Day Thirty Eight. Made the trek up to the Muir Woods National Monument. Didn't want to fight with the 50mm f/1.4, so I took my trusty wide angle lens that has served me for so long to make sure I walked away with a pile of shots I was happy with. Lo and behold, I found myself fighting with the light meter. I hope my D70 isn't going the way of the Dodo. The D800 hasn't been announced yet and I don't know what I'd do without a camera ... or even with a camera that has a random number generator where the light meter should be ... Still managed to get a few good shots in and definitely need to go back.

Day Thirty Seven. Celebrated Christmas by wandering down to the coast. Definitely still struggling with the light meter, but I'm definitely sticking with Lightroom.

Day Thirty Six. Figured out where to park to visit Garrapata and went and explored the coastal side of it, then wandered in to Carmel for lunch. This shoot is probably the most experimental set thus far. I'm still really struggling with the light meter and the 50mm f/1.4. I just don't think I should have to go down 3 full stops to get it to expose correctly. I've also made the jump from Photoshop to Lightroom for the post-processing. Photoshop is incredibly powerful, but Lightroom is specifically targeted towards photographers. I don't see myself going back any time soon. And yes, I did get splashed a lot trying to get all of those wave shots ;)

Day Thirty Five. Wandered over to Asilomar to catch the sun set, again with just the 50mm f/1.4. Needless to say, I ran in to some of the most challenging lighting conditions I've ever seen. I'm having a lot of trouble with the light meter and this lens though, even regardless of the sun set. I'm having to stop it way down to get it to expose properly. I'm not immediately sure if it's related to the fact this this is an FX lens on a DX body or if I'm doing something wrong ... but I have my bets.

Day Thirty Four. After getting ever so slightly more lost than I generally prefer looking for Garrapata State Park (which, as it turns out, is all but unmarked), landed in Andrew Molera State Park, which turned out to be more than a suitable substitute. I again only used the 50mm f/1.4 in the hopes of climbing the next section of its learning curve. This time, I experimented with the full range of f-stops, and it turns out that if I shoot it as narrow as it goes (f/16) I might as well have the 18-70mm lens hooked up dialed to 50mm. The 50mm f/1.4 is not a landscape lens ... not that I ever thought it was, but today conclusively proved it. After getting my fill of sea gulls and doing a study on waves (and getting wet), hopped on down to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, where the lighting prevented me from capturing any further shots of the infamous waterfall. I did, however, get in some interesting long exposures of moving water. Really wish I'd had a tripod with me, but oh well ... they came out reasonably well for being hand held :)

Day Thirty Three. Went down into Carmel Valley for a wine tour, again exclusively using the 50mm prime to beat the crap out of the learning curve it came equipped with. Found a lot of interesting subject material that I had no previous experience shooting, and was happy to discover that thanks to the amount of light f/1.4 lets in, I had little to no problem shooting in-doors sans flash, though I quickly found that my preferred white balance setting was not exactly ideal in artificial light. While in the last winery, "Crazy Pete" offered a tractor-pulled wagon ride up to a ranch. Hoping that he wasn't an axe murder, I instantly agreed. I can't say no to adventure! At the ranch, I met a miniature pony with a miniature owner, and did a study on horse eyes. The most amazing thing though (camera-wize anyways) was when we went in to the (still being built) wine cooling cave, and after maxing out the ISO, I was (almost) able to get some cool pictures inside the cave!

Day Thirty Two. First walk around with the new 50mm f/1.4G Prime Lens. Went back down to Lover's Point State Park, where the wild life was as friendly as always. This lens is going to take some serious getting used to. The light meter in the D70 seems to struggle with giving accurate predictions when the lens is wide open. And, the lens does nothing to compensate for high contrast situations ... if anything, having the lens wide open, makes high contrast situations worse, since it lets in so much light. I still think it's really cool that I can see the entire world reflected back in the eye of the squirrel though :)

Day Thirty One. 50mm f/1.4G Prime Lens! Ho-ly crap! I walked around the house shooting random things in low light situations ... I can't believe how much light f/1.4 lets in, not to mention the depth of field. This lens definitely came equipped with a learning curve. :)

Day Thirty. Thanksgiving, yay! Indoor photography, boo! I don't have a portraiture lens and already have trouble with low light conditions. Add to that a night long fight with my Speedlight flash, I didn't walk away with too many exposures worth talking about. But, it's ok ... the food made up for everything. :)

