A self portrait taken at a stop light while in Akron. 
I have no idea why I’m wearing sunglasses. It seems to always be cloudy in Akron, Ohio; however, when you are cool, like me, the sun shines on you 24 hours per day. LOL!
Sep 022010
For the most part, just a photo that I wanted to share. I took this Monday morning on the return leg of our walk. The weather is getting cooler now as we approach autumn, though you’d probably never know that since it is 100 degrees this afternoon!
Anyway, we are still leaving at the same time, about 6:00 AM. The difference is that it is completely dark when we leave, but starts to get light around 20 minutes into the walk. Monday morning the weather was very foggy and quite nice. On our return leg, the sun was coming up. This shot was taken at 7:14 EDT, according to the camera’s clock. Here, we’re almost home, two more blocks to go and I noticed the sun, the fog, the halo that the fog makes around the sun, and the light on the window. Hobbs, sit! Snap, snap, snap. That S90 is really paying off even though I don’t like the 4:3 format. I can always do as I’ve done here and crop it to 3:2, as I did here.
Aug 292010
I don’t know how he does it, but somehow Monte can make coffee look appealing. I find the stuff disgusting, but his photographs of the lattes and such do look quite appealing. Perhaps it is the smooth juxtaposition of a tasty sweet right next to it. Who knows?
Yesterday, I took a trip to Asheville, NC with a Peaceful Dragon friend of mine. After walking around a bit, taking photos, talking and just having a grand old time, we stopped a Kubo’s Sushi and Hibachi and had some delicious sushi. Before departing we both decided to go and take photographs of the sushi chefs.
Of course, I thought immediately of Monte, ace food photographer; so here’s my offering from that visit. Although my sushi rolls were delicious, after taking this photo and looking at it, when I’m up there, I might have to try this dish. It looks fabulous. Yum! As Asheville is a tourist type of town, I suspect that the chefs are used to having their photo taken. They didn’t seem to mind at all and kept about making these delicious creations.
Although I was quite satisfied and had my fill of sushi, it was very tempting to pluck a piece of that tuna off of the plate and pop it into my mouth, consequences be damned! 
I finally took my D300 out for a stroll and, as usual, it performed flawlessly. This shot was taken at ISO 1600. 1/250 @ f/1.8
My good friend, Monte, has given me a good shot to the ribs a couple of times about saving money for an M9. This all started when he, Earl, and I had dinner when he was in town. I made an off-hand comment that I ‘might’ get, or was thinking about getting a Leica M9. To be sure, it was just a thought.
Previously, I had exchanged a few e-mails with Paul Butzi about his experience with his M9. He provided very good feedback. I asked a few questions about usability and how close it felt to the M6, as he was an M6 power user, shooting thousands of rolls of film with it. He assured me that I’d just fall right into line with the M9.
The thing that I couldn’t get over was the price. $6995. OK, let’s just say $7K. I can think of lots of better things to do with $7K including taking a pretty damned exotic trip with my D300 or M6!
Anyway, like I said, it was just a passing thought, and to be completely honest, I just cannot see myself spending that kind of cash on a new camera. That was simply thought up in a moment of laziness, instant gratification desire, and overt consumerism.
We never know, but more than likely, I will NOT buy an M9. I have always wanted to live simpler life, free from the rampant consumerism that I see here in the US. I need to stick to that because it is what feels right for me; however, every once in a while, that consumer bug bites me, or should I say, I’m drawn to the church of consumerism. Meditation is a good repellent for such things.
During this morning’s walk, I had a childhood memory flashback. We were about half way through the walk, heading northwest, or thereabouts. I looked up, saw this cloud formation and immediately thought: Look! There’s a porpoise. Immediately, I had a flood of childhood memories.
I remembered reclining on the grass, a blade of grass sticking out of my mouth like a proper country boy, watching the clouds go by, their amorphous shapes shifting in and out of recognition, limited only by my imagination. My memories tell me that I spent lots of time doing that, but in reality, it was probably for brief moments of time, as it was summer, school was out, I always had something else to do.
Thinking of that reclining on grass, I remember when I had to cut the same lawn. It seemed like acres and acres, but it was really a postage stamp sized lawn, easily cut in a few minutes. But, when you don’t want to do the task, it can seem vast. That connected to another memory of when I became industrious and put the lawnmower to use by going around and offering to cut lawns for $5.00. I made quite a bit of money. During the off-season, I collected soda bottles, which had a deposit of two cents, glass milk jugs were worth 10 cents, but were rarely to be found!
