341/365 - Jim - Montreal River

( f/18 18mm 1/160 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

This is a bay off of the Montreal River in Ontario. It was really scenic there and the water was really clear and glass-like at times. I took this as one photo and then cropped it 5 times. Then I merged them all together as a collage. I didn't catch any fish the first day there.

277/365 - Jim - Dutch Wonderland

( ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Today we went to Dutch Wonderland so that Jameson could go on rides and see the Thomas the Tank Engine show. Nolan was able to go on a couple things like the train, but was too little for most of the stuff. I just took a bunch of snapshots there, so I decided to compile them into a collage.

218/365 - Jim - Nolanameson

( f/11 35mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I wondered what this would look like, so I bribed Jameson so he would get his photo taken. Then got Carol to hold Nolan so I could get his photo. Aside from their ears, they look pretty alike. It wasn't easy to match them up. I cut off their chins because Nolan has a much shorter face and Jameson's chin extended a bit lower. I think their chins are the only other thing that is different, so it's too bad I couldn't show that. I'm actually surprised at how well their faces matched up.

140/365 - Jim - Valentine Brownie

( f/4 38mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

My mother made some brownies for church yesterday. She cut them out in heart shapes and drizzled white chocolate on them, then added a heart on top with red chocolate. She brought us some to eat and there were only two left when my wife suggested I take pictures of them. I grabbed my copy of The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2 by Scott Kelby and read the page where he describes how to do food photos. He suggests using a close-up lens, so I put the Canon 500D on my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Then used it at f/4 to blur everything but the brownie. Scott suggests sitting by a window to get natural light, but it was dark when I shot this, so I used a flash with softbox to the side and a little behind. There were quite a few shots that I liked, so I made them into a collage with Picasa. If you are an amateur photographer, I highly recommend the two Digital Photography books by Scott Kelby. You can get Vol 1 & 2 for just under $30. They are super easy to read and have an example photo on every page.

120/365 - Jim - Panasonic AG-HMC150

( f/8 50mm 1/125 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

I have finally upgraded to HD video. This is the Panasonic AG-HMC150. It records to SDHC cards, so there is no tape to bother with. A big bonus to that is that it records to AVCHD, which my PS3 can play. I took a few little videos tonight and put the SD card into my PS3 and it played them without any issues and the quality was superb. This is going to be a lot of fun. I need to learn how to use it though and there isn't a whole lot of information online yet. I may have to start up yet another blog to document what I have learned...

The main reason I got this was to film my children as they grow up. I only have a couple short clips of myself turning 1 and almost walking. The quality is horrible, so it will be nice in 30 years to at least have videos that are the best quality of today. Who knows what TV will be like then...

025/365 - Jim - Language

( f/14 48mm 1/250 sec ISO 200 Nikon D300 )

Theme is sign. I thought I would just go outside and take a photo of a road sign, but it got dark too quickly. So I had to think of something else. My wife knows the alphabet in sign language and uses it to tell me who she is talking to on the phone. Only problem is, I can't read sign language.