Over the last few weeks there has been a movie being filmed at Mount Hermon as part of the summer program. After a small bit part earlier in the film, I got to participate again, this time playing a paparazzi photographer at a red carpet event. Of course I took the shots for realzies and it was actually a really fun time. I also got to borrow a Canon 580 flash for the evening. I don’t currently have an external flash and since it is a part of Canon’s big summer sale, I’ve been thinking about picking one up. While the majority of my low light shooting is at Vintage and in situations (like during the service) where using a flash isn’t a real option, it still would be a very useful tool to have. The onboard flash on the 30D is woefully inadequate and as I’m looking toward a 5D (which doesn’t have a flash) as my future camera it’s something I’ll need eventually anyway. Head on over to flickr to check out the shots.

PrizeFight: Nikon D80 vs Canon Rebel XTi

So Cnet has a prize fight on their front page right now between the Canon Rebel XTi and the Nikon D80. Guess what, the $300 more expensive Nikon wins. I really don’t understand how they picked the D80 and not the D40 as the camera to compare the XTi with. The D40 and XTi are actually the same category of entry level hobbyist camera’s. I would rank the D80 as actually encroaching on the “pro-sumer” label the Canon 30D carried (the camera I own, btw). If I had to rank the models top to bottom, I would put the XTi and D40 at about the same at the bottom of the scale, then the Nikon D80, the Canon 30D, the Nikon D200, the Canon 5D, followed finally by the Nikon D1 and Canon 1D pro models about equal on the top. Granted I’m a little biased and never really considered buying the XTi for myself but I gotta stick up for my Canon brethren! Besides, hopefully if I stick up for them now they won’t get mad at me if I buy a Olympus point and shoot to replace my old S1IS.

I went out tonight to take pictures of the moon originally but it had already set buy the time I got out there. Oh well, I ended up with some great star pics instead. I just need to pick up a corded shutter release and I’ll really be in business!

Had my first Santa Cruz Halloween experience tonight. Definitely an interesting event! Head over to flickr to check out my latest shots.

Not much new going on, just some new pics. Check ‘em out!

This last weekend was a lot of fun. I went to the 11am service at Vintage for the first time because I was signed up to take pics of a baby dedication. It was a TON of fun once I got past the original/first odd feelings about taking pictures in a church during the service. Once I got into “photographer mode” though I did fine. It is kind of funny because I can kind of tell the exact moment I changed how I take pictures. The other part of taking pictures during the service was using my newest lens. Nothing special this time, but I love it none the less. I went over the hill on Saturday and picked up a Canon 50mm f1.8 and it is an awesome indoor/low light lens. I shot all Sunday morning, some Sunday evening and then a couple more shots tonight after dark. Since it opens up so far you can shoot at relatively slow ISO speeds (around 400) verses some of the lenses that don’t open as far and force you to shoot at ISO 1000+. The difference in the graininess of the photos is night and dark. The shots with the 50mm are sharp and clear and spot on with the coloring. The shot I took tonight was even more impressive to me because of the fact that it was literally pitch black outside except for the one spot light across the street and yet it turned out awesome. The other change in my shooting is that I have changed over to shooting in RAW. Once I spent some time in Digital Photo Pro, the software that ships with my camera, and got used to working with RAW it really is a better format. Not only do you basically have a digital negative, the way you can control the exposure and lighting in a given picture makes it much, much better than regular JPG files. Not to mention the fact that I can edit the photo all I want without needing to worry about the JPEG compression screwing up the crispness of the shot. Anyway, I’m falling asleep as I type this so I’m off to bed. zzzzzz

Well, I have had an incredibly busy last five days! Colin, my old college roommate, was down here for the weekend and we had a great time. We just hung around Santa Cruz on Saturday for Saint Patrick’s Day. We had Irish food and Guinness at 99 Bottles, a local restaurant on Pacific Ave. Then Sunday we went over to San Jose to hang out with some of his car friends. It was fun to have things back like they were in college for a few days. George out having great adventures! Colin talked about coming back down during the summer for the classic car races at Laguna Seca and that would be fun too. I just need to get Adam down here now!

Monday morning, after Colin left, we took off for the Mount Hermon staff retreat at Tenaya Lodge just outside of Yosemite National Park. It was a total blast! The chance to just hang out with people was awesome. I spent much of the time with Danny and Marci but I had a chance to talk with some other people too. I think the three highlights were playing card games each night, going into Yosemite on Tuesday, and having breakfast with Roger Williams (the director of MH) and his wife Rachel on Wednesday.

Then, as if all that wasn’t enough excitement, I got back and started poking around the net and discovered that Circuit City just dropped the price on the 30D package I’ve been looking at for a few weeks now! So I jumped back in the car and headed down to Soquel to buy a new camera. I am now the proud owner of a brand new Canon 30D dSLR. It is an 8.2 megapixel digital SLR (the kind with the changeable lenses) and I’ve already been having fun taking pics with it. After buying it and discovering that the battery comes charged (big props to Canon for that) I went down to Lighthouse point and started snapping away. After taking maybe 20 shots of random things this family asked me to take their portrait with the dad’s camera. He had a D80 so we chatted for a few seconds about the differences. I was kind of 50/50 on which camera I would end up with but I think I’m glad I stuck with the Canon. Not only does it have the compact flash compatibility so my 4.0 gig card works with it, but it is also so similar to the 20D I was using last summer that the learning curve is pretty easy to get used to. Anyway, I wanted to get one before Zach’s graduation so I could take pics with it there. Now I have one and I’m ready to go! Anyway, enough for now. Head over to my Flickr page to check out my first round of pics. You can find it here. Enjoy!