Spent Sunday at the the Renaissance Festival. I had never been before, and was quite impressed by the size and scope of the event. There were more poeple than I expected. I figured they would all be at the State Fair. I was trying to take pictures, and I will have a few to post later I am sure. It was a little difficult to take pictures with one hand while holding Lily with the other. I didn’t get that much of a chance to take them. There were tons of people in costume, so people pictures abounded. She really could have used a nap before we went.
Category Archives: Photography
Photowalk Saturday was Fabulous
We all had a great time Saturday night at the Minneapolis photowalk. Joel did a great job of leading the event. We were the last two stragglers making their way to their cars after the restaurant. I had dragged a tripod with me, and Joel was giving me some tips on some Minneapolis night time skyline shots we saw. I met some great people, and look forward to seeing their pictures. I am still going through mine. Last night Aperture decided half way through my sorting that it wouldn’t recognize the file format of half my pictures, so I just shut down. I’ll try again tonight.
It sounds like the other walks went great also. Scott seems to be indicating that this could be an annual event. I wonder if he will be updating his lightroom book yearly? 😉
Photo Walk Tomorrow
I am psyched. The first Worldwide Photowalk is tomorrow. Scott Kelby started this as a way to promote his new lightroom 2 book, but the idea of the photowalk has really taken off. There are over 7000 people in cities all over the world. Thank goodness they won’t all be in Minneapolis. Although, it would be fun I think to have all of these people here instead of the Republican National Convention next week. The walk here in Minneapolis will be around lake Calhoun. I am really looking forward to it. After the event, look to this flickr group for the photos.
National Camera Tent Sale
National Camera had their yearly tent sale last weekend. That makes it exactly one year that I have had my D40. Wow. It seems like I have been taking pictures for longer than that. I guess I have, just not with a DSLR. It has served me well (enough), and now I await the next upgrade. This next year should be interesting. I have come a long way in a year. Will interest wane, will I improve, will I wish for a full frame camera? Who knows.
To mark the occasion, I bought a 67mm circular polarizer for the Tamron lens, and a set of close up filters. I haven’t got any pictures out of the camera yet with these, so I will write up more about them later. I am not expecting great things out of the close up lenses, but I thought I would give them a try as they were half off.
Lens, or behind the lens
I have seen a few posts lately about what makes the picture, the camera, or the person taking the picture. It seems a little silly to me. It’s the camera! You point, push a button, and out pops a picture. Oh, you mean a good picture. Well, that seems a little elitist. Lots of people take pretty good pictures, and some get really lucky and take a great picture, by just holding a camera in front of them, and pressing the shutter. David duChemin says that taking pictures is hard. And that we (armatures) expect great pictures by buying expensive gear, and don’t want or expect to put in lots of effort. Matt Brandon talks of his days in a store where some people would buy more expensive cameras than he could afford, when “he” was the real photographer.
Tamron lens update
I finally got lens number three of the 17-50 f/2.8 lens from B&H. Before I put the lens on I cleaned the contacts very carefully with rubbing alcohol, and made sure it was dry before putting the lens back on. It seemed to work well, except once. I got the no lens attached thing again. This time no amount of turning off/on would work. I had to unseat the lens and reattach. It just happened once. I am going to hope that it is just a D40 issue, or just this D40 and keep it. It is really nice to have a faster lens. I found that I had to swap in my 55-200 often though at the Lantern Lighting event. I didn’t always need the upper end, but 50 was just too short most of the time for an event like this. The 55-200 works fine in the middle of the day. I like it a lot, it is just too slow as evening come on. Oh well. Can’t get everything with one lens.
Japanese Lantern Lighting
Went to the Japanese Lanturn Lighting at Como park yesterday. I thought I was going to meet several other people from the Twin Cities flickr group there, but I couldn’t find them. I went around asking everyone else I saw with a big lens or a tripod, but no luck. There are a lot of photographers in this city! It was pretty good. I was told no tripods, so I am not sure if any of my evening shots will turn out.
Edit: here is a picture from the event.
See flickr set for more.
The Rocket Blower
My summer vacation had just started when I noticed that I had dust on my sensor. Not something I wanted to deal with in South Dakota. So, I have had to photoshop out the dust spots on pictures that had small apertures, or didn’t happen to have darker areas right where the dust was.
When I got back I went and picked up a $10 rocket blower from National Camera. (amazon link) I thought I would give it a try. Cheaper than getting it cleaned, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try the kits where you try to wipe the sensor (actually the filter in front of the sensor).
It turned out to work for me. Others claim it just blows the dust around and you get spots on other places in you pictures. For me, it just worked.
New gear I could maybe afford
David du Chemin has a post up about the hyperdrive he bought. Sounds like something you add to your car to get you 400 miles in 4 minutes (I wish) but it is a on site backup device. I have wanted one of these, not that I would really use it that much, but they still come in handy. Would have been great on my summer vacation. Epson makes the P-5000 that will store 80 gigs for OVER $600. Yikes. I am buying a lens before that. Amazon lists the 40 gig model for $279 and the 100 gig for $319. Much more reasonable. Not as big a screen, but getting approachable in price.
The new gear I can’t afford
Scott Kelby put up his review of the new Nikon D700. He calls it more of a field guide, as it is less technical than say dpreview, but more, this is what I like/don’t like. This camera at $3000 body only is way off the charts on my radar. The other thing that has people excited about the camera, but makes it an absolute no (as if it wasn’t already) is that it is a full frame camera. The Nikon D3 (also a full frame) goes for $5000. The cheapo lenses that I try to buy are made for the DX crop sensor, and don’t really work with the full frame cameras. They work, but the 12 Mpixel camera becomes a 5 Mpixel one. You would need to shell out for the “real” Nikon lenses in the $1500+ category. This just gets me more excited about the (hopefully soon) upcoming D90. Come on new camera!