The power of photography is amazing. Whether taken by professionals, amateurs or just a house wife witnessing something unbelievable, photos tell a story that words never can.
I’m heading out with a friend today to the National Arboretum to walk around and see how spring has progressed. We shall see, with the current overcast skies, if I can get anything decent on “film”, but it’ll be fun to try. The giant soft box in the sky, as it were.
One of the first reviews of the Nikon D-3 is out, and the feedback is amazing:
I NEVER shoot on auto exposure. In fact I don’t think I have even used autoexposure on the Contax or Canons more than once, but since Nikon handed me this camera set on Auto I just thought I would see what happens, and it was dead on perfect, almost to the point I couldn’t trick it unless I was in extreme 5 stop backlight. Set to Matrix metering it just completely surprised me how accurate it was. From time to time I would moved the little +/- dial from .3 to .7 but usually the meter was dead on, even in mixed lighting.
Wow. Just wow. Michael Reichmann is a very talented photographer. I think his summary is accurate though:
Is the Nikon D3 better than the Canons? Who knows . . . who will ever know because we all shoot so differently and I didn’t actually compare the two side by side and probably never will.
I have to say that for the last few years Canon really has produced some amazing cameras, and I assume the next 1Ds MarkIII will be no exception, though Nikon is obviously back in the game.
I wish I could afford one, but I’m not that good a photographer.
Today, I went on a road trip with friends to Gettysburg, and I’ve posted some of the pictures on my Flickr account.
And I’m back from San Francisco. I made some final adjustments to my schedule, but had a productive trip for work. You can find some of my pictures posted.
Often, when we are listening to the news, we hear discussions of people who have been in accidents. They are severely injured, and we often hear discussions of how they have been burned over x percent of their body. What does that mean for them, though? John Brownlow explores the emotions, meaning and startling beauty that exists within the faces and bodies of burn victims.
I don’t think I’ve seen a more amazing collection of photographs on Flickr … ever. There is a level of humanity, strength, vulnerability and even a grace that exists within this collection that is rarely seen in portraits. Go see it, please.
Today, I drove down from Seattle to Mount Saint Helens and wandered around a lot. Unfortunately, it’s currently closed to hikers, but it was fun none-the-less. I managed to get some great pictures, I think, which you can find on my Flickr stream.
weekend, a friend of mine from Chicago was in town to see the cherry blossoms. So, Saturday we ventured out into the great unwashed masses to look at pretty flowers. It was horrendous. The weather was nice—if trying to rain—but the press of people was unbearable and sucked any amount of joy out of the air. Having said that, I got to take some good photos, which I’ve put up on Flickr as usual.
Also, part of why I’ve not been writing much has been that my cable modem was out for a few days, and may still be, depending on whether Comcast sends someone competent to look at it. I don’t hold out much hope as the last guy simply changed the connectors on the cables and said “wow, that didn’t fix it,” as if it would. He didn’t even have a test-set, so I don’t know what he expected to accomplish.
Off to Omaha again, where I hope to attend the dynamic language user’s group meeting tomorrow.
Those who know me well know that I spend a lot of time at the National Arboretum in NE DC. To me, it is a sactuary in a city of noise and attitude. That it abuts to the ever-busy New York Avenue makes it more of a miracle than many can imagine.
Every spring, I spent a lot of time at the Aboretum watching as various plants come into their own. Saturday, I spent it with Hal, wandering around the holly and magnolia collection, which was just showing signs of breaking open. The transition, on a warm late-winter day, was amazing to watch, and more, the plethora of people out walking, biking and simply reclining in the sun to enjoy what was perhaps one of the most perfect days of the year.
After a few hours at the Arboretum, I came home, grabbed an art book, and walked down the street to a small park/playground down the street. With my iPod on, and Tish Hinojosa singing from her album Dreaming From the Labyrinth (in both English and Spanish) in my ears, I walked down the street, and plopped myself on one of the empty picnic tables to partake of the beautiful weather, the sight of children on the first real day of “play” in a new year, and parents relaxing in the sunlight.
A good day.
Photos, as always, are up on Flickr.
Today, Jenny, James and I went on a bit of a photo excursion around Washington, DC. While it was cold—below freezing I think for most of the day—that made for clear skies and crystal clear air for the shooting. Unfortunately, my hands froze at various points, but such is the suffering for art! Not.
