Drifter's Corner
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I was a little off-put by the amount of fast-food trash around the Daphne Beach area during a sunset walk with the family, yesterday. It's a shame when folks don't leave things the way they find them.
Zen Moments
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I very much admire Zen ideals and I do, in my life and career try to exhibit some stereotypical zen-like qualities of peace, calm, slowness-to-anger, etc.
I try, anyway and usually fail. :)
But that's the problem with being passionate about things, when you actually care about outcomes, it is hard to react like a robot.
I encountered a company recently in my programming world that has these zen-references on their marketing face. I've found the people in the company to be decidedly un-zen to deal with.
Inflexible, short-sighted, combative and defensive, yet obviously brilliant. I dunno, I'm sure it is all my fault but I was expecting Jeff Bridges and ended up finding Steve Jobs. It was especially surprising b/c they were a marketing firm and usually sales and marketing people are more.. 'bright and shiny'.
I keep trying to remind myself that the reason they frustrate me so much is that it reminds me of my own obstinance. :)
Floating on a Pond of Air
/I was over @ my neighbor's garden and I was struck that the way the background fell-off into a bokeh, it looked a little like these were floating on a pond of air.
The Faces of my Career(s)
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A friend of mine posted on Facebook recently, about me that "Some people have hobbies, you just go master several careers." and of course he was being funny and flattering and was really just referring to my tendency to research and superficially absorb many different things. The operative term being, superficially.
I suppose that's the great thing about information dissemination in the age of Google. In times of past, we'd have to study as an apprentice under a tradesmen for years to get the meat-and-potatoes of a particular trade. Even Da Vinci called someone Maestro, early on. Now, enthusiastic self-published youtubers are happy to show you their skills.
That isn't to say it is reasonable to expect a person to gain a full mastery of a topic via 'googling it' but certainly it seems to be the way to overcome roadblocks.
In my programming career, I've used search engines plenty to solve errors, which are usually not errors in programming syntax or algorithms but challenges in the programming environment or frameworks. Visual Studio Wonkiness, Apple xCode unexpected behaviors, etc. I know plenty of highly talented and skilled developers that use Google, Bing, StackExchange, GitHub and others to build nearly all of their code. I think that pattern of find, copy-and-paste code will one day soon be replicated via a clever code-generating Neural Network.
For every case of the good-spirited, brilliant-minded problem solver helping solve others problems or taking the time to post solutions to common problems, there seem to be 4 or 5 other internet-forum-trolls who are just angry about something, contributing only snarkiness. These were the mean kids in your kindergarden class that snickered out loud as you raised your hand to ask teacher a question.
Then, in photography there is this amazing wealth of information, much of it for free or cheap to teach you about anything you'd want to know about cameras, technique, software, publishing, printing, editing, etc. It is the reason why there is such a flood of amazing photography. Almost everyone has access to the Ansel Adams equivalents of our time through social media, from which to study and learn technique.
Between the incredible pace of technology growth and understanding and the accessibility of the arts to everyday people like myself, I feel we are truly amidst another renaissance of sorts.
That is, of course assuming that the internet meanies don't squash innovation and expression with cynicism and wrong-minded comments and posts.
Must... shoot.. in.. RAW!!
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I will freely admit that ever since I started using Lightroom a few years back, I've become somewhat of a "Raw Snob".
What's that? Our refrigerator doesn't shoot in RAW? It's crap!
But.. honey.. it's just a refrig... nevermind.
It's like I'm channeling Admiral Ackbar "It's a TRAP!" but instead "It MUST BE RAW!"
And yes.. I think I fell into the trap laid by some over-opinionated 'professional' who wrote on some photography blog somewhere that shooting in RAW + JPEG is stupid and needless...
Yet, now I find myself cleaning up/ archiving brackets of photos from 2011 and I have to say, I really wish I had out-of-camera JPEGs for these shots, so that as I delete the 40+ meg RAW files at least I'd have a pure example of the image for historical posterity.
So, what spawned this is I had turned off Camera RAW inadvertently and went out to shoot the Zinnias in my wife's garden. At first I cussed alot when I saw the herd of JPEGS evacuating the memory card but then it occurred to me,
"Dang, that camera has pretty good color!"
What's a Corellian to do? For now, I guess it’s continue exporting to JPEG and deleting those RAWs from 2011.. :)
The Seven Dwarves' Cottage
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Can't overstate enough how fun this ride was. :)
Jim the Ragtime Piano Plater
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Playing in the Magic Kingdom, since 1983!
Making the Best of the View at Hand
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When I heard that the Polynesian would be under construction when we got there I was concerned that our view would be jacked up.
(not that you spend all that amount of time in the hotel room, anyway)
I actually didn't mind the view of the Bungalows under construction one bit. In true Disney fashion, when they are done they will fit in the environment as if they were always there!
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
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This was a fantastic ride! Just enough thrilling to be fun for the adults but not too much so as to be overly scary for the little ones.
It is interesting b/c you can feel the train braking to keep a smooth speed and control descents.
Some interesting queue games as well.
If you can't get a fast-pass, it is still well worth the wait. Twice the sign said 90 minutes, and it was only about 60 both times.
With Eyes to See
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One of the things about being a photographer is I feel that it makes you more aware of the environment and more appreciative of the small things in nature / around us.
I think it's that spacey-ness that we try to medicate out of kids and that formal education tries to exercise from people and replace with structured fact and knowledge recall.
But, I digress..
This little guy was flying around the pool between various plants and after I held still for a bit, he let me get pretty close to snap a shot.
The only (slight) bummer was I had the camera shooting JPEG, not RAW but I was pleasantly surprised by the JPEG's quality.
