I was at work early last week before the time change from daylight savings, and there was a beautiful sunrise going on. I didn’t do it justice. I wish I had a tripod with me so that I could have made a panorama. As it was, I was on the 6th floor of my building, holding the camera in one hand against the glass, and a manila folder in the other trying to get rid of glare.
I have a picture of mine included in an online map/tourist guide to the twincities called schmap. I didn’t get anything for it, other than my picture on their site gets linked back to flickr. The site is free for people to use, so I figured I would. The picture is for Fort Snelling State Park. It is this picture of two deer.
These were taken before I went to Cleveland, but I didn’t get around to dealing with them until I was there and had some time. The first I took on the hood of my car, the second is from along the Mississippi river along Sheppard road that I took on my way home from work. The third is from a walk we took as a family. It was the walk where everything went wrong. The kids were screaming, and I lost Annie’s cell phone, but some of the pictures turned out.
I was getting frustrated for a little while. I couldn’t figure out how to change the auto focus area mode. Every time I would go to take a picture, the D90 would pick one (or more) of the focus points and focus for me. With 11 focus points, it was doing a pretty good job, but I knew it had to have the ability to let you pick the point you wanted.
The other day, I found it. It is in Custom Setting Menu, a1. Great, but that is way to buried. I wanted this camera so that I didn’t have to dive into menus to do the things I change often. After reading the manual front to back, (That sucker is pretty long!) I now have two ways to change it easily. The first is that you can assign the Fn button on the front of the camera to this setting. That way I just press the button, and turn the command dial. Nice. But, the function button is a little hard to press, and sometimes I am looking at the LCD at the back.
Next up, I was just playing with this: My Menu. This is great, and even better than the D40’s. You can pick any item you want, put them in any order you want, and they all show up at the same level without any submenus. Right now I have
There is room for 2 more on the screen without scrolling. I will see what I am actually using soon, so this list may change.
I have an album of Kate and her team mates playing soccer up on annieandchris.net. I was hoping to make some “baseball cards” of the kids playing soccer, but I haven’t quite got around to it yet, and the season is over. Oh, well. I might do one of Kate anyway to see what I can do with it.
Kate Dribbling at Soccer
Kate Kicking a Soccer Ball.
I got out to take some fall color pictures. I don’t have much time right now which is unfortunate, as the colors are in full swing. Would have been nice to head up to the North Shore. Oh well, maybe next year. For now, here are some closer to home (work) shots.
Ever think that something looks cool, but not get it, and pass on being the early adopter? Then suddenly everyone is reviewing the item and it is at the top of everyones Christmas list? Now you start to think, well, I’m not going to get it just because everyone else has it… Ok, were not in grade school, but I sort of felt that way when I say a review of the Black Rapid camera strap on Photoshop Insider. I had seen an ad on David duChemin’s site for awhile, looked at their site, and thought it was pretty cool looking. Back in July David did a review of the strap. I was hooked, but held off due to price. I dislike my default Nikon neck strap. I usually wear it just on my shoulder, but it can’t reach my eye easily, and it keeps slipping, especially with a jacket. I got a “better” strap from a local camera store, but it just seems too bulky, and still slips off. That was a waste of money. In September, David mentions that the buzz about this strap is growing. Now in October, a reader posts a review on Scott Kelby’s site. I gotta think that this would spike sales over there. I would love to say that I now have one and that I can’t live without it, but my pennies are all spent from the D90 purchase, so the little black strap with yellow lettering will have to due for now.
I got a call from National Camera yesterday. I had been on a list for a body only D90. They had got in a shipment and given me a call. I left almost immediately. I grabbed the cash I had been squirreling away and headed to the bank for the rest. I now have a shiny new D90 in my hands.
I spent last night pressing buttons and looking through menus. It is definitely a new experience to be able to set most things from buttons on the top and back with out going through menus. The addition of the LCD on top (over the D40) takes some getting used to, but something I think I will grow to really like.
I put my 50mm f/1.8 on and took some low light auto focusing 1600¬† ISO indoor photo’s. Sweet. I love that the 50 will auto focus on this camera, and the higher ISO performance over the D40 looks to be great. I will have to do a more formal review of some of these things later.
I almost forgot about the night shots I took at Lake Nakomis. This was last week. I went to catch some sunset pictures Friday night when the family was out of town. The best shots turned out to be taken just after the sun went down, into twilight.
I had my first photo shoot on the weekend. I was taking senior photos of Gavin, a son of a friend. We went down to Minnehaha falls. It went really well. We found some good locations (I scouted the day before) that provided reasonable backgrounds. Gavin was pretty good to work with, and we got some good poses.
I was not entirely happy with the sharpness of the photos. I shot with a tripod, but they are not tack sharp. I had some prints made to check them out, and the prints are pretty good, but on screen, they look like they could be better. I need play with my lens/camera a bit to see if the focus is off, or if there is something else I need to do. Usually I hand hold my shots (except sunsets/night) and they come out fairly sharp, so I was a little disappointed, but the pictures are still quite usable.
