I posted a dusk shot of the Washington Monument the other day, so I figured I'd snag a night shot on the way home from work yesterday.  I'm a little conflicted over the whole monument/memorial thing for a couple of reasons.  The first being that it's easy to get good pictures of most of the monuments and memorials around here.  Most of them are in open spaces, have no distracting junk or anything to get in the way and they're all "iconic" in some way.  This makes it super-easy to get a reasonably decent picture.  You can drive around DC and all the monuments and memorials are all but screaming "take me, take me!".  This means that I know I can always get a decent shot of something in a pinch. 

The conflict is that I'm not sure if this is a good thing.  One - I don't want to be posting up tons of shots of the monuments just because they're easy.  Two - the ones that I really like have evil lighting and it's almost impossible to get a good picture at night (like the FDR memorial... without the fountains and underwater lights running, it's ORANGE!).  Three - there are only so many ways you can take a picture of the major monuments without it being "just another snapshot".  Ack... I'm rambling.

Here's the night shot of the Washington Monument, taken from the west side of the Potomac River.  And before you ask, "Yes...  I wanted that much 'space' in the picture."  ;)  As always, larger sizes and such are available on Flickr by clicking the image. 

This little guy was quite the ham...  He was pretty cool for a tree-rat.Unfortunately, the lighting was horrible, so I only got a couple of decent shots.  This is the best of the batch, and it still ain't great.

No picture posting today.  I took one, I just can't be bothered to edit and post it right now.  Today really ranked pretty low in my book.  Here's the short version of what went wrong.

1. Out of clothes - need to do laundry.
2. My web site broke, took a lot of work to fix.
3. Some doofus at work rolled out a patch they shouldn't have and took us forever to clean up.
4. I wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica tonight (note the "wanted" part of that).
5. The crack in my windshield grew some more.
6. My macro zoom lens is back ordered. :(
7. I have to do more laundry.

Good night.  Expect a picture tomorrowish.

Oh... almost forgot... I don't think the Monument picture pulled over any of the EXIF data when I stuffed it up on flickr...  if anyone REALLY wants it, post a comment or something and I'll find the original (it's not like it was an overly complicated shot or anything).

Posted by smthng | 0 Comments [Edit]

Filed under: Bad day [Edit Tags]

Monday, February 26, 2007 9:47 PM

Today's picture.  Pretty much speaks for itself.

Though I'd forgotten already? This is Sunday's picture.

A shot of the snow on the trees here after we got dumped on.  Cropped, leveled and converted to B&W in Photoshop.

Headed out to MNBP today to take some shots with the XTi.  Nice place, glad the weather was tolerable.  I'd been out there several times, but not to the area I picked today.  It was a lot more "woodsy" than most of the other portions of that park.

This is my first "Camera 365" post.  Click the pic to see different sizes and the metadata on Flickr if you like. I'll generally be doing the same with all the posts that fit this category.  If you like the pictures, I recommend clicking and checking out the larger sizes on Flickr.  If you'd prefer the larger sizes posted here instead, just leave me a comment or shoot me an email. 

Oh, I won't be tagging all my "Camera 365" shots with "Canon" or "Rebel XTi" or anything like that unless I specifically talk about something to do with the camera.  If the post is all about the photo, I won't mention (or tag) the camera.  I doubt I'll have many camera comments in the beginning... not much point in talking about it till I figure out how it works a bit more. ;) I will be using a "Camera365" tag though for those that want to follow along... that way you can subscribe to just that tag and skip all the rest of my nonsense. :)

BTW... I totally stole this whole idea from PhotoJojo.  I'd been thinking about it for a bit, but when I found the article, that kicked me into gear.  I'm sure there are plenty of others out there with Photoblogs who post daily (or more) and will probably end up being more regular and higher quality than me. :)

Hey again,

After spending a bit of time with my new camera, I've quickly figured out that I'm not going to figure it out unless I get out there and actually use the thing.  So, I'm going to try to take pictures every day for a year!

I'm sure I'll miss a few, but at least this way I'll have a regular "session" of sorts that'll eventually get me familiar with everything.  I may not get the pictures up on the day they're taken, but I'm going to endeavor to be REGULAR with taking pictures.  I actually expect that I'll take a dozen shots a day and one or two will be reasonable decent.  Those are the ones I'll slap online.  I'll house them on my Flickr page, but I'll post them here as a link.  Once I get some software issues solved on my end (hopefully today), I'll start posting. 

If I have something to say about why I took the shot or any technical points about it, I'll post them up here with the image.  However, all the EXIF tags will be on Flickr if you really want to see what camera settings/lens/exposure/etc I was using.

I hope someone out there gets a kick out it.