Day Twenty Nine. Tried to go over to Jacks Peak County Park, but it wasn't open at 9:10AM. What kind of park doesn't open until 10 in the morning?! Turned around and made it over to the Point Lobos Ecological Reserve instead - yet another beautiful demonstration of the scenic California coast line. Once again, low light and high contrast situations proved to be my enemies. I need faster glass and the right filter to fight them, but the D800 is rumored to be right around the corner, so I think those problems are about to go away. :)

Day Twenty Eight. Made my way over to Pinnacles National Monument, and though I'm neither sure I know what the pinnacle is, nor what the monument is to, I thoroughly enjoyed my 11.5 mile hike around the mountains. I stuck with the wide angle lens and tried to do both macro and landscape with it to varying degrees of success. It has a decent reproduction ratio, but you have to get really close to your subject to get the most out of it, so keep that in mind while looking at the pictures (yes, plural!) of the tarantulas. I was again fighting the lower bound of the shutter speed that I can use without introducing hand shake ... I decided to keep a few shots despite having "missed" (in particular #0143), and was disappointed that more of them didn't come out. Hopefully, when I (eventually) upgrade to a VR lens, that problem will go away. My favourite for this set is a bit hard to describe succinctly, so I'll simply tell you that it's #0134.

Day Twenty Seven. Made the obligatory trip over to the Golden Gate Bridge, which was covered in the equally obligatory fog. And, if you're wondering if I ever get tired of taking pictures of sea gulls ... well, the answer's no ;). After finally deciding that it was too cold and windy to stay near the water (and, more importantly, that it was lunch time), I made my way over to China Town, where I found some moderately interesting architecture that was mostly obscured by the pervasive power cables for the electric bus system :-/ ... but, the wall murals were amazing! The dismal light (it was overcast) made some of them hard to photograph, but I think the few that I was able to capture came out pretty well. Then, of all things, I found myself in a tunnel and decided to attempt an unsupported, hand-held shot running down the length of the tunnel ... and it came out! I focused a little close, but I still managed the shot with zero hand-shake! I literally could not believe that it came out. May favourite of the set has to be the weather-beaten metal chain hook though. The colours in it are simply stunning. :)

Day Twenty Six. Made the drive up to San Francisco to visit a friend and found myself with a few hours to kill before she got off work, so I grabbed my camera and walked over to a park that was nearby. It was kind of late in the day, so lighting and high contrast subjects were again my greatest challenge. I'm sure there's a filter that would solve my problem, but I really don't want to drop any cash on anything until I get a new body (Nikon, if you're reading this, give me a D800. It's all I want for Christmas, given that I already have my two front teeth :D). Difficult lighting aside, the city combined with the haze and fog produced some really interesting effects. The grain and distortion produced what I'm inclined to call an "old-timey" look that I absolutely did not expect to ever see come out of a digital camera. The set of three of the purple flowers were taken hand held in extremely low light (for me), so I was incredibly happy that they came out. :) My favourite is either one of the ones were the Golden Gate Bridge is swamped in fog or the second one of the purple flowers ... I haven't decided yet. :)

Day Twenty Five. After settling in to my new place in Pacific Grove, I went for a 6.5 mile run around Lover's Point, Perkins Park, Pacific Grove Marine Gardens, and Point Pinos Lighthouse Reservation. My run time was abysmal, but that's only because the view was amazing. It's hard to run fast when you're constantly looking off to the right and having to stop regularly to pick your jaw up off the ground ... so I made the same loop the next day with my camera. I made some friends among the local wild life and discovered an astounding array of colours in the underwater plant-life. I think the close up where you can see the world reflected back in the eye of the squirrel is my favourite. :)

Day Twenty Four. Drove down California's scenic Highway 1. Unfortunately, I managed to make a mess out of my sensor while attempting to clean it before leaving, so I ended up having to delete a lot of pictures I would much rather have kept, but I learned a lot about cleaning the sensor in the process, so I can only be so unhappy about it ... and, I have the perfect excuse to make the drive again :). Photographically, the ridiculous amount of fog in the morning proved challenging, and I had yet another fight with moving water. I think I need to get a monopod (or find some other way to stabilize the camera for long exposure shots), because even if I'm carrying one, I am far too lazy to bother setting up and subsequently breaking down a tripod for every shot.

