Whistling in the Dark

While it’s great to go somewhere to shoot sometimes you get get the best photos in your own back yard.

I finally took a photo of all my camera equipment. I’m linking to it instead of just embedding because I tagged the hell out of it over on Flickr.

Other than the fact that I usually only carry the monopod or the tripod at one time I have the rest of it with me 99% of the time.

My Flickr feed broke 2000 views this morning. It had taken longer than I had thought (I was getting 50 views a day for a bit there) but I’m still happy it happened. I know others are in the 100s of thousands but I’m still thrilled to get 2000.

I’ve been looking to get a camera flash that will work fully with my Canon. Right now I’m using an old Promatic flash but I want something more automatic; something that can tell how my camera is set and only fire as strongly as needed. The problem is E-TTL flashes (Canon’s standard) are very pricey. Even used they’re going for too much on eBay. I’m still looking though.

Today I finally figured out how to record tracklogs with my BlackBerry and GPS puck. This means I can finally start geotagging my photos again.

When I got my S5 I picked up a small camera bag that had enough room for the camera, flash, and a couple of SD cards. Then I picked up a 58mm adapter and a lens hood. With those attached the bag started to get tight. When I decided to always carry an emergency set of batteries it got really tight. Then my brother gave me a polarizer which was the last thing I could possibly fit in the bag without bursting a seam.

Well, I was innocently browsing eBay the other day (cough) when I stumbled across a set of 2x and 3x filters for cheap. There is no way they would fit in my bag so I had to pick up a new one tonight. It’s about 50% bigger with enough room for my current kit plus a little left over for a few more filters. I got this one because, first, it’s big enough for what I need without being so big that I feel the need to fill it and second, it was only $15.

One of these days I’ll need to borrow a camera and get a shot of my complete kit. Hopefully I do this before I outgrow the new bag.

My Flickr page is getting about 50 hits a day. At this rate I’ll have 2000 views in a couple of days. They like me! They really like me!

And I’m a photography addict. I’m getting to the point that I feel antsy if I don’t shoot almost every day. The problem is I’m running out of things to shoot. I dislike shooting people and I’ve photographed every flower, bird, and animal in the area.

Thanks to my brother I now have a polarizing filter. I haven’t had a chance to play with it but I plan to very soon

My girlfriend and I were driving along this evening when we saw a vulture feeding on the side of the road. I have never seen one in real life and wanted to take some pictures of it so I pulled over as soon as I could safely, threw the car in park, and reached for my camera. I always take my camera with me because you never know if you’ll see something you want to shoot. I pulled out my camera and went to put a fresh memory card in when, hmm, isn’t the camera a little light? Yea, I had my camera, a couple of memory cards, even my tripod but forgot all my batteries sitting nice and charged in the charger. I wanted to offer myself to the vulture as a meal because I am obviously too stupid to live.

Lesson learned: Always, ALWAYS triple check that you have in fact brought your batteries. Just so this never can happen again I’m going to keep a set of plain old alkaline batteries (which hold a charge much longer than rechargeables) in my camera bag

Dani and I went to the Flower Show for her birthday. I thought I’d be able to get some great pictures of all the pretty flowers and displays. Silly human.

I took over 200 shots. Out of those I have about 50 that don’t look like pure shit and even those are either blown out or grainy as hell. I simply don’t have the skill to shoot steadily in anything less than great light without either a tripod (no room with the crowds) or by dialing the ISO up to where the shots are more grain than subject. I’d like to blame the camera for having a noisy sensor at high ISO but I know most of the blame lays on my lack of skill.

I have had a fascination with photography for years. I’ve never been any good at it but I still love it. I started shooting with a little P.O.S. pocket camera, then graduated to a hand-me-down Pentax k1000 from my brother. Eventually I found digital cameras and loved the freedom from film. Today I shoot using a Canon Powershot S5 IS. It’s rather nice for a “point-and-shoot”, having a hotshoe and a 12x optical zoom, and I don’t feel like I need a DSLR, at least not for a while. That being said I do want to upgrade my kit a bit.

What I have:

• 58mm adapter
• Lens hood
• Adjustable flash
• Cheap tripod
• 2X 2 G.B. SD cards
• Lenspen
• 2 sets of batteries

What I want:

• Polarizing and neutral grad filters – I hate post processing (I’m allergic to Photoshop) so those two filters would help me get the shots I want in the first place.
• New flash – The flash I have is quite old and is ever so slightly laggy, even with new batteries.
• A better tripod – The one I have is about what you’d expect for a $35 tripod. That is, it holds the camera and is steadier than shooting by hand, but just. I’d like one that is truly steady
• A bigger bag – While I already lament the fact that my camera is too big to just throw into my backpack and go I need more room in my camera bag. As it is the camera, hood, flash, and such barely fit
• Bigger faster SD cards – What digital photographer doesn’t
• More batteries – Ditto