purplish bits

[solarbird]

I have a decent number of pictures queued up, flower pictures and leaf pictures and a little assortment of random other photos too. That's good, since the time for leaves and flowers is mostly over already.

This flower picture came out grainy, but I like it:


Sovphoto Flowers

I suppose I should shoot at ASA200 when I can; I just leave it at 400 most of the time and never even think about changing it - I like having more shutter-speed options on the low light end, which we have quite a bit of this time of year. The camera has an "auto" setting for the ASA, which would partially solve this problem, I guess, but then I'd be fighting with it over whether the ASA should change or the fstop or the shutter speed, and I'm too much of a control freak in my photography to put up with that.

Mmmm, old-sk00l full-manual metal-body SLRs...

Tuesday's miles: 2.0
Wednesday's token: 0.1 miles
Thursday's token: 0.4 miles
Friday's miles: 2.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1427.7
Miles out of Rivendell: 969.7
Miles out of Lothlórien: 515.7
Miles past Rauros Falls: 97.8
Miles to Isengard: 363.9

Why, no, I don't miss Newt Gingrich, why do you ask?

Our Friends, the Saudis seem to have been giving the administration political cover for making few or no real changes in Iraq. (Well, other than a large troop add, I suppose, which might actually help provide some security were they trained properly. But that simply is not happening.) That's interesting.

Mind you, I halfway have to wonder whether the Saudi government wouldn't actually almost like doing something on their own - they have a lot of people of fighting age - which in that country, means young men - and war is a traditional way of giving them something to do. But I'm also sure the Saudi government doesn't want so many people trained in military affairs coming back home, so I don't tend to think that's really very like to happen. So I really have my doubts about the credibility of these statements on their part, which is why I think it's more about political cover than anything else.


THE LIBERTINE
Okay, we didn't want to get into this, but you're a lazy, perverted... rockstar. Everything about you is idealistic and romantic, with that sassy hint of danger. It's the hint of danger that makes things so damn spicy. Oh, there will be exposés, and films, and biographies, all about you and your fabulous excesses. Even though you're selfish and greedy... we're charmed.

You're equally susceptible to seduction, because you're a sucker for fantasy. You fall in love at the drop of a hat, as long as the hat is stylish and nice to you. We want to be your hat.

Comments

[cow.livejournal.com]

Quote from the linked article:

"Gingrich said he will not decide whether he is running for President until September 2007."

*cries at the thought*

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

I believe the Nikon D200 has auto-ISO setting, my dad was telling me about it one time. You choose the aperture as usual; the camera picks ISO based on a minimum shutter speed you've configured. (I don't know whether the min shutter speed can automatically vary based on the lens's focal length; now that would be really clever.)

So if you have $2k spare you're good to go. :) Since this is IMO the only way you would ever want to use ISO, it's a bit of a shame that most cameras don't do this! I certainly wish mine did. But hopefully they will pick it up soon.

I leave my camera set to 200, and turn it up when the shutter speed gets too bad. (Then hopefully I remember to turn it down again; hopefully. One deficiency of my camera is that it doesn't display ISO in viewfinder so it's easy to forget.) If it's a really bright day, I'll change to 100, but 200 is fine. 400 is a little lower quality, and 800 starts getting noticeably grainy. 1600 I never use.

[solarbird]

hork $2K spare

um, no. ^_^

Besides, I like Canon lenses. I really want a digital body to go with the nice lenses I already have. (I put together a big Canon film set right before digital became actually pretty good. DAMMIT.)

[quen-elf.livejournal.com]

Well, the current Canon model 400D looks nice; admittedly, you still need a fair chunk of money to pick that up even if a lot less than $2k... and it still doesn't have the auto-ISO feature! I would expect that since Nikon have done it, Canon will put that into their next models too. Not like it adds anything to the cost.

(The low-end Canons have really teensy viewfinders :( sucks for manual focusing. but otherwise, mine is great.)

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

Hey, I learned photography on an OM-1 (still have it); was a great camera.

[solarbird]

Hey, me too, on my full-metal-body full-manual SLR. It's still the required camera - last I checked, anyway - in college photography classes.

And hell, for that matter, I could get three shots off in two seconds on that thing, refocusing. That's faster than the digital I'm using now.

Sometimes I really miss that camera. But I sure don't miss development time for film.