Day Twenty Three. Hopped over to the astoundingly beautiful Yosemite National Park. This is a place that I will need to spend significantly more time. Every view was simply stunning. The major challenge turned out to be not taking a million pictures that all looked the same ... every time I looked up, I was stunned by what I saw and simply had to take a picture of it, thus all of the duplicates. Photographically, the only real challenge (aside from the usual internal framing battle) was how to combat the blue hue that persists on distant subjects. Over all though, I am quite pleased with the turnout and can't wait to go back!

Day Twenty Two. Popped down to the lowest place in the US, Death Valley and boy was it hot. One hundred and eleven degrees ... in the shade! Needless to say, but I was compensating for an overabundance of sun light. Ignoring that though, these pictures took an astronomically long time to process. Apparently I've changed lenses in the field a bit more than one too many times and have earned quite a bit of dust on my sensor for it. I tried to eliminate most of it, but even after weeks of hunting specs, I'm sure some persisted. That aside, Death Valley offered an amazing contrast in scenery. I can't wait to go back and see the rest of it!

Day Twenty One. Made a quick stop over at the Hoover Dam. If I thought I had ever run in to challenging low light situations before trying to take pictures from inside the dam ... well ... I was wrong. Being inside the dam basically counts as being underground. I would have needed a tripod to get most of the pictures I wanted to take to come out. Oh well ... I did get a few interesting shots and am overall happy with the turn out. :)

Day Twenty. Made the obligatory stop down in the Grand Canyon where the help of a mule was enlisted to ensure the morning's enjoyment. Most of these shots were taken while a top said trusty steed. This caused two things: (1) My distinct lack of truly steady hands were not the cause of many a deleted photo fully of little more than motion blur, and (2) I had to fight significantly harder to find interesting subjects (given that the scenery doesn't change a whole lot when one is at the back of the line of mules). The earlier shots (as you can plainly see) were taken with a higher ISO and incurred the usual noise penalty for it. The most interesting (non-canyon) shots were induced by the sunlight streaming through the level of dust the line of mules kicked up as it made its way into the canyon. Despite the fact that I kept a smaller percentage of shots than usual, I still had a great time snapping all of them and of those I did keep, am quite happy with the turn out, especially when considering they were shot from the back of moving mule! :)

Day Nineteen. Stopped over in Arches National Park for a hike and couple of free climbs. I apparently managed to unlearn most of what I thought I had learned about focusing the wide angle lens ... and managed to forget that depth of field still aplies even when you're not shooting macro. Nobody's interested in how sharp the grass in front of you is if the arch above it is out of bloody focus! I also again struggled with the contrast between the subjects and the sky, but that's nothing new and has very nearly been discussed to death. There was more than once that I wished I had a wider angle lens, but I really think I'm starting to get in line with the "zoom with your feet, not your lens" philosophy. It's really more fun that way anyways :).

Day Eighteen. Took the scenic way across Colorado, which culminated in a stop at the Black Canyon. Having properly learned the position of infinity on my wide angle lens, I was able to keep significantly more of the shots than I was from the previous day. I also tried to practice bracketing more since I was having a good bit of trouble getting the camera to accept the fact that the sky was vastly brighter than the subject material. Again, shots with too high of contrast between the sky and the subject proved to be nearly unshootable. I'm quite certain that either I am doing something wrong, I need the type of filter who's name currently escapes me, or newer cameras are better at compensating. I'm mostly inclined to believe that option one and two are roughly the same thing and that option three should be explored sperately since the D70 is pushing a decade old now.

Day Seventeen. Popped in to Colorado Springs to have a visit with my Aunt and Uncle who live there. I'd never been to Colorado before and they were nice enough to call in the official deer greeting party. I had a wonderful wander around their back yard (if it can really be called that) chasing the deer, attempting to coo them into holding still as I inched ever closer. After they wandered off a bit faster than I could follow, I went up the remaining bit of slope to discover a wonderful view of the sun setting over the Rockies. After being wowed for a bit longer than I'll generally admit to, I came down, had a nice dinner and then popped over to the Garden of the Gods where I found some marvelous rock formations and an amazing view of the clouds which I entirely failed to capture in focus, but were too stunning to not upload. The big lesson of this trip was the exact nature of where exactly inifinty is on my wide angle lens in relation to the inifinity symbol.

