Barns

I'm from Wisconsin. My mom grew up on a farm, but I did not. Still, I have a soft spot in my heart for barns. Red barns. With a silo nearby. While driving home from Michigan last week, we drove all the way across Wisconsin (northern...not southern where I am from) on Hwy 29. We passed many wonderful barns. I didn't make Charlie stop the car...I took all of these from the car traveling at 65 miles per hour down the road.
I really love barns; I really do.

Big Boy Hodag

I was reminded by a friend that the Hodag's name is Happy. Just seems wrong.

Two of my favorite pictures from our recent vacation...enjoy!

It's Twins!!!

Some good friends had twins about 7 weeks ago. Amelia was the flower girl at their wedding, so had to get pictures of her with the kids. We finally got to visit today. The girls were excited to hold such tiny babies. They were actually both over 6 pounds at birth, and they both have been very healthy.


Presenting Anna and Benjamin...and our girls...

Zoo pages

Here are some pages from the SD Zoo. The animal pages are simple. I had some fun shots of us, too...

It's just a funny picture...

Monkeys

Elephants

Bearded Warthog

Definitely a face only a mother could love.

Mama Llama Red Pajama

I think it's actually a guanaco. Great picture, eh? I actually have to credit hubby on this one.

Koalas

Man, they have a lot of Koalas at the SD Zoo.

Gorilla

Orangutans

Wow! Has it been Sunday since a picture?

Hippo

Zebra

I guess I had better keep up with this, since someone is actually looking!!!

Today's picture

I never know what to do with Zoo animal pictures. They seem a bit odd to scrap. Well, we have a lot from our trip to the San Diego Zoo. So I think I'll post some over the next few days.

Cheers!

Cold!!

We went to a Girl Scout Skating/Sledding event this afternoon. Man, was it COLD.

I took my new camera...I don't think it was fully charged when I left, and in the cold it drained after about ten pictures. The sun was harsh and I got big shadows on the few I took. That's ok though, it is about the memories and not the photos. (Read that 3 times slowly if you start thinking otherwise)




Here's a nice one of Amelia.

I didn't get any good pictures of Margaret. Margaret was having so much fun and was so happy to be playing with her Daisy friends. Seeing her climb up the sliding hill with her friend, them both holding the string on the sled, was just precious. I didn't see her face as she was going downhill, but I'll bet it was full of joy!

It's here...

My camera arrived yesterday! I had given Charlie instructions to open it up and charge the battery so I could play with it when I got home.

When I got home, I put on a lens from my "old" camera and took my first picture.

Ooops. Forgot to put in the memory card...so the first picture is lost.

Put in the memory and took about four pictures of the family minus me (didn't want to figure out the timer, yet)

Take the camera down to my computer to get the pictures off. Frustration. Frustration. The computer has recognized the new hardware, but I can't find it. I had to call tech support (Charlie) After he played around for ten minutes, he tried rebooting the computer (thank you Bill Gates) and now it works! Yeah!!!

Man, the pictures look good for just doing a point and shoot.

Now to upload on my blog. Aww rats. Blogger is still touchy from my home computer and I need to get going out to book club.

So....No pictures today. Sorry. I'll promise some this weekend.

I am so looking forward to being able to push and explore the camera without having to wait for pictures to come back. Remember that? You would write the exposures and all that info in a notebook. Take in the film. Get it back a day later. Then you could analyze and learn and try some new stuff. $12 per trial.

Now I can just go straight to the computer and download and look and learn. So cool. And there is so much more to learn about this camera. Wow. Instant Gratification. Ain't it grand?

I brought the manual to work and will be sneaking peeks at it all day.

Camera is on the way...

Charlie ordered my birthday present today.

It's a Sony Alpha 100 digital SLR. And a 2GB flash card.

I didn't need the lenses and couldn't get easily local with just the camera body.


I don't know when it will arrive, but it won't be here tomorrow, so I can use tomorrow to do all those things that won't get done once the camera arrives.

It's Digital Camera Time!!!

I think it's time to take the Digital SLR plunge. Now to decide. Here's the three top runners (Although I'll admit the Canon is way in third). I am soliciting any advice. I haven't dug a lot into pricing yet, other than to know that this is going to set us back about $1000.

Hmmmmm


My front runner is the Sony Alpha 100. Why? The CCD arrays in the Nikon are made by Sony. (i.e. Sony knows the sensing technology). They bought the camera biz from Minolta/Konica. I have a Minolta Maxxum film SLR and it LOOKS like the two lenses I have will work with the digital. I have to totally verify that. If it's true, I may need to go no further. It got great reviews in one photo mag I read. It ranked high for low-light conditions. Plus I read one review that said the flash was AWESOME. (Plus I have a flash unit that would likely fit for even more flah power)
Cons: Not as user friendly. No "sports" mode as an auto mode. My main concern? It's Sony's first digital SLR camera. This is actually a big concern. My years as an engineer have taught me to be wary of initial releases. So I'm really torn about this if I truly can re-use my existing lenses.






The close second? The Nikon D80 It seems to get consistantly high ranks and a co-worker whose photography I respect is highly recommending this one to me. He thinks Nikon lenses are the best, albeit a bit heavy. It's about $100 more than the other two, but "well worth it", I've read. It seems to consistantly get top reviews anywhere rankings are made. Again, great in low light conditions.

Con? The price. Especially if I really can re-use my current lenses on the Sony.


A distant third? The Canon Digitial Rebel XTi. I think I need to take a good look at it since it is so ubiquitous. So many people can't be wrong (can they? :-)). But it seems to rank higher in user-friendlyness than for things like picture quality. (Maybe that's why so many people own one) No great raves on the optics like for Nikon and Sony/Minolta/Konica. I'd be surprised if I end up with this one (because I hate to run with the "in crowd"), but want to make sure to give it a look.




My list of things I still need to look at:

CCD Hardware (This is like the film)
Software that the camera uses to convert the CCD to files..what sort of stuff is it doing?
File outputs. Including what can be done to alter the raw files.
Lenses (Self explanatory)
Batteries (Life, Price, Availability)
Memory choices

Now that I've decided to go for it, I'd bet that I'll have one ordered or (hopefully)in my paws before my birthday (a mere 8 days away). Once I decide, I'll take my best online price to National Camera Exchange and see if they'll match it. I suspect they will.

Wish me luck