Photo LinkLove

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Wonderful animal photography and a look at life in Great Britain. Also showcased are the happenings at the Maxwell Zoo.

http://helenap.wordpress.com/

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, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

I went down to the James River last evening to try out the Nikon D40 that I purchased from Amazon a few days ago. It’s a smaller camera than the D70 (far less expensive too) and it has a superior LCD screen and setup options on the screen. Here is a photo I took with it. I also bought the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor Lens. It does take better photos further away than anything I have used in the past. And it has a stabilization process that makes things clearer. I sent the D70 back to Nikon as well so it was a productive day. Hopefully they can awaken it from its coma and send it home again.

I still love you Nikon D70 wherever you are. Get well soon.

We are heading back to Virginia Beach this weekend and I hope to take a few better photos after learning from my experiences last weekend. Of course you can never tell what you are going to get down there. Things may be completely different and it will have nothing to do with my learning curve.

My learning curve sometimes seems more like a speed bump in the road.

I hope nobody is grossed out my the video of Craig Ferguson’s dream. Let me know if it bothers you. I find him to be extremely funny and Beth thinks I have lost my mind once again.

Amazon ads are making an appearance. It’s curiosity. Would anyone actually use them to make a buying decision?

I am skeptical. But I love Amazon and personally try to keep them in business by running the UPS guy up and down the road with packages.

Everyone have a great weekend. It’s the best time of year with the cool, dry weather and the beautiful fall colors coming soon. Or maybe they have already come to you. Bernie?

I know that Jeff is happily snapping photos up there in New Hampshire. I was in upper NH once camping out. I swear a bear was watching me. It was pretty scary.

Something was watching. Do you ever feel like you are being watched? Halloween is coming! Time for some more stories about UFO’s!  Yikes.

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

Beth and I both enjoyed this sailboat.  Blue is a favorite color for both of us.  Doesn’t this look like a lot of fun?  One person can run things and I bet it goes fast under the right conditions. I will add a few NextGen photos of sailboats here this evening.  They are a cheerful island in a sea of gray photos I took this past weekend.  I’m so sick of looking at most of them.   Everything is gray and white.   I thought maybe the camera was busted after looking at them awhile.  But occasionally a colorful bathing suit or sail will pop up in a photo.

First, the D40 is twice as sensitive to light as the D40x and D80. (The D40’s ISO defaults to ISO 200 instead of the less sensitive ISO 100, making for sharper photos in any light.)

Second, the D40 is far more flexible with flash in daylight. The maximum shutter speed of every Nikon other than the D40 when used with flash is only 1/250 second, while the D40 easily shoots at 1/500 with flash with no loss of performance.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

It’s pretty interesting stuff ( I thought my D70 defaulted to ISO 200).  He has without question guided me towards a lens that has been just amazing in terms of taking photos thru a wide range of distances with amazing clarity.

It’s a miracle! I bought mine in November 2005 and love it. It’s replaced an entire bag of lenses. All I bring anywhere is my 18-200mm, and maybe my 12-24mm for 99% of everything I shoot.

It’s small, fun, flexible, sharp and fast. VR, instant auto/manual focus override and macro and zooming all work perfectly. This lens is too much fun!–Ken Rockwell

He is talking about the Nikon 18-200mm  VR

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200.htmI

You can save a lot of money reading this guy.  I swear.  Eventually I will get a Nikon D700 most probably.  But right now I still have too much to learn to plunk down 2500 bucks for a camera.   Although I did spend that much for a computer a few years ago (it’s all about conditioning).    And  televisions can easily cost that much these days.   But some of these cameras are heavy.  And this one ( the D40) is supposed to be very light.  I saw a couple of guys at the beach this weekend with some very heavy cameras and lenses sitting on a tripod.  I’m just not ready to go there yet.  i want to travel light and (hopefully) capture more just by being in the right place at the right time.

I was looking here yesterday evening and just sort of staring at the blog.  Feeling relatively empty after a week of turmoil and just amazed also at all the things I have done here in the past month.

Lots of creative stuff for an old geezer and maybe that’s what blogging will do for you after awhile.  Like anything else if you pursue it over a period of time you will learn some things and grow in different ways.  I was amazed as I went back to the beginning of our  trip in August.  But now I’m feeling pretty much empty.  When that happens it is always a good time to try and get out to take more photos.  Photos are the fuel and the Nikon D70 is the fuel tank.  It is rather small by today’s standards but then the fuel comes in micro-bits.

Beth tells me that the National Folk Festival will not be coming here this year but Richmond has managed to retain all the sponsors and plans to do the same thing again.   Hopefully many of the same talented people will be here plus some more.  Smile everyone!  Click.

Actually that’s not the way we take photos here.  We like to go for the candid shot.  And it’s difficult to get birds to smile.  Their beaks are a little too stiff.

And then we will be going up to northern Virginia to see my daughter and her family.   We have not seen their new home in Leesburg, Virginia.   It’s a pretty picture perfect part of the state so there should be more photo opportunities there.   As well as my grandchildren of course.  But not to worry they are all part of the paranoid wing of the party (I mean family) and like Beth will never be seen online.   Or rarely.  I have managed to sneak one or two photos of the kids into the blog but don’t tell anyone.

Have a nice weekend everyone.  The nice weather is finally coming in many places.  Hopefully the storms have passed and some of us can enjoy life a bit more again.