Day Sixteen. Stopped in Kansas City on my trip across the country. Walked around to experimet with city shooting using the wide angle lens. Thanks to Ken Rockwell, I felt a lot more confident with how to use the lens. I also took his advice on how to configure some of the more inane details in the camera and although there weren't a whole lot of changes (my experimenting had gotten me to 90% of where he was), I am happy with the new settings :). Only real problem that I've found is that I used the hood on the wide angle lens for the first time and found a lot of vignetting :-/. Not really sure if there's anything to be done other than not use the hood anymore, but if you ignore it, the pictures came out quite nicely :).

Day Fifteen. Went down to the National Mall in DC. Visted the Museum of Natrual History and the National Gallery of Art. Due to lingering fears of dust on the sensor, I shot everything in the narrowest depth of field on the zoom lens. Ended up having to use the flash a lot more than I generally prefer, but the results weren't as terrible as I was expecting :).

Day Fourteen. Another adventure at a wedding ... have I mentioned that I have trouble in low-light situations? I really don't know what the problem is ... point-and-shoot cameras could handle the light level just fine, but I had to crank down the shutter speed to just above the "massive jitter" level to get anything to even come close to working out. Relatedly, this was my first attempt at using the attached flash vice the built in flash. I really don't like shooting with a flash ... everything comes out with big nasty shadows behind it. The pro that was shooting the day had a "kid" with him holding a second light that he'd offset from his camera by about 90 degrees that was triggered by his flash. Very nice in the sense that it eliminated the shadows I was capturing ... but it felt like cheating ... though that may only because that's not really an option for me ... oh well. I don't mind shooting weddings, but I do wish I could dump the shots off on someone else for post processing and final selection. It took literally days to sort through them. It's a good thing the food was good ;).

Day Thirteen. Went down to the OBX for a family vacation. The beach is always a nice place to find pictures worth taking. This particular spot on the beach was phpotographically lacking in primary subjects, resulting in a whole lot of not very many pictures being taken, but most of the few that were taken came out well. Once again, I found myself trying to make friends with the local wild life and failing misserably though. I have no idea why they find me suspicious and won't let me close to them so I can I take really interesting photographs of them ... oh well. I have also, once again, learned that I need to trust the light meter. The little LCD screen on the back of the camera is (rather unfortunately) a terribly poor judge of exposure, so images that look washed out when previewed on the camera turn out beautiful, while images that look beautiful on the camera look dark and need retouching to bring out the full colour that was originally there ... oh well. All in all, not a bad set, despite its relatively small size.

Day Twelve. Took a trip over to the Botanical Gardens up in Richmond. The day started off a bit dark (clouds == evil) which was extraordinarily compounded by a (rather unfortunately common) stroke of stupidity ... I set the ISO to the wrong extreme and wondered why I couldn't get anything to come out. I don't know what hit me, but something made me try the opposite extreme, despite everything I had telling me I was right and it was some how the camera's fault ... suddenly there was enough light to take pictures ... magic! Not my brightest day (hehe), but I still managed to come away with a few decent shots. I still maintain that I need a better camera and some better lenses, but until that camera is fully self aware and capable of telling me what I'm doing wrong, I'm not sure it will be good enough ;).

Day Eleven. Drove over to Ft. Monroe, an old Army base that's getting sold to the private sector because it's bloody worthless ;). Not nearly as many interesting subjects as I was hoping for, but that may have been due to the fact that I didn't think I'd need a jacket and turned out to be wildly wrong. Still got a few good shots though. I wish I had a screen I could carry around with me to fully see each shot after I take them so I could better adjust the settings I used to take the shot. A few of these are getting posted despite really being near misses from what I was going for, just to remind myself that sometimes, I need to open up the depth of field; I don't always need to be at the narrowest setting ... still need to get a real macro lens ...

Day Ten. Finally, double digits! Spent the day wandering around Colonial Williamsburg. Though I could get lots of cool shot of various old things ... turns out the lighting in the buildings there fit the times. So, a lot of them came out far darker than I would have liked, but I rocked the 200 ISO and the flash to the best of my ability. In the end I did come away with more than a few interesting ones and once again completely failed to capture the few things I was really trying to. Oh well, it was as nice of a January day as anyone could have asked for, especially given that it snowed 10 inches a mere two days later.

