We went to Outer Banks North Carolina a few weeks ago and one of the really cool things we did was a wild horse tour. Wild horses were brought over by Europeans and they are protected in a refuge. We took a tour with a company that drives you out across quite a bit of …
Memories with my Father: Star Wars
On January 31, 1997 Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope returned to theaters in a new Special Edition to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It included remastered film and audio tracks as well as new special effects and enhancements. I was 12 years old and had somehow never seen it on TV or at a …
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 …
G70 Likes & Dislikes
OK, let's take a break from cameras for just a moment and switch to... cars. I originally wrote this in 2020 after owning my car for a couple months but never published it because I wanted more time to get used to it. Not having a daily commute to Portsmouth or Exeter combined with not …
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 …
Sony a6100 First Impressions
I've had my Sony a6100 for about four weeks now and I'd like to share my first impressions. Four weeks is a bit long for a first impressions article, but the weather wasn't great for a bit and I needed some time to get to know it. Anyway, here it is. Unexpected Surprises It shipped …
Z50 Autofocus Experiences
I purchased my Z50 for many reasons — silent shooting, exposure preview, fast continuous burst speed, good video capabilities — but one primary reason: Eye Autofocus. The other features are great, but I can get by without them on my DSLRs that offer the same or higher resolution and burst speed. Eye AF is supposed to be …
Sony a6100
I'm really enjoying my Nikon Z50 and dipping my toe into Nikon's mirrorless capabilities. I've been able to try out its much-criticized autofocus and I can see how it affects my shooting situation. I'm willing to wait for the Z9's autofocus to trickle down, but I still can't stop thinking about how much better Sony …
Relatively Ambitious 