Right now, I am driving to Cleveland. Ah, the joys of delayed automatic publishing. My father came down from Winnipeg, and we are making the 13+ hour trip from Minneapolis to Cleveland. Yeesh. Used to be I would be chearing “Road Trip!!!” I guess I am getting old.
My sister is there, and just bought a new house last month. Were off to see what we can do to help and get in a visit. I will of course have my camera with me, so hopefully I will get in a couple of photo’s as well.
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.
Ok, this post has nothing to do with photography or computers, but I just finished the Twin Cities Marathon in 3:58 to meet my goal time of 4:00. Yea me. Here is my results page. If I was 60, I would have qualified for Boston.
I really would like a phone/device with a data plan that allows web browsing and running of applications. The recent lifting of the iPhone NDA is really got me wanting an iPhone. If only the data plans didn’t cost another $30 on top of a voice plan… I really like the idea of apps that you can download, and like the idea even more of writing something myself. What you ask? Good question, but it would be fun to try.
Some part of me was holding off (other than price) waiting for the Google Android to see the light of day. The T-Mobile phone (whose network sounds better than AT&T’s) is unfortunately not an iPhone killer. It was disappointing to see this attempt from google fall short. I am also not very impressed that a phone and platform that is supposed to be open has been so restrictive.
Now that the iPhone NDA has lifted, I am getting tempted again. I gave up running linux as a desktop to run a Mac, I may just give up on Android to get an iPhone too.
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.
Yippee. I mentioned quite awhile ago that I needed to upgrade to 2.6.2. Well, I finally did it. Looks a whole lot of the same. Yippee.