I love my new Nikon camera. It takes great photos, is easy to use, has brilliant settings and feels great in my hands. It’s a great bit of kit.
I like my iPhone camera. It’s small, pretty much always on my person and, surprisingly, takes pretty good low light photos.
The problem is that my iPhone camera is getting on a bit and has flaws in every picture it takes. Normally these can’t be seen because there’s plenty of detail in those areas. However, when there is a steady area the flaws show up a lot. Just see this photo of Whitby and spot the problem areas.
Whitby
I’m not sure if these can be cleaned away or if they are internal. I also can’t be bothered to find out.
Many thanks to Penguin for this rather excellent Lego present that now gets placed in my cupboard of my things along with my Landspeeder [which was also a gift from Penguin] and DeLorean.
This model was constructed in the pleasant surrounds of the Beefeater in Godstone. It was a sunny day.
I probably do it all wrong. I’ve no idea what other people do. It’s not what should be done in real life.
I recently started a line of communications looking at my progress through GT6. There’s a definite pattern to my play. I have made the following conclusions:
Try to get a steady lap time recorded to ensure I have an idea of:
Control under braking
Control under power
How much under/oversteer
Corner speed
Gearing
Try to increase speed at the first few corners, normally coming off a lot.
Try to increase start speed.
Try to maximise corner speed on all corners, normally with one or two bogie corners.
Crash a lot.
This approach isn’t what should happen in the real world. No-one could afford to pay me to drive and crash as much as I do. If I was driving in real life I would need to have an innate understanding of where the limit of traction and how to improve speed around a track. I would also, I hope, have better reactions to control the car. To get such a deep understanding I would need to have been driving and undertaking purposeful practice for a long time. It’s no surprise that the world’s best racers in any of the top formats started racing and driving when they were young and so effectively know no different.
To learn to race a car as fast as possible would require a certain number of crashes and offs, but not as many as afforded me in the console game. There’s no danger to life in the game, I just press restart.
There are some of you who might be thinking that I need to change my approach and that you want to tell me I don’t do it the right way. To you I say, “maybe” and “I know”. It’s something to work on in the future.
If you sign into GT6 on or after your birthday you get a present. The car you receive is from the year you were born. I will remain grateful for the present but surely there were other cars released in 1972!
The last of the Super Licence tests and it’s to Ronda in Spain and the Ascari race circuit in a Bugatti Veyron. A big heavy car with loads of power.
Times required:
Gold 2:14
Silver 2:16
Bronze 2:20
Here’s the car at the start line [I’ve been playing with the photographic settings within GT6].
Veyron at Ascari
A map of the track:
Ascari Track Map
The start line is inbetween KZ1 and Rafael.
Progress was as follows:
Lap 1 – 2:30:848
Lap 2 – off 1/4 of the way around (Copse).
Lap 3 – Off at Rafael.
Lap 4 – Off 2/3 way (Sebring).
Lap 5 – Off KZ1, too fast on exit.
Lap 6 – 2:18:833 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 2:16:873.
Rafael, Veyron, Ascari
Lap 8 – Off at Copse.
Lap 9 – Off at Senna S.
lap 10 – Off at Copse.
Lap 11 – Off at The Screw.
Lap 12 – Off at Oulton.
Lap 13 – Off at Sebring.
Lap 14 – Off at Brundle.
Lap 15 – Off at Senna S.
Lap 16 – Off at The Screw.
There now followed 6 laps where I didn’t record my progress. I was getting frustrated and just wanted to keep trying rather than write down everything.
Veyron, Ascari, a bit of drift, The Kink
Lap 23 – 2:14:526 Silver.
Again, there is a recording intermission of 6 laps of frustration.
Lap 30 – 2:13:583 GOLD.
I have all GOLD for all my Super Licence tests. Good job.
Veyron, Ascari, just because, Sebring
I did get some reward cars, but didn’t note them down. The next time I turn the PS3 on I’ll have a look and try to remember to write them down here, because you care about that sort of thing.
All the pictures on this page came from my fastest lap. I do like how I got airborne at Rafael (the first corner). After watching the replay I can see plenty of apexes I missed and areas to improve my time if I so wished, but I probably don’t.
