Optic

Now I wish I did this more before arriving in Lithuania! All the signs were in Lithuanian and Russian, my hotel was in a suburban area and I spent a fair bit of money on buying Trolleybus tickets directly from the driver until I finally purchased an unlimited 10 day electronic ticket... Very good idea to research especially if English is not well spoken in your destination country! I've been travelling completely alone throughout this Europe trip and at times you can feel lonely, especially during meal times. At the same time though you can really go at your own pace. You make a great point about making memories with a travel partner, easier and more fun to take photos. Exactly the reason I chose for this Europe trip. To meet my best friend who decided to move to London, meet NightDancer and meet a penpal.

Here is something for you to think about in your spare time! I'm looking for slogan ideas for the AN Forums banner. It will be our catchy jingle! If you can think of anything, post it here. I'll be thinking too.

Another game series I missed playing from the start. From what I've seen the series is stealth oriented, is the gameplay anything remotely like Metal Gear Solid? :dodgy:

Another catchy tune that will be in my head for the coming week... :cool:

Can you send me the calendar (with any confidential events edited out if necessary) so I can get an idea of the format and tinker with it?

Hey NightDancer Is this a one time migration? I.e. you want to merge your Excel calendar into your Outlook calendar and you won't be using the Excel one again?

Welcome aboard CY! Good to have you here.

Hey all! I thought I would bring up the first discussion topic as Ciara won't be travelling until a few months. However she will be writing up some topics on food which I hope to see very soon! So the discussion topic is: do you prefer to travel in a tour group with others on a pre-planned itinerary or travel alone with your own itinerary? After travelling alone in Europe throughout September and having been on several family holidays on pre-booked tours I prefer to travel outside tour groups. The main reason is so I can go at my own pace. The best example I can think of is in London, I spent half the day at the Imperial War Museum in Greenwich because I found the exhibits there absolutely amazing and in-depth covering just about every war period! If I was on a tour I would probably only have been given maybe an hour at the most to browse the museum. Other reasons I prefer to travel alone is trying to get to places by walking or taking public transport is an amazing feeling when compared to the safety of a tour bus. And if you get lost usually the locals are willing to help. Also a great opportunity to speak the native language with a few phrases. Advantages of tours I can think of over travelling alone is cost and a more relaxing feeling. You can plan less and just sit back and relax letting the tour group take care of travel and your meals. What are your thoughts?

Hello NightDancer, thanks for joining and welcome aboard!

Hey Moster82, thanks for coming aboard!

This applies to Windows users only. Mac OS X and Linux users do not need security software unless you share files often from a Windows install. Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft's official package which includes both antivirus and malware removal. I would recommend this one if you want to keep things simple. Malwarebytes Excellent malware and rootkit removal package. AVG Free Antivirus and spyware removal combined. Still a decent solution. Comodo Internet Security Combined antivirus and firewall package. I'm using this one at the moment, very powerful but can be daunting to configure. If you know of any others which you recommend, post them below! Any questions feel free to ask.

Hey everyone! I've been using video cameras for many years now so here are some tips which I want to share with you! Many of these I learned the hard way, so I hope by sharing these you can try and avoid the same mistakes I made. 1. Battery Batteries that come with the video camera usually don't last long at all. The one that came with my Canon HFS21 only lasts an hour, definitely not good enough for a whole day of filming! I strongly suggest you buy a bigger battery, the one I bought lasts 4-5 hours. Genuine batteries from your camera manufacturer will cost a lot but are guaranteed to work. If you have time feel free to investigate generic brand batteries, just make sure you match your video camera model exactly with the product. Nothing is worse than running out of battery in the middle of the day! 2. Conserve your battery The LCD screen will drain the most battery so try not to use it all the time. Turn off the camera when not filming for awhile. If you're moving between short places shut the screen then open it agains when you're ready. 3. Try to avoid low light Unfortunately video cameras still don't work well in low light. Even Hollywood movies require special lighting for night scenes! Think back in a movie of a inside car conversation at night, it's lit up just enough whilst maintaining that night feel! Of course when travelling you're not going to be carrying that sort of equipment! So if you are filming a person at night try and make them lit up from a nearby light source such as a streetlight. Some cameras have a video light built in, just be aware these drain the battery more and only work at a short distance. You won't have any lighting control when filming large landmarks at night such as London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. But usually it's not a problem as they are usually well lit with beautiful night lights that add to their beauty. 4. Steady your shots Filming whilst walking rarely works well unless your video camera has really good image stabilization. Otherwise when you watch it later on a big screen you'll quickly feel nauseous! If you're using your new video camera for the first time I suggest you start with still shots, stand still and just film! Get a feel for the camera! It's better to have many well composed still shots and string them together as compared to one big LONG clip that tries to capture everything in one go. 5. Increase your shot variety I like to film a number of shots at each location, an establishing shot (outside a church for example), cutaway shots (nearby traffic, birds, animals) and of course the main shots inside your location. Try a low or high angle! Having different shots to choose from makes editing your final video much easier and more fun! It also adds a more cinematic feel! 6. Use commentary at your discretion Whilst it is tempting to narrate whilst filming, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to edit out later if you decide later you want the shot to have ambient audio only. What I mean by narrating is saying things like "And this is London Eye, what a beauty! And over here you can see the queue is veryyyy long!" Consider doing your narration or reflection in a separate shot! Or keep quiet when filming. It's your call really, just something to be aware of as it's easy to get carried away when you're on holiday AND filming. 7. Backup your recordings! You should definitely backup your recordings throughout your trip in case your camera gets stolen or goes for a swim. :dodgy: I personally make a backup to my laptop which I bring along on my trips. If its a really memorable recording then making another backup on an External HDD would be a good idea too. That way if you lose your video camera you will still have those memories recorded. The recordings are usually more valuable than the camera itself as they're not replaceable once gone unless you back up! 8. Enjoy yourself Finally, don't be a slave to the video camera. You need to enjoy the moment too. If you're traveling with someone, take turns filming things and each other. Keep it fun! You don't have to film everything! Just the highlights! When I get home I'll post some examples illustrating these. Questions and discussion of your own tips welcome!

Hello Livan and welcome! Yes forums have much more freedom, working on another theme and new banners so stay tuned.

Welcome RagnaRulZ! Yes forum formatting is AWESOME. Hope to see your avatar/sig setup soon

My name is Victor and yes, this is the new forum. So we went from ProBoards -> InvisionBoard -> SMF and now we're on MyBB. I think this is the one! So just wanted to say hello!