We took photos in and around DC, at the Capitol, Union Station, and walking around. In addition, we stopped in at the US Botanic Garden and took a ton of photos of that most photogenic of plants, the orchid. They were having a show, entitled Simply Sublime: Orchids in an Art Deco Garden, which was a wee tad contrived, and the Art Deco a horrendous joke, but the plants were lovely.
Photos are, of course, in my Flickr photostream
Since the snow had come down reasonably heavy last night, I figured before heading out to find some food, I should call—just to double check. I called a little Mediterranean restaurant nearby, and asked the simple question: “Are you open?” The answer came back “yes.” Alas, it was not to be so simple. My roommate and I set out on the 1/4 mile trek to the place, only to find out that when they said “open,” they meant that they were open for dinner, not lunch.
Instead, we turned around, and walked the mile or so to Clarendon, and end up going to a small Irish pub for lunch. The food was good, but it definitely quadrupled the distance. In the mean time, I was able to take some more photographs and enjoy the weather. The roommate left for DC, and I headed back to the house.
When I arrived back at the house, I found an Arlington County finally plowing the street I live on. Unfortunately, the truck—with chains, no less—was stuck trying to turn around, and took 10 minutes to work their way out of the snow. This is silly, since there wasn’t that much snow on the ground, perhaps 8” max, and only reenforces the belief that nobody around here can deal with snow.
Fortunately, all this gave me a chance to take some pictures, which I have put up on Flickr.
Well, it gets worse, doesn’t it? Darker before the dawn, and all that bullshit. Today, I added another Tiffen filter (UV Haze 1 for the lens bought yesterday) to my growing collection—if only Nikon would standardize filter sizes—and another 1GB SD card (on sale). Also, I purchased a Dazzle PCMCIA reader for my PowerBook, so that I don’t have to cary a USB cable with me. Finally, another Nikon battery was procured so that I can make sure I don’t run out of power.
In order to share some of the photos, I’ve decided that some of them will end up on Flickr in my photo stream, which is linked on the right hand side for future use. I’m not completely sure I like this as a solution, but it is one, and it definitely a pretty simple to use platform, especially when you the uploading tool that you can get for the Mac. To manage the pictures, since I shoot in NEF (basically RAW format), I’m trying out Adobe’s new LightRoom beta, which so far works passably on my antiquated PowerBook (667Mhz G4 + 1Gb RAM). From what I’ve heard, unfortunately, Aperture is just not workable on anything less than my desktop. Unfortunate, since I need to be able to handle things while on the road, and Aperture seems to have substantially better workflow.
Also up for consideration is Nikon Capture, which can supposedly eek every bit of capability out of the camera, but as far as I can tell, has no real management capabilities as far as I can determine. Regardless, it might be worth the investment ($149, I think) in order to get the most out of the system.
Last night, I stopped by Dominion Camera to see what doo-dads and gee-gaws they had. Mostly, I was looking for a new bag—maybe something from Lowepro—but also to see what used lenses, and other things they had. Unfortunately, the only bag they had on the shelf that I really thought fit what I was looking for didn’t; it wouldn’t hold my D50 + two lenses. Oh well!
As I was talking to the “man behind the counter,” I asked about a telephoto I was interested in (a 70-300mm f/4-5.6G AF Zoom-Nikkor), and after talking, it turned out they had it in a kit only. Fortunately, the kit included a really nice Nikon bag, a 2-year extension to my D50’s warrantee, and cost the same as buying the lens-alone from B&H Photo in New York. Deal!
When I returned from my meetings downtown, at approximately 1pm, my camera had arrived! Yay!
For the past few weeks, a coworker and I have been discussing photography quite a bit. Recently, he purchased a Canon EOS 20D digital SLR camera, and now is getting back into film. A while back, I was huge into film photography, but I’ve found of late that I stopped taking pictures for two reasons: one, film has become a hassle, and I’m lazy; second, the digital camera I currently have (Canon Digital Elph S400) doesn’t have a lot of capabilities that I miss with film.
So, I’ve taken the plunge and today I ordered a a Nikon D50 digital SLR since I still have some Nikkor lenses. In addition, I ordered a new lens to go with the camera: Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX lens. That’s a lot of letters and numbers, but it is a decent zoom for a digital SLR, which in normal 35mm terms would be considered a 27-105mm zoom lens, which isn’t a telephoto, but is a good start. Eventually, I’ll probably add either a Nikkor (or Tamron) 200mm+ zoom, but that’ll have to happen later.
Hopefully, everything will arrive tomorrow!
