Over the past few months, I’ve spent a not too small an amount of money on parking and entrance fees to various National Trust properties.  Seeing as though I plan to visit many more, it makes sense to take advantage of the benefits offered to NT members such as:

Free entry and parking at over 300 historic sites
Free parking at countryside and coastline locations
A members guide book to all NT sites
Newsletters about special events
3 editions of the NT magazine
Free access to National Trust for Scotland sites as well as others around the world.

If you’re not yet a member of the National …more

Lens hoods serve a very useful function in that they shade lenses from unwanted light that can cause flaring and a drop in contrast. They’re usually made from high-impact plastic which as well as being light also provides some level of protection for the front element of your lens.

Lens hoods can be awkward to carry around, if they’re not in active use. Some allow you store them still attached to your lenses, but reversed. Whilst it saves some space, it can mean you have to remove the hood before you can get full access to the lens …more

Flickr makes it very easy to save on bandwidth when it comes to displaying your photos on other websites. Not only do Flickr provide a robust hosting platform allowing your images to be served quickly and reliably to users all over the world, but there’s no charge for doing so even if it’s viewed a massive number of times.

In return for allowing people to do this, Flickr state, very clearly, that any images hosted by Flickr (regardless of whether it’s your image or not – that’s not relevant) and posted elsewhere should be linked back to the Flickr photo …more