Okay, any serious photographers can stop reading right now... Due to my finances (and my family finance minister), I'm going to be talking about some "bottom of the barrel" lenses here. ;)

I picked up a new Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lens yesterday.  I was actually looking for a Tamron AF70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro 1:2 lens, but the Canon was a bit cheaper and it was in stock at my local dealer.  I figured they would be about the same, with the exception that the Canon wasn't a macro lens.  I had the guys at the shop look up the specs on both lenses and the difference in focusing distance between the Tamron and Canon was only about a foot, so I figured I could live with the Canon.  Unfortunately, the Canon ain't all I thought it would be. :(

There's nothing wrong with the optics that I can tell.  The DOF is very nice, which is what I was looking for.  The magnification is also pretty sweet, especially with the 1.6x magnification factor I get from using the XTi/400D...  that basically makes the 75-300 act like a 120-480mm lens.  But... 

The mechanics on the Canon lens are REALLY bad!  The Zoom control is near the base of lens and the focal ring is near the front.  This is basically backwards from most lenses.  Not that big of deal, but still "odd".  That's just an nagging issue to me, not a deal breaker.  The major issue is the zoom control.  It's "notchy".  It basically feels like the mechanics in the lens are binding up.  This means that when zooming, the action is "jerky".  It's impossible to do a smooth zoom.  This is most telling when you're trying to get to an exact focal length.  With the Canon lens, I've found that I have to overzoom, then pull back to get the zoom where I wanted it.  It's a bit of a pain to deal with on a regular basis.  I did some Googling on this lens and found that I'm not the only one with this issue, so it's obviously a "design feature", not an error with the manufacturing.

I should also mention that this lens is quite bulky and heavy.  It probably weighs more than the XTi/400D does.

The final straw is the focusing mechanism.  It's an AF lens, with a switch to convert to manual focus.  Unfortunately, the AF is REALLY slow, has an incredibly hard time tracking stuff and doesn't allow you to manually correct it without throwing the switch (this appears to be the way that non-USM Canon lenses work - get a USM version if you want to override the AF).  The length of time it takes to autofocus when zoomed is ridiculous.  So...

The Canon lens is going back and I'm going to get the local shop to order the Tamron for me.  I'll post up a comparison when I get the chance.

Frozen FDR Memorial, originally uploaded by smthng.

The Rebel XTi is here and I've been playing with it for about a week. Unfortunately, the weather has been HORRIBLE and I've been working a fair bit, so I haven't had much chance to play with it. I got out with it the other night, but didn't have a lot of time to get used to the new critter. Here's one of the pics that I thought was reasonably decent, but I still have a LONG way to go! Technical details of the shot available on Flickr if you want to see exposure and lens details and such.

Hey all,

Figured I'd post up this since anyone reading this blog is most likely using some tech gadgets of some kind.  It's also winter pretty much everywhere in the US, so gloves might become a necessity for many.

I snagged a pair of gadget friendly gloves this weekend and they rock!  A fairly decent portion of my commute often involves waiting on a cold and windy platform for a train to show up.  It's been anywhere from 8 - 30 degrees here recently and that's plenty cold enough to chill my little fingers into uselessness.  What's the solution?  Gloves and pockets, of course.  Unfortunately, that makes handling any kind of gadgetry somewhat awkward.  What's the solution to that?  Gloves that can have exposed fingers!  These REI Thermo Glove/Mittens go one better...  fully covered fingers when you need the added protection, exposed fingertips when you don't! 

With these, I can keep my paws warm with a fully functioning mitten.  When I want to surf on my Blackjack, I can just flip the thumb tip back and have easy access to the control wheel and back button (which is about all I need when checking my feeds on Bloglines).  Need more access than that?  Flip the entire mitten tip back and it sticks to the back of the glove using a tiny velcro patch.  Excellent for texting or using other gadgets (like my EOS Rebel XTi, due to show up tomorrow). :)

These aren't cheap gloves, but they're the best "gadget friendly" mitts I've seen.

Schweet!  I'd been harassing my wife about this camera for a while now and noticed yesterday that Amazon.com had it on a special.  Well, after some intense whining on my part, I managed to convince the wife that this was "a good thing" and we plunked down the duckets for it (thanks, Baby!).  For anyone else in the same boat, you can check out Amazon's promotion to see a decent price plus a free Canon PIXMA photo printer.  If you do decide to hop on it, make sure you select a PIXMA that's from Amazon, not from one of the hosted stores.  The correct one should show a price of $99 or so.  Add that puppy, type in the code when checking out and the cost is zeroe'd out in your order.  Not badly... a good price for the camera (I got the lens to go with it) and a free photo printer!

While I'm on the subject, I have to note that Amazon is being a bit cruel to me...  I ordered the camera, the PIXMA and a memory card, all of which were in stock.  The memory card shipped in hours after placing the order.  The PIXMA is supposed to ship today.  The camera?  Still shows no shipping plans.  That's gonna be rough...  I get the "bits" before I get the camera to make use of them.  It's not a big deal to me, I just thought it was kind of amusing. 

BTW... I will be buying any other accessories from a local camera shop in the area, as the owner is a good guy and has always done me right.  Unfortunately, he couldn't touch this deal, even without the free printer. :(  I feel a bit bad about it, but I'll make up for it in accessories and processing over time, I'm sure.