We just returned from visiting my family in Texas. While we were there, we were fortunate enough to encounter several different animals out in the wild. We went to Cullinan Park Conservancy, which is a huge area with walking trails and animals including birds, beavers, frogs, butterflies, snakes, ducks, and alligators. We visited during the …
Design Evolution: The Nikon D2
I enjoy the evolution of products. I love technical evolution - changes in speed, density, capabilities - and I love design evolution as well. I've chronicled it for my Macs, and my cameras are no different. I own two representations of Nikon's first and second generation professional DSLRs: the D1H and the D2Xs. I will …
Thoughts on the Z8
I ordered my Nikon Z8 last week and now there is little I can do but think about it until it ships. I ordered within the first 15 minutes of availability and feel like I have a good chance to be part of the first shipment on Thursday, but there's no way to verify that. …
My Next Camera is Here
In October I said I wanted my next camera to essentially be a Z9 without the battery grip. Last week, the rumors indicated the Z8 would be exactly that. Nikon's announcement today confirmed it: the Z8 is a Z9 without the grip. Same sensor, same fps, same autofocus, same customizability, almost the same buttons, even …
May 10th
I called it the Z7 III back in October, but it was the same idea. Well it's finally coming: on May 10th Nikon will announce what I expect to be my next full-frame camera, the Z8. According to rumors, the Z8 will be a "miniature Z9" with the same 46 MP sensor without mechanical shutter, …
Flowers BTS
🎶 "Smooth like butter, like a criminal undercover..." Whoops, wrong BTS. This is behind the scenes, behind the scenes of the flower images I've recently posted. I've mentioned my "studio" which consists of nothing more than my dining room table, some foam board, and some rag-tag lighting, but I've never shown it. I thought it …
Titanic Honor and Glory
I've been into the Titanic since I wrote a book report about it in fourth grade. During my research, I came across Titanic: An Illustrated History, a huge, detailed book; one of the most comprehensive on the ship. It's full of beautiful paintings by Ken Marschall that bring the ship to life so well that …
Charts & Graphs: Local Photo Storage
I've been talking a lot about my backup strategy recently and how I have both local and cloud components in it. While we use Time Machine for regular backups of our Macs, I've been using external drives to store our photos for many years. I've got two RAIDs that I use for that purpose. As …
Adventures in Focus Stacking
I posted recently about taking tulip photos in my "studio" and experimenting with focus stacking to create images that put more of the subject in focus. I don't have a camera that can automatically take a series of images that are easy to stack, so I've been trying to do it by manually adjusting the …
Onto Lillies
I enjoy photographing Tulips because they have flat-ish sides which makes it easier to get more of the flower in focus. My first shots of the season didn't quite go as planned, but I've continued buying flowers to photograph. As the revolving door of dying tulips came and went, Sally brought home a bouquet of …
Relatively Ambitious 