I went to the back yard seeking photos of the full moon at perigee and all I found were these crappy lanterns.

Edit: The sky cleared later on, and I took a few shots:

Unfortunately the moon was directly overhead at this point, appearing much smaller in the sky than earlier in the evening. Still, a reasonable photo when cropped.

I finally got to play with my new toy last night- my new Canon 5D MkII DSLR. So far, I'm really enjoying it. I shot these at ISO 6400 with barely any light at all:

Focus isn't great on some, as I was focusing manually - too dark for AF, and I'm out of practice. (The last time I had to manually focus was in college shooting sports with Nikon F4's and manual focus lenses.)

The video in the same lighting conditions is less impressive, but I think the stuttering is directly linked to the ancient memory card I was using:

Impressions so far:

• Focus is pretty good - extremely fast, though I need to play with the settings to highlight a specific focus point. Wish they were spread out more, like on Nikons.
• The viewfinder is awesome. Much better coverage than Nikon's consumer cameras. Nearly as good as my old F5, with almost 100% coverage of the image. Makes manual focusing much easier, even with a slowish lens (f/4).
• Camera and lens feel like they're hewn from solid metal. I guess they are, in part, but it's a big shock moving from my D70. The downside (for some) is that it's a good bit heavier, even without a battery grip on the bottom, which I'll probably get eventually. Lens in this case is the kit 24-105 f/4 IS. The 70-200 f/4 IS actually feels lighter.
• Low light performance is pretty impressive, at least with stills. I need to do a lot more testing, but images at 6400 have less grain than images at 1000 on the D70. Of course, since I don't have a Canon flash (yet), they need to be.
• For shooting video, an external microphone is needed. The internal mic is mono-only, and it's located right next to the lens mount, where it picks up the noise of the image stabilizer and focus motors. That's the constant crackling you hear in the video. Luckily the 5D MkII (unlike the Nikon D90) has a microphone port, and mini shotgun mics can be had fairly cheaply.

Now, is anyone looking for Nikon gear for Christmas?

I present Soren Ray Yates, born 9:42 AM, 7lbs, 3.9oz.

From my early evening drive.

Tonight was Christmas card picture night. The Wife had asked me about a dozen times to not forget to bring my tripod home from work. Then she took about 3 hours to get ready for her on-camera debut, while I set up by the fire (in 80 degree weather).
I did everything in my power to reach a calm, happy state.
Of course, we ordered our photo cards online from QOOP, so they'll probably arrive on the 15th...of January.

= your moment of Zen.

Based on reviews I found online, I purchased a Nikon S7c digital camera.

Yes, I already have a Nikon D70, but I wanted something small Betsy or I could carry around without looking like complete geeks, and her 2-megapixel Nikon CoolPix 2500 has seen better days. Plus, the S7c had a killer feature - it could connect to any WiFi access point, and happily blast its images out over the intArweb to any email inbox.

Coupled with a little Drupal hackery, I figured this would be a cool way to post photos on our sites remotely, with no computer involved.

Oh, but it was not to be. It turns out this little Nikon is one of the worst designed cameras I've ever encountered.

There were a few immediate annoyances:

Connections. While S7c comes with a regular USB cable, the only way to connect it to a computer is by way of a small plastic dock. This is also the only way to charge the camera. Going anywhere? better make sure you bring the dock, the USB cable with the bulky ferrite donut on the end, and the two-piece power cord/brick assembly.

Menus. The interface to this thing was incredibly obtuse, and written partially in Engrish. How do I turn on the damn WiFi? Hell, how do I set the damn date?

But the worst part:

I hate manuals. I don't use them. But for the life of me, I could not figure out how to enable the WiFi features. I just kept getting "Profile not registered" when I tried to connect to my home AP, which it could clearly see. So I crack open the 100 page manual printed on onion skin.

It tells me that I have to attach the camera to my computer and use the Wireless Setup application.

Ok, fine.

But the aforementioned application doesn't seem to exist on either of the disks that came in the box. I go to Nikon's site and try and find the software. I download version 1.1 (though the search engine says there's a version 2.0 out there somewhere, I never find it). In the fine print: Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 (powerPC only). Great. That's not going to work so well on my Intel MacBook, now is it.

I search some more and finally found software that would let me configure the profile the camera was bitching about. At least I thought so, but it turns out that didn't work either.

Apparently, you have go through this setup process for each access point you want to connect to. And then sacrifice a chicken over the thing to get it to work. I didn't have a chicken, so I'm sending the thing back.

I finally uploaded some of my old photos (mostly from 9 years ago!).

I've sunk a bunch of money into photo gear over the years, but it's sad that some of the best stuff I've shot was taken almost a decade ago, using a little manual Fuji SLR and just a 50mm lens. I'm definitely not trying hard enough any more. Clicky clicky, gentle reader. One of my new year's resolutions is to invest more time in reviving all of my hibernating hobbies - cycling, kayaking, hiking, and of course, photography.

We'll see how that works out.

From the lovely wife on our way to dinner on Friday:

"Honey, do you have a car problem?"

Yes, I probably do. I took a perfectly good Porsche and traded it for a ridiculous 500hp BMW M5, filled with enough gadgets to occupy even Morgan for hours. Three months later, I've traded that perfectly good M5 on another BMW - a Z4 M Coupe. This car casts off any pretense of practicality by eschewing any rear doors, or seats for that matter. And it's bright red, so my next post may be dictated from my cell in the BCDC or the Chatham County Jail. Not that I speed, mind you.

Yes, that's Blondie, who is admittedly the dimmer of our two pomeranians. And yes, she's strapped to the wife's chest with some sort of inhumane contraption that has stolen what little dignity the dog has left.

Don't try this at home, kids.