I have been back from my trip now for a week and a half. Not sure why I didn’t post that sooner. I have started to post some of the pictures to flickr.
We went through the South Dakota Badlands, the Black Hills and Rushmore, and then stayed in Montana here:
I found a new favorite subject to take pictures of too. Goats:
More from all stages of the trip in the Summer Vacation 2008 set.
I must say, I am happy with B and H. When I called to talk about the lens, they said, send it back. They didn’t try to talk me out of it. If you have a credit card (with room) they can charge you a second time for your purchase, ship it out how you got it the first time (2 day) and then refund you when they get the old one back, so that’s what I did.
The new lens seems fine. I don’t have the same problems as before, and it seems just as sharp. I need to try to take some tests vs the Nikkor kit lens to see if I can tell a diference.
Edit: Not so good. It has the same problems. It seems that changing the focal length will sometimes cause it to malfunction. Just shooting on the same focal length seems fine. I don’t get it.
The Tamron 17-50 has an issue. It sometimes doesn’t think that it is attached. I will be shooting pictures, when it will just stop auto focusing. Sometimes if I turn it off and then on, it will say the lens is not attached. That just doesn’t seem good. It was really sharp though. I was tempted not to send it back it seemed so sharp. I have a new one coming, and hopefully it will be just as sharp.
Yesterday I ordered a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD from B&H. I went to National Camera first to look at it, and I liked it. I also tried a Nikkor pro lens, and it is obvious that he build quality is higher, and it did focus faster, but the prices of those things are just not justifiable to me. When I get the Tamron, I will try to compare it with the 18-55 Nikkor kit lens I have. The price difference was over $100 from B&H with shipping (2 days) and National Camera with tax. Almost a quator of the price. I wanted to buy it local, but sheesh…
I was in Montana over July 4th and wanted to try to get some pictures of fireworks. We decided not to go to the main show in town, so I was left trying to get shots of the few things we bought, or what the neighbors were using. I set up the tripod, picked some setting based on a Scott Kelby book, and fired away. Nothing turned out. Didn’t get color really. Just white blurs mostly. Then I realized that I had left the polarizer on. No wonder it was so hard to focus in the dark! Arg. Oh well, next chance is only a year away!
Disappointing. I was hoping to be wrong. I really wanted a D90 to be released on July 1. The D700 is an interesting camera, but a full frame sensor worth a few thousand is not what I am looking for. I am hoping though that the newly released SB-900 flash will put downward price pressure on the SB-800. The new tilt-shift lenses they announced are also interesting, but not what I am looking for.
What is normal? Well, the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the D40 is considered a normal zoom lens. I would really like something faster. This is a common theme with me and lenses at the moment. I am also not convinced that the lens I have is all that sharp, but I have yet to try to take real test shots. Continue reading
I was trying to find out how many times I had pressed the shutter on my D40. I came accross a web site that can dig into ALL the EXIF data from an image. Jeffery’s Exif Viewer. I found that my camera has 13,229 actuations on it. Holy smokes. That’s a lot of pictures in less than a year. (Seems like it to me). Then I thought, wait, I bought this reconditioned. Maybe there were 10,000 on it when I got it. Nope. I dug up the first “role” that I shot on the camera. 216 on what I think was my first picture. Not too bad. I had feared that there would have been more.
I posted about the Cousins Day at the farm last weekend. I finally got to putting the pictures up on annieandchris.net. Most of them turned out fairly good for unposed candids in pretty harsh light.
I don’t know how I would manage it, but I have been reading about using reflectors and diffusers recently. I have been rereading Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography 2. It is all about lighting. A lot about studio lighting, but there are many things to learn/remember that could be useful. I would just have to buy more gear. There is always something.
Today, David du Chemin talked about just those kinds of things. There are the very expensive studio kind, and the just a little expensive, portable, they work pretty well kind, that maybe I could consider.
Now I just have to figure out how to get Kate to walk around and be my assistant.
Update: Here is another blog entry on using the diffusers.
So, I decided to create a “business card” from one of my pictures. I don’t really need a business card in the traditional sense, but it would be good to have something to hand out. I never seem to have a pen when I want to tell someone about my site. I really should put my flickr address on there too. Maybe on the back.
I’ve had some comments about the picture and the font. The font seems inconsistant and leaves some pretty big spaces between some of the letters. I don’t have kerning on elements, which is unfortunate. Not sure if would fix this font. Might need to try another.
I kind of like this picture, but others have said that it makes them think of a florist, or that it is not a striking photo, or some such thing. What do you think?