Your Job for the Next Three Months..
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We stood around in the newer areas of Magic Kingdom, around from the addition, an area called Gaston's Tavern that sells frozen apple juice in collector mugs my kids fight over at dinner. (Though, we have spares now!) :)
This area wasn't really crowded, I guess the rains earlier in the day had thinned out the herds, somewhat..
Anyway, an employee was orienting two new 'cast members' and directed them to stand back a ways to get the best view of the fireworks as he advised, "This will be your job for the next 3 months, how cool is that?"
While I'm sure their jobs will involve a good deal more than watching fireworks I appreciated his enthusiasm.
I was also way happy to be able to shoot fireworks, hand-held (with autofocus!) w/ a crop-sensor lens and get some very usable results. If the A7R is this good, the A7S is going to be incredible for this..
Lines in the Green
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I'm going to write up some more detail in a day or so, however.. I have the A-Mount 24-70mm f2.8 from Sony. I love it. It's substantial, has a great feel, takes great images...
For a Disney trip I rented the EF Mount 24-70 f4 Lens. Reason being I had a credit @ borrowlenses and really wanted to try out the newer lens (plus not fool with the A-Mount to EF Mount adapter in a Disney Park)
I had kind of low expectations for the f4/ EF Mount version of this lens but I have to say that I am very surprised. It's quite a good lens for 1/3 the weight and lower price.
One More Night.. (after tonight)
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..and it's back to my own glorious comfy bed... :)
The Keyhole
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I was surprised the center distant portion of this turned out, since I just bent down and shot it quickly, hand-held in a pretty narly crowd. :)
The Happiest Place on Earth..?
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They Say that Disney is the happiest place on Earth. I hope that isn't true. (a-hem, I happy to know the happiest place on earth for me is on a sailboat but that's for another time)
Disney's always been a cool vacation for us. I remember this band trip in High School, just taking rolls and rolls of film (and most if it not coming out)
Though, this will hopefully be our last trip here for a couple years. Time away, new things and all that..
Normally, I try to shoot the landmarks of the parts without people in the shots. Unfortunately my usual favorite spots are all screwed up with construction walls and equipment. So, this time, I'm working to find new (for me) favorite spots and methods.... I thought it would be different to try to capture the hustle and bustle of this many people, crammed in a park, walking over one another.
Some babies screaming, some kids laughing, some parents doing a little of both.
Again, probably not the happiest place on Earth but there are certainly worse vacations a person could take with kids :)
This was shot hand held so please forgive any slight camera motion!
The Torii
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@ Epcot Today, The Torii in the Lagoon near the Japanese pavilion continues to be one of my favorite things to photograph here.
The lines weren't long at all.
Rain interfered with some of my photography plans but hopefully we can pick those up in a couple days when we go back.
Walkin' w/ a Teeny Camera
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I'm sure that you've noticed, dogs are (can be) territorial. At the dog-walking park or the Sunday afternoon Petsmart trip you often see dogs sniffing each others' butts if given the opportunity. You know, to check each other out. I'm really unsure of what information is exchanged in the event but I would imagine it goes something like this:
*sniff* gender determined
*sniff* indoor / or outdoor pet
*sniff* approximate age determined
et cetera..
Well, photography enthusiasts can be territorial too. Except, I mean, they don't usually do the butt thing. (Although I read about this one unforunate event in New Orleans... but I digress)
I'm serious on the territorial thing, though. Take your camera to a local oft-photographed spot and be aware of the eyes on you from passerby'ers or other photographers.
Thar be some judgin' goin' on Matey.
I mean, if you just rolled up with your fancy new 6D to the Fairhope pier for sunset shots, you don't want to be showed up by that one show off with the 1D X. You won't win the cool kid vote anymore. When we talk about cameras, their capabilities, specifications and attributes, there is an x-factor I think we often overlook or fail to discuss. What does your camera (and lenses) look like and what do you look like when using?
The person with a carbon fiber-legged tripod and gigantic precision head with the dials and markings of a Davinci contraption with that 8lb DSLR perched atop like a pissed off-Raven: That's a professional.
The person with the itty-bitty point-and-shoot-looking camera? Pay them no mind. Santa put that under the tree and they are taking it for a whirl. Move along, nothing to see here. /Amateur!
Since I've been shooting mirrorless for awhile, I've had a tendency to use the mirrorless cameras as my Harry Potter invisibility cloak. If I could spare the trade-off by using my APS-C sized glass, I'd go incognito mirrorless camera and no one would mind me any attention whatsoever. I could shoot in peace without folks commenting on gear. If I had the have the full-frame lense, then I'd carry my own pissed-off looking Raven (Nikon in my case, usually) amongst it's shiny gi-normous tripod.
You bet the comments come. "Wow, you must be some sort of pro-feshunal!" :)
Because, in photography we've been taught that bigger is always better. More length on the lens, more aperture, more megapixels, more ISO always means better gear, right?
I will admit, too, that if I were to pull up and shoot a wedding with a mirrorless camera, there would be some amateur-hour comments under the judgy breaths of attendees, regardless of the capability. Bring that D4 and that noise gets shut down with a quickness.
At any rate, my last 2,000 shutter actuations have been with a full-frame mirrorless camera and I'm almost invisible while using it. So far, not one butt-sniff and I'm okay with that. ;)
It's a brave new world where maybe smaller is just-as-good and I appreciate Sony's spirit of innovation bringing Full frame into the Alpha Mirrorless line. I'm not sure if the value will hold on the camera, not sure if it'll hold up to 200k clicks like my last 4 camera bodies but today, at least.. I don't care b/c I'm sure having fun with it.