Photography, Tech News and Other Randomness

Over the weekend the Keene Lions Club put on the musical “Carousel” . On Wednesday night I went a photographed the dress rehearsal. You can see most of the 300+ photos I took that night here.

In the middle of November Kate and I finally moved into a house. We didn’t buy it but we are renting it. The best part of it is all the room that we have now, there is even a finished room down in the basement which we have made the den/guest bedroom/music room. It’s nice to have a place of our own, it’s located at the end of a road so we only have neighbor’s on one side of the house. We finally have a backyard of our own and have been able to do a little grilling. One of the things that I’m really liking is that I finally have my drum’s set up for me to play. We also have a washer and dryer now so no more fighting with others to do laundry. The picture I posted here was taken after the second 6+ inch snow storm that we got in the last couple weeks of December.

Today i added a new section to my blog, the photo gallery. I will put up photos that I take every now and them. The ones that are up right now I took this afternoon when I got home from work in the cemetery across the street. I believe that these are some of my best photographs to date and I like the mood that they created. 

In other news I am writing this post on my brand new MacBook Pro. I’m so happy that I finally have one, now I just need to get all the programs that I use on it like Lightroom 2 and maybe Photoshop CS4 when that comes out (if I can save enough money for it).

And in even better news I am back on the day shift at Timken. It has been so nice getting up to go to work at 7 am and get home at 3 pm. I will be once again be able to enjoy my life and get involved with the theater, I can start to look for a band to play with and take lot of photos. With all this new free time I hope to have more to write about so keep checking back to see what new in the world of me and my photography.

Vote for my photo!vote

I’ve submitted one of my photos to the Aperture Nature Workshops photography contest. There are four winners selected and along with a long list of prizes you get paired up with a professional photographer and photograph the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. I’m not sure what chance I have but I thought it would be a fun thing to do. 

Yesterday I sent my Xbox off to Texas for repair. Almost 2 weeks ago lightning struck somewhere very close to the apartment, I was able to save the game I was playing and turn the system off but when I went back to it a few hours later after the storm had passed I got one red light and an error code. I searched MS site for the meaning of the code but I could not find it anywhere. I happened to stumble upon it on a Xbox users forum were the same thing happened to someone else. Lightning struck and the got error code E 76 and could find it on line. They called costumer service and was told it was a dead ethernet card. So I went online and filled out the repair request forms and waited for my empty box to arrive. For some reason the UPS driver didn’t think it was safe to leave an empty box at the back door of the apartment so I had to wait an extra day because on day to they left it. I got it all packed up and headed down to the local UPS store and set it on the counter and as the guy working there was walking up says to me, “Another Xbox?” How many are being sent out at my not very big towns UPS store that the guy would recognize the box the MS sends to people to mail there Xbox’s back in. 

So now I’m out an Xbox for 2-3 weeks and the sad part is Madden 09 is out shortly and I will have to wait a few weeks to get it. The only good thing about all of this is it isn’t costing me a single penny.      

After hearing rumors for the past few weeks Engadget at 12:15am is reporting that Nikon will be release the D700, I am writing this at 1:00am. It’s a 12.1 megapixel camera with Nikon’s new full-frames (FX) sensor. I would love to get my hands on one of these but with a price tag of $3000 thats something that I wont be getting anytime soon.

Nikon also will be releasing the SB-900 speed light in August, a PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8 ED and a 85mm version as well. Just more stuff to get my NAS going.

(Update) Here are is were you can find the official press releases from Nikon.

D700

SB-900

Lenes

Well the long awaited Lightroom 2 came out the other day in beta for and I downloaded it today. From what I have seen so far in my very limited use of it I like what they have added. They have made it easier to search the meta data (which I need to get better at tagging and all that), added dual monitor support (I don’t think Katie’s going to let me get a second one), the ability to do some pixel editing like spot removal. They have added a brush tool. Made the print module more powerful as well as adding different templates to the web gallery module. Some other things that I have heard other people talking about is even better integration with Photoshop CS3. Lightroom has helped with my work flow so  much this past year I can’t wait to see what I will be able to do once all the bugs are fixed and the final 2.0 product ships in the fall.

Anyone can download a 30 day trial of the beta at Adobe Labs but if you own Lightroom already you can use the beta until the end of August 2008, or if you know someone that owns Lightroom they can invite you in and be able to use Lightroom for the entire beta period.

AT&T’s exclusive right to the iPhone has made it hard for people in Vermont, Alaska, and parts of Maine, New Hampshire, upstate New York, Nevada, Wyoming, and Oregon to get an iPhone since there is no AT&T coverage in parts or the whole state as it would turn out in Vermont and Alaska. Even though AT&T has partnerships with other carriers, in the user agreements with the iPhone it is illegal to use the other networks. If AT&T finds out that this is going on they disable the iPhone turning it into a $600 brick. AT&T says they will be expanding there coverage areas in the next 12-18 months to include most likely parts of the areas that don’t have coverage, but I still think that if they are going to have exclusive rights for 5 years as its rumored then they need to let you use them on the so call “extended networks” that all there other devices have no problem working on.

Canon just released at the juicy details on the new 40D but the day before was something for Nikon fans to drool over. Rumor of the Nikon D3 have been making the rounds as of late, and there is even a rumor about invitations from Nikon for a launch in the next week. The is even an Ad that came out of Japan listing some features shown right.