Of course, like any proper, well fed young man, all of my money went to junk food … that was before I discovered cameras!
Aug 142010
The other day, I went and took some snapshots in the field across the street. As I said, it was hot and so I was not really in the mood to experiment much. Now that I’ve had a couple of days to play with the camera, I can do a bit more with it.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to see how it worked while walking. So, Thursday morning I drove into work, parked, and left the parking lot on my usual route to work. I tried a number of shots while walking. It takes some getting used to. It seems a bit unnatural to hold a camera out in front of you rather than looking through a viewfinder. That’s just the old school coming out in me. I will say that the S90′s screen is pretty peppy as far as the update is concerned. As I moved, the camera’s screen updated almost instantly.
Of course, being an older guy who now uses reading glasses all of the time, even as I type this, I have to find the correct distance to hold the camera so that “my” auto focus works! The camera does just fine, it’s my eyes that have the problem.
Walking and shooting is sort of like playing one of those fighter pilot video games where you have to get the circle inside of the square and the square on the target to get locked in. With the S90 is a matter of getting the square on the subject, pressing the shutter release half way, and getting a green square. The challenge is to do it while watching the display bob up and down, left and right, all the while trying not to run into anything. I was able to accomplish it a number of times. If you put camera on servo auto focus, as soon as you acquire a subject, it will do tracking for you and then you get a blue square, but I have turned this feature off because it keeps refocusing. I want to compose, move, shoot.
I took this photo while walking back from lunch without even breaking my stride. As you can see, the guy is looking directly at me. What’s he gonna do, spray paint me? Hmmm, I suppose that he could have! Haha.
Ove mentioned in a previous comment that the photos that I took looked flat and needing of a bit of sharpening. True. I took them basically right out of the camera, didn’t push the saturation slider at all, etc. So, I guess you could say that it wasn’t a fair assessment of the camera’s abilities. Everything was shot raw, so things do look a bit dull.
Aug 082010
Ohhhhhhh….. bubbles …
I have it on good authority from other photographers that you cannot have too many cameras. I’m staring to believe that … perhaps I’ve believed it all along, but just didn’t care to admit it.
Before I begin, I must say that I must stay away from Earl Moore. That guy always has the latest gadgets, toys, and cameras. I can’t keep up. LOL! When Earl, Monte, and I were sitting down chatting at Olive Garden, we were talking about, of course, cameras. I mentioned that there might be a Leica M9 in my future … the very distant future. First, I need to get rid of some debt, take some travel, etc. There are many things ahead of adding another $7,000 to Leica’s coffers. Many!
Anyway, I do find that I absolutely love rangefinder cameras for street shooting. They are unparalleled. It’s nice to be able to see what’s in the frame, but more importantly, what’s outside of and about to come into it. However, rangefinders are still a bit bulky to carry around all the time. Now, what’s left in my arsenal for that all the time carry around. My camera phone. Well, the short comings of the camera phone are obvious: super tiny sensor, limited to no control over exposure, framing, or focusing, etc. But, it beats not getting the shot at all. We live with what we have … almost.
Back to our conversation at the table. I should have known! Earl whips out this cool camera from his pocket, a Canon S90. Never heard of it because I stopped following cameras, which stopped my buying of cameras. I’ve had my D300 for over 18 months! Impressive. Then he did the ultimate sin … he let me hold it. Dammit, Earl! Well, after looking at it and seeing that he pulled it out of his pocket, I thought … that’s it. I “need” one of those. No more missed shots. The perfect camera to put into my pocket to have with me on my walks with Hobbs, when I’m out running errands, etc.
Over the course of the next few days, I read reviews at Luminous Landscape and other places. I read comparisons between it and the Panasonic LX3 and came to the conclusion that they were about the same, save for the longer zoom length on the Canon. The longer zoom tilted it.
Yesterday, I made the decision to buy it (Like it really took me that long. I had probably decided before I left the table, but let’s just roll with it the other way. Makes me seem less impressionable!). This morning, I just got notice that my item has shipped. It should be here by Wednesday. Sigh …
Thankfully, you can never have too many cameras!
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