Now that we’re back from our all-too-brief vacation, I’m back at work. Luckilly, I’m not working the crazy schedule anymore. Things have slowed down considerably. For that I’m grateful.
Of course, that means that I need to spend some time on the things that slide when I’m working too much: like organizing my office, posting some pictures, paying some bills, filing paperwork, etc. Lots of stuff. Oh – and continuing to learn more and more about photographic techniques and business practices.
Today, Laura and I head out to Massanutten, VA. We’ve never been out there, but it should be fun. It will certainly be COOL since a massive cold front has blown in taking us down from the low 90s to the 50s or 60s. It is actually begining to be a little like fall.
We’re going to spend the weekend out there in a cabin and won’t be back until Sunday.
It’s certainly a needed break.
With the upcoming arrival of the new camera, we will begin our next attempt at underwater photography. We have tried this multiple times with two different cameras so far, but with one setup: a pocket digital camera and an underwater housing. We have not yet tried it with a strobe.
So – it could be that we didn’t give the poor little S80 a real chance to shine, so to speak. In that vein, I’m glad we’ve ordered the G9 since it is usually handy to have a pocket camera instead of just the big, honkin’ DSLRs. I’ve ordered a housing and strobe setup by Ikelite specifically for this camera. The strobe will be delivered tomorrow, but the case is on backorder. I HOPE it will be here in time for our departure. I have no guarantees, but they say it will be shipped to the distributors on October 17th, who will then ship it to us. We leave on November 14th, so I hope that the case gets here well before that.
We’re going to try out a new underwater camera: the Canon G9. We were planning on renting a housing for Laura’s Rebel XTi, but found out that for the same price as the rental [or perhaps a little more], we could BUY a great quality pocket camera. So we started looking…
Looking at the old standby, the A series from Canon with which were were so familiar, I shortly realized that the G9 [notice, that’s not an “A”, but a “G”] was brand new and that RAW image support was back in! This was one of our complaints with the S80 – the S70 had RAW capabilites, but the next version did not, nor did the G7. The G9 lists for the same price that the S80 listed for, but due to the vast number of discounts I get for working at Microsoft, I was able to get the camera for $30 less than the best online price.
This is very important for underwater photography for several reasons, but mainly the dynamic range of photos is usually quite different underwater than it is on the surface, so a broader capability in the image format is necessary. RAW is a 12-bit data format, while JPG is 8-bit. The extra 4 bits goes a very long way. This will allow some serious recovery of highlights in what tend to be blown-out pictures [which we saw a lot of with the S80, unfortunately].
Our challenge now will be to both find a decent strobe setup that won’t cost too much and to find the new Ikelite case. I’ll have to make some phone calls for that if I want it to be shipped before we depart on our dive trip.
Oh – and the camera is not only for underwater. It can do everything else, too…
This weekend, we did another wedding. This time, we were the “only” photographers [there were a lot of family and friends with their own cameras]. We had very little time to prepare as we were only asked to do it a few days in advance and didn’t even have a chance to discuss what was desired with the bride or groom. We only were able to talk to the photographer who referred us to the job, and he didn’t have too many ideas about what they actually wanted either.
So, we had to make do and improvