of my favourite shots of the omnipresent Italian scooters and (possibly even more importantly), their drivers.

I mentioned both the card players and the scooters in my previous posts, so I won’t elaborate on that now.

If southern Italy is your thing, or perhaps if you are into black and white street photography, or if you simply have a couple of minutes to spare, here is – four months later than planned – my Italian video.

And now I officially declare that trip archived forever.

Vimeo, the video-sharing site that’s not YouTube, revealed a new look today and a whole list of new features and updates.

The first thing you notice is that all videos are now big and looking lovely. It’s like switching from Flickr to 500px, if you know what I mean. I like it.

In a move slightly resembling the recent YouTube relaunch, Vimeo now displays a stream of the latest videos from your contacts and groups on your landing page. It’s called My Feed. Right next to it is a new Activity tab, which will remind you what you’ve done, watched or liked recently – or what your contacts have. But I particularly like the new Discover tab, which I’ll be visiting often to see what others have created. Discovering new – curated or otherwise recommended – videos on the site has always been my favourite activity as as a viewer on Vimeo, so I’m glad this option has been made a bit more prominent.

Prolific uploaders will be pleased to know Vimeo now supports multiple file uploads, which in theory means you should be able to add several files to your upload queue simultaneously. I haven’t tested the feature yet, so the most important question still remains open: has the upload speed improved too? Last time I uploaded something it was painfully slow and I guess my broadband provider was only partly to blame. But the video below seems to suggest the process should be less painful now.

There are also new options for those who prefer to download rather than upload. As you may know, Vimeo creates several versions of the file you upload (including ones optimised for mobile devices), but until today if you wanted to download the video, you could only get the (in many cases gigantic) original file, provided the owner enabled downloads.

Now you can choose from four versions: a mobile file, a SD .MP4 file, an HD .MP4 file or you can download the original file. That should be pretty useful.

Vimeo is still working on the new look, so not all features are perfect, for example, my embed options were not available at the time of writing.

Regardless of all that, it’s still my favourite video sharing site and a brilliant source of inspiration. See here for the full list of new features.

I enjoyed last week. I filmed an amazing photographer in his studio, got a yes from an exceptional man, whose achievements I want to (and now will) film and share with the world.

I also saw one of my images – the one above – displayed in the Transport Museum in London’s Covent Garden as part of their Sense and the City exhibition, created in collaboration with Londonist. It’s a nice feeling, so thanks for the opportunity!

Another image of mine, the one below, also went on display, but this time in Leeds. Chris Osburn curated an exhibition called Mega City Photo and included my ‘Dwarfed’ image too. Now I’ve got an excuse to return to Leeds.

I hardly ever write self-congratulatory posts, but last week simply felt special in many ways. And I wanted to share my joy with you. I’d like to think the rest of the year will be at least as busy – and rewarding – as the past seven days.

It’s a nice feeling.

During my visit to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden last Friday I spent some time photographing the fascinating world of miniature tube stations and tiny commuters.

It all looks rather eerily empty and Alien-like, although if my commute every day was that comfortable, I really wouldn’t mind.

See the whole gallery below (may take a few seconds to load) or on my Google+ profile here.

P.S. Here’s the real reason why I visited the Museum in the first place.

I took this picture recently in an old recording studio in London, now converted into an indoor cycling/fitness facility.

Current owners of the space have rescued one of those ancient audio editing machines – and I love them for it. I used Studers like this when, almost 20 years ago, as a fresh radio reporter I learned the basics of audio recording and reel-to-reel editing.

I still remember the shock I got  when my editor shortened my first 50-someting-second long piece to just under 30 seconds – just by editing out the unnecessary gaps and making everything ‘flow’ and sound more dynamic. It took him just a couple of minutes, maybe even less. The difference was striking. And all that using a Studer like the one above.

(Almost a decade later, during an induction course for new BBC radio journos, I was grateful for that knowledge when I realised tape was *still* preferred over digital – and most people on the course had never used tape before.)

The more time I spend filming using DSLRs with their pathetic sound recording capabilities, the more I realise how important it is nowadays to be able to replace low-quality camera output with better quality, independently recorded audio.

Regardless of whether you use tape or digital, the quality of the actual recording is as, if not more, important as good sound editing skills. But sadly, both often seem to be neglected. And I’m not talking here about casual mobile YouTube uploads, but rather videos created with more advanced gear, sometimes for clients.

I recently watched a clip by an international video production company (no naming and shaming here), with some fun advice on how to shoot a video using a DSLR. Great clip, pathetic sound. No effort was made to rectify this or even mention this as a potential issue. Which kind of rendered the otherwise good video useless.

So what can you do?

1. Invest in good external recorders – from Zoom to Tascam, there’s something for every pocket.

2. Invest in improving your audio editing skills. If you shoot video, you probably know how to edit it too. Basic principles of both are similar. Find an online Lynda course or simply browse YouTube for free advice on levels, noise reduction and audio matching. Or anything else, in fact.

3. Learn how to get audio right from the start – think about the space in which you are recording, about who you are recording and why; avoid background noise like crowds, buzzing air-con units or ringing phones; learn the difference between different types of microphones; and read this excellent duckrabbit blog post which pretty much nails it.

Trust me, with a bit of effort, it will improve your audio immensely. And you don’t need a gigantic Studer machine and a splicing block.

With so many tools and resources to learn from, you frankly have no excuse.

I hardly ever do product reviews and don’t intend to change that now. But if you’re using your DSLR to shoot video, and haven’t invested in a viewfinder, you might find this post useful.

As you no doubt know already, focusing using the 3-inch (or smaller) LCD screen at the back of your camera is a pain. Initially it didn’t bother me, I simply accepted it as one of those features you’d need to put up with. Back then, I used my Canon to take pictures and only occasionally filmed something. But with time I started using the video feature more and more. And experienced more and more disappointments. Why?

