I decided to get rid of my Nikon Z50 mirrorless camera a couple months ago, but kept my Sony a6100. I brought it to a few soccer games recently to spend some more time with its autofocus and subject tracking capabilities. I brought my Nikon D500 for comparison. Game 1: Not the Best Performance For …
A Few More Modifications to my Lightroom Workflow
I started using Smart Previews earlier this year as a way to save space on my MacBook Air while having access to more photos than I ever had before. That was a good move for me, but generating standard previews and plugging in an external drive for certain types of editing could be a bit …
Continue reading "A Few More Modifications to my Lightroom Workflow"
My Next Camera
Last we left off, I decided that my next camera would be mirrorless and I compared Nikon, Canon, and Sony's offerings. I took Nikon off the table because it couldn't compete but didn't want to sell all of my gear to join the dark side with Canon or Sony. I decided to buy some used …
Crystal Cascade
Last Saturday we took a trip up north to spend the day. We rented a side-by-side and spent a couple hours on the trail. The foliage was near-peak and it was beautiful. We hit the outlets in North Conway and picked up our favorite olive oil, vinegar, and cupcakes. In between, we took a trip …
Buying a D800
I bought a Nikon D800 from eBay in April, a 36 MP full frame camera released in 2012. Why would I buy a decade old camera that's older than my first Nikon, my 2014 D750? Resolution. The D800 was the first camera to offer that level of resolution and it's a stepping stone to the …
Farewell Z50
I bought my Z50 to try out Nikon's mirrorless system, knowing that I most likely wouldn't keep it. I said that I'd play with it for a bit and probably try to sell it while the resale value was still reasonable. That time has come. My Z50 is gone! Why? Really for all the reasons …
A Weekend Portrait Session
I took some photos of the boys over Mother's Day weekend while Sally was in Florida. I thought it would make a nice surprise for the occasion and would give me a chance to practice my portrait skills. I'm generally pretty terrible at portraits. I'm terrible at posing, I'm terrible at lighting, and I'm terrible …
Sony a6100 Autofocus & More
In my a6100 first impressions article, I didn't cover the image sensor or autofocus performance. After using the camera for a bit I've got some thoughts in those areas. Image Quality The sensor is higher resolution (24 MP vs 20 MP) but has similar characteristics to the Z50. The noise levels are similar, the sensitivity …
My Experience with Lightroom Smart Previews
When I tested my Z50 with bird photography I generated a lot of images. In one day I took over 1400 images, which, as it turns out, nearly filled the free space on my MacBook Air. Up until recently I've kept two Lightroom libraries – a full library on my external RAID drive with 40,000 - …
Continue reading "My Experience with Lightroom Smart Previews"
The Z50 and Bird Photography
I started taking bird photography more seriously last year, learning how to get sharper photos, using my giant mega zoom the way I'm supposed to, and buying a pro-level crop-sensor camera with a high continuous frame rate to increase my possible keeper rate. While my Z50 cannot detect birds in its animal eye AF implementation …
Relatively Ambitious 