Day Nine. And the blizzard of 2009 is upon us. Not exactly the most exotic of locations, but we were stranded in Alexandria and I had my camera, so I did what I do best. I took an absurd number of pictures and came out with a few good ones. As always, the lighting proved to be my biggest enemy. And I, once again, rediscovered my need for a real macro lens. While the zoom lens is good for faking the effect, it just doesn't cut it for real macro situations.

Day Eight. Down at the beach just behind my hotel at Dam Neck. I made a few friends. The sand crabs were friendlier than the sea gulls though. Abysmal heat produced the most boring sky I've seen all week. My photographic outing yesterday, when there was a nicer sky, was thwarted by none other than Mr. Dead Battery himself. Oh well. Mother Nature deemed this a neutral photography day. No direct sunlight, but not truly overcast or nasty in any way, save the boringness of it.

Day Seven. Went down to the Cascades. Took over 400 pictures only to thoroughly prove that I was an idiot for leaving my tripod in the car. Quickly flowing water needs a tripod. I can't figure out how to stress this enough to myself. It's more than worth the carrying weight. A difficult shoot otherwise. The sun didn't want to cooperate and the shadows were thick. I either need a better camera or a better photographer. It's one of the two. There was far more wildlife that wanted to get its picture taken than expected though. So, some good shots ... a lot of bad shots ... pretty normal at this point.

Day Six. Down at Claytor Lake for Kelsie's wedding. Rode around on a pontoon boat for about a half hour. All pictures were taken while moving. The day provided for a very difficult lighting situation. The sky was massively over exposed while the water and shore line was massively underexposed. Oh well, used the short range lens to capture some awesome wide angle shots of the sky.

Day Five. Back up at Mountain Lake, this time for Erica and Keith's wedding. The clouds were moving really fast, causing wandering shadows to play hell with the white balance and light meter, but I still managed a few good shots. The pro photographer there answered my high dynamic range question: his camera has two senors, one for low light, one for high light, that work together to build the final image ... so basically all I have to do is throw more money at the problem. Point of interest, he was using a Fujifilm camera with Nikon lenses. Note: since there was a pro photographer there, a lot of the subjects weren't looking at me.

Day Four. Hiked up to Kelly's Knob. Not a spectacular hike or view, plus it was a cloudy day, so none of the long range shots came out. The exercise was appreciated, but the photography was a bit lacking. Oh well.

Day Three. Went up to Mountain Lake and walked around the War Spur trail. Went back to the zoom lens so i didn't have to get so close to things to get good macro shots and under the assumption that on the top of a mountain, there would be things worth taking a shot of that're very far away. Brought the tripod in the car in case there was running water and the opportunity to take some long exposure shots, but left it in the car when we got up there and saw how brown everything was and figured that there wouldn't be anything worthy of a long exposure shot. Unfortunately, we were wrong and found a stream, but I don't mind so much, given how difficult it would have been to continually set up and break down the tripod in the area where the stream was. It was very closed in, causing many shadows, thus requiring the long exposure, while making it incredibly difficult to get a tripod in there in the first place. I need to learn how to handle high dynamic range lighting situations. Despite that, I still got a couple of cool stills of the water.

Day Two. Switched lenses for the outing. The indirect sunlight of just before sun down made getting the exposure level right more difficult. Turns out the longer length lens is actually better for macro shots than the shorter length lens. Thought it would have been the other way around, but nope. With the zoom lens, I can get closer to things without having to be right on top of them. Other than looking like less of a dork by being farther away from the subject, it also significantly reduces the chance that my shadow takes a prominent role in the shot.

Day One. Walked around the front yard taking pictures of everything that caught my eye. Trying to learn the interface of the camera. It has a few more buttons that I'm used to playing with. I keep forgetting to check the light meter when moving from shot to shot. I'm also not used to have to use the view finder. Not sure if I can redirect to the LCD without losing all of the information in the view finder, but the whole squinting into the view finder thing is awkward for me right now. I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly though. I also need to figure out how to devise some sort of ultra-mobile tripod. My hands aren't as steady as I would like. You wouldn't think that'd cause too big of an issue given what I'm shooting, but it makes it hard to frame close up shots with slim margins. Basically, I need to figure out how to get the camera to float stably in mid air, pointed in the direction I want.