What I thought was pin-sharp on the LCD screen turned out to be out of focus when watched on a big computer screen. I was aware of Zacuto and its products, but could never justify the expense. Their fantastic-quality viewfinders are solid, adjustable and attach to your camera using a sturdy metal plate. But for casual use, £300+ is a bit steep.

With time, however, the need to have one of these became apparent. Not only do they allow you to focus and see the magnified LCD screen clearly (the magnification is usually between 2x and 3x), but also provide extra support for the camera. So I started looking at other options.

I first played with the Zacuto to set my expectations and learn what I really need from the viewfinder. Luckily, I don’t wear glasses, so diopter correction wasn’t a critical factor. Neither was the metal plate. (However, initially I saw this as the only option, as I didn’t want to glue anything to my screen. Soon, I got over that, more on that later).

I knew I wanted something sturdy and, above everything else, clear, sharp and without any distortions.

There are several options available for Canon DSLR users (like the 5D/7D or the 550D) – and they cover a wide spectrum of prices: from around £25-£30 per piece to £450 (yes, some viewfinders I looked at were even more expensive than Zacuto products).

I quickly identified the LCDVF as one of the best entry-level viewfinders, at a third of the price of its Zacuto cousin. You can buy it for around £85-100 online or in some bigger camera shops in the UK.

It’s simple, but provides a 2x magnification and a clear, distortion-free picture. You wouldn’t believe how many other viewfinders with cheaper glass suffer from barrel distortion issues. I’ve tried a couple and the experience is really bad: not only are the edges of the image soft and blurred, but also focusing – or checking the focus – outside the centre of the image seems problematic.

As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit sceptical about gluing anything directly to my LCD screen. And in order to use the LCDVF you first need to attach a small metal frame to your screen. The frame comes with an adhesive strip that sticks firmly to the screen and becomes a more or less permanent fixture on your camera. (Yes, you can remove it, although I haven’t tried yet.)

The frame is needed to hold the viewfinder in place. The latter click into place using 4 small magnets, which means that – provided you glued your frame on correctly – mounting and demounting will always be easy and the viewfinder will remain properly aligned with the screen. And allegedly the magnets are strong enough to hold it in place, but not strong enough to mess with the camera itself. Let’s hope so.

So far, it’s been great and I’m glad I bought it.

If your budget doesn’t allow you to splash out on any expensive viewfinders, you can’t go wrong with this one. If you want a more in-depth review of the LCDVF, Nino Leitner and Philip Bloom have written extensively about it. For full specs and compatibility see the LCDVF website.

You may have noticed that this site has changed a bit recently. I’ve decided to make my images more prominent, something I should have done long time ago. The blog stays as it was, I’ve just added new galleries using the Photocrati template. The previous galleries were frankly a bit pathetic.

The new template is more flexible, so it’ll be easier to modify both the home page (which until recently redirected to this blog) and grow my galleries, which were quite difficult to navigate.

So what’s new? Apart from the new template and homepage, I’ve added a more flexible Photography page, which contains links to my ‘category’ albums, like Street Photography, Urban Photography, People, Travel and Studio. The last one was absent from the old gallery, but I’m enjoying studio photography more and more, so this album will grow over the next few months.

At last, there is also space for topical, or one-off, galleries, like the current Sorrento Men one.

A separate video page for my video projects is coming soon. Videos from others will still regularly appear on this blog too.

Other changes include an improved navigation, which now has links to my Google+ profile, my 500px portfolio, my Tumblr and Flickr pages. If I haven’t added you to my contacts there – and you think I should – give me a shout.

A few bits and pieces are still work in progress on this site, but if you find the font difficult to read, images slow to load or if something else annoys you, doesn’t work etc., do let me know in the comments below.

New features include:

- full-screen photos
- improved layout
- better tagging
- new look and feel

If you’re not on Google+, you’re probably laughing now, after all “nobody uses Google+”. Allegedly.

But if you are a G+ user – and you share a lot of images – you’ll probably think twice before renewing that Flickr Pro account…

More on the recent Google+ changes here.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the New York Times had chosen a picture I took at the beginning of November during a weekend away in Petersfield, Hampshire to promote their “A world at 7 billion” project on their Facebook page. The paper wanted to create a time capsule for those who were born around the time when we broke the 7 billion people barrier and looked for submissions from all over the world. That picture, even though not my typical urban shot, was the only relatively decent – and vaguely relevant – one I took around that time.

I’m pleased to see it made the final selection and – along with many others – will now be preserved in a time capsule for those who were born at the end of 2011.

And when they grow up, what will they see when they look back at the recession-ravaged English corner of the world at odds with the rest of the European Union? This:

And if you live in or around Petersfield, pick up a copy of the Petersfield Herald today. They were very excited to discover their town had made it onto the pages of the New York Times…

And while it’s not cheap, it’s likely to remain the king (queen?) of full-frame HDSLRs for a while.

Unless you’ve participated in the 17-month simulated Mars mission, you probably already know that Canon has recently announced its latest baby. The Canon C300 offers film-makers an unbelievably advanced tool – at an ubvelievable price too.

As the camera has not yet been officially released, there have only been a handful of videos showing the camera’s output. The latest video, however, is slightly different from the more cinematic samples we’ve seen so far. As its author, Jonathan Yi, admits, “Canon, not thrilled with my sense of humor, does not credit or condone this video, but I think it shows a lot of the camera’s strengths.” It certainly does.

If you are a serious filmmaker – and have £14,000 to spend – here’s what the money buys you:

For more technical specs see here. Also, the British Journal of Photography has published an interview with Peter Yabsley, responsible for business development at Canon Europe, on how this camera was created.