GoPro Hero2

I picked up a GoPro Hero2 last week and I've been busy picking up accessories in the past few days. I just got in 2 spare batteries this afternoon and I should be getting a microphone tomorrow. I also ordered the skeleton case which should be here by the end of the week. I had one of the older Heros that I sold on Craig's List about this time last year, but I like the features of the Hero2, plus the user interface is much more user friendly.

I bought this one just at the time the GoPro Hero3 was being introduced, but I'm pretty happy with my purchase even though I haven't really had a chance to try it out yet although I'm just waiting for the weather and the sky to be just right as I have a project in mind at work which may spread out over several days or weeks.

 I'll be posting some photographs and videos from the little camera soon.

Nikon D800 ::

I've been shooting with the D800 for a couple of months now and I'm still learning my way around the menu, which is a bit different from the other Nikons that I use, but I'm gradually getting used to it. The first thing that I found was that continuous shooting is much slower than the D700, but it is adjustable, to some extent, in the custom menu choices. The highest rate is still 5 frames/second. I'm going to have to check the continuous shooting rate on the D700, but the 700 is much faster. I attribute most of that to the fact that it just takes longer to process a 36 meg raw file, especially with the 8 gig cards that I'm using right now. I have a 24 gig high speed card ordered which should be in very soon and I'm hoping that will make a difference.

I shot a panorama of the Marshall Space Flight Center last week from the top of a building facing north and I was very happy with the results. I also shot a conference last week and, as usual, the lighting was challenging so I shot almost the entire event at an ISO of 5000 and I was very happy with the results. There was some noise, but, for my purposes, it was not excessive. I'm getting ready to order some noise reduction software which should alleviate this situation. All in all I absolutely love the D800. The raw files open up to 16x24 at 300ppi so I would have no problem interpolating up to 96 inches although I haven't tried it yet. That may be my project for later this week with the panorama I shot last week.

I would have posted the panorama here, but it is living on a server at work right now and I didn't think about bringing the image home with me. Not to mention that, in my experience, panoramas generally don't translate well to the web!

A Holga Photograph ::

I've Been Slowly Working ::

I've been slowly working on photographing a rural community near where I live that I pretty much found by accident when I drove down this dead end road one day.

I really haven't met any of the people yet, but the community seems to consist of commuters although there is a fair amount of farming that goes on. Two things enticed to me to drive down the road: there is a petting zoo that is open to the public and there is a small independent Cowboy Church with services on irregular Sunday evenings.

Soon it will be time to start meeting the people who inhabit Clouds Cove.

Been Gone ::

I've been away for far too long and I'm going to try to rejuvenate the blog. Here's a start with a photograph I took back in the early summer.

I've been thinking about picking up a Mamiya RB67 from KEH since the prices are so good on them right now. The only film camera I've owned in the past few years is a Holga, which I really like. I'm torn between getting the Mamiya and picking up another GoPro Hero camera. I've owned an older model GoPro, but I sold it because I wasn't sure that I could really use it to it's full potential. I have been photographing more diverse events lately and I think I could utilize the GoPro more.