Howling wind, warmth

Today started cool and gray. The temperature rose, and rose some more. Warmth...

The clouds parted to show brilliant blue, and then the wind blew the clouds over the color once more.

Fading colors

Yellow, red

eToy!

The wonders of a new toy...

Yes, I know, the riches of new (electronic) toys have been surrounding me lately. Yesterday another one joined me.

You know I like playing with cameras. And you know I like writing, playing with words. But did you know that I also like reading? It's always been a problem when I head out on vacation figuring out how many books I need to keep me happy. And once I guess at the right number of books, I need to find a place to stash them in my luggage. My last trip was easy since I was traveling in my 4-wheeled fossil-fuel-powered vehicle so I could stash a bag of books in the car. When I'm flying, or when I'm traveling by bicycle - well, that's another story entirely.

I've been eyeing Amazon's Kindle (wireless reading device) for what seems like months now. At first it was just a curiosity, and then... With the release last week of the next generation Kindle, I jumped. While the carrying books while traveling issue is what pushed me over the edge, I'm sure that I'll be reading from my Kindle at home too.

Does that mean that I'll stop visiting bookstores? I don't think so. There's a certain class of books that I'll always want on real rather than electronic paper. And there's an enjoyment in wandering through the shelves, letting books jump out and grab my eyes.

Yes, I really am addicted to books. I suspect that I will soon be addicted to my Kindle too.

Fire to fog

I left the house at a perfect time this morning to see paintings in the sky. The clouds were lit with fire from the rising sun and then...

A misty fog descended, colors faded into grays.

Beauty in the morning.

Sunshine by the sea

Another wet walk

It's a weekend day, and lately that means there is a pretty good chance of it being a wet day.

It was a day of pretty much non-stop rain. Unlike last weekend, it stayed rain, with temperatures hovering in the low 50s. It was a good day for a walk, and yes, my new baby camera did accompany me (sheltered by an umbrella).

(Camera lust) satisfied

Oh! Denise was pulled in again by the desire for a new camera. Cameras are like computers, there is always something new and interesting coming out. And sometimes...

Canon announced the S90 with an approximate availability date of October. Now I know that Denise wasn't looking for another camera, but there was something about this one that tugged at her. She's quite happy with her dSLR, a Canon 40D, but she also likes to always have a little walk-around camera. Yes, you're absolutely right, she did already have one. The thing is, like most of the teeny tiny cameras, her baby camera didn't have manual settings on it. The camera did a good job of setting the settings, but sometimes Denise just wants more control. You know that about her, don't you?

No one had an exact delivery date, so Denise signed up for email notification from B&H Photo, and she also started checked around for availability. Last Friday was one of those days, and she saw that while B&H still didn't have the camera, it showed as in stock at Amazon.com. Hmmm...

That hmmm... moment didn't last too long. Denise jumped on and ordered her new toy, and it showed up on Tueday. Funny thing is, when she went back to the Amazon site later that day it was already out of stock again.

She's been wandering with this new baby camera this week. I think maybe it's time I learn to use the different camera settings. I know, I can always set this camera on automatic, but I think I'll play with the manual settings too. (You know it's really my camera, don't you? I just let Denise borrow it.) I've included two photos below, an official shot of it from the Canon web site, plus a photo of me with my new toy. It's my size camera!

--- Rover

---

I did have a bit of an argument with myself over this one. I like to have a pocketable camera so I can capture images that come upon me, and I already had a small (fully automatic) camera. This one pulled me in with the ability to shoot in manual modes, and with the ability to capture images in RAW format. It wasn't a need, but it was a strong desire.

I've been walking with my new toy this week, usually in the early evening with less than spectacular light.

I had a twinge of "oh crap, what did I do!" when I looked at the first photos I shot Tuesday evening. Luckily I was shooting both RAW and JPG, and it was quite clear when I looked at the JPGs that the camera was fine but that something was going wrong when the RAW images were imported into Lightroom. The horizon wasn't right - it was strongly curved, sometimes bowing to the top of the image, sometimes to the bottom. Yikes! Then I realized that the colors were off too. I posted a thread over on Digital Grin to see if anyone else was experiencing the same oddness. I'm not alone... apparently it's a case of waiting for Adobe to incorporate converters for some recently released cameras, including my S90. I filed a support case on the Adobe site, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for a fix. For now, I'm using Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) as the first step in converting my photos to a format that is viewable online.

For anyone who is interested in an ongoing discussion about this, click to the Lightroom / Canon S90 = curved horizon thread in the Digital Grin forum.

Am I happy? Absolutely! The photos in my blog entries from Wednesday and Thursday this week were taken with my new toy. I'd say it did a nice job.

If you'd like to see more of this week's getting used to a new camera exercise, the photos are all tagged with a keyword, viewable at http://www.denisegoldberg.com/keyword/canon%20s90. Let me know what you think!

Worthy of a smile

I was driving home from work, coming up on the green in Andover center when I saw a sight that made me smile. There was a group of boys on the right side of the road, a single boy on the left. Two of them - one on each side - appeared to be playing a game of tug of war, pulling on a rope that crossed the road. They were intent, crouching down a bit, pulling, pulling.

I was already moving slowly on this residential street just outside of the town center, but I slowed a bit more before passing them. The rope? It was imaginary! That scene was deserving of a smile and a quick thumbs up to the perpetrators.

Patterns