Fingers Crossed

The tech should be here today to replace my motherboard. Hopefully I will be back in business next week. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and are planning a safe new years.

ZOO

Great day for a Zoo visit since there was really no one there, COLD though, but hey the kids did not notice. Saw all the animals that were out and about on a day like today. New D300 + Very slow laptop = EXCRUCIATING process times. I am not sure I will be posting much more until I get my system back up and running.

Getting out today

Michael is out of school for winter break, so I was going to make a run towards Skyline with the kids, glad I checked because the part of Skyline Dr I was going to is closed from the ice storm last week. So it looks like a trip into the city to the zoo.

TNT

and a slow laptop do not contribute to the daily posts on this blog, that and talking to
Jim my brother on his way home to sunny WPB for a hour and 25. It was good to talk to you tonight Jim. Safe Travels.

ISO 1600

So what does a new D300 user do when he gets the camera from UPS? I will tell you what I did. I took a battery from my D200, Grabbed my 85 1.8 nikkor, kicked the ISO to 1600 and took a picture. I did set up some menu items, color space, the tip Scott Kelby http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/, issued today about the memory card setting, time, playback etc... The arrival of it has taken the sting out of of my computer being DOA. At least Julia is getting to use her blackberry more since I have seized control of her laptop.

Fried

So I wake this morning to a computer that will not turn on. Storms last night claimed a victim, but I did buy the warranty and it had 5 days left on it (what a stroke of luck) So a tech will be coming to put a new motherboard in, I just have to be patient. I am doing this on my wife's laptop, and with my D300 coming tomorrow, I just may have to put lightroom on it so I can get over the hump of my system being down for a couple of weeks. Glad I started doing nightly full system backups.

Vacant

Have a goodweekend.

New Best Friend

I did not know how much I missed reading until last night. I grabbed a book and headed to bed to read about 50 pages before sleeping. Its been awhile since reading was even comfortable and did not require the movement of my arms to make simple focus. I had been using store bought reading glasses, but they gave me a immediate headache, I was in denial for too long about the inevitable fate of glasses.

Pulling from the Archives

Its all down hill from here. Today I had an early eye appointment. Who me? Need glasses? I guess I should be glad that my far vision is still better then perfect, but that fine print is killing me. Hopefully I can shoot something later.

Fire and a Movie

That was last Friday around here.

Proud

Yesterday was the Kidball Superbowl here in Potomac, MD. My son's team the Saints battled all fall to get to it. They did an outstanding job playing on the snow covered field and winning on Saturday in the playoffs. Then they came back Sunday morning to a mud bowl. These kids all showed hearts of champions on both sides of the ball. Michael gave me some of the proudest moments I have ever had on Sunday. Not only did be get a gusher of a bloody nose, but he got back in the game and made a spectacular play. The game is played by number of possessions and when they had their last possession they went for a two point conversion that would tie the game. The coach told Michael to go 3 steps and turn around. Life went into a slow motion when the ball was in the air and Michael made the CATCH!!! Did the Cowboys score on their final possession? Yes they did, but that is part of sports. I think Michael gained so much confidence in that one catch this year. He had a look in his eye that I have never seen before when he got his trophy for second place. He knew he contributed, and was not sad for a moment after they lost. This is one dad saying "That's my son"

Self Portrait

The theme this week at http://www.jasondmoore.com/blog/ for the Geographic Composition was self portraits. I use the 10.5 on my D70, I used the remote for it so I was not playing beat the timer. You can see the light set up. I then used the OnOne Funky Senior preset for this one. Over at Jason's Blog I used the BW Holga preset. Use the link above to check out the other photographers and what they did for this weeks theme.

First Snow

First snow for the kids, loads of fun yesterday.

Workspace

HDR, 3 shots, Merged and tonemapped in Photomatix Pro, Curve and Crop in CS3. Can you figure out much about someone from seeing their workspace?

Fire, Fire

Yep, no preset today. Shot this last night, tweaked slightly in lightroom.

From the Archives with Color Holga Preset

This shot is from last summer in the backyard. I like the original processed in Lightroom, but could not help running it through the OnOne Pro Photo tools plug in, so many presets, good practice now to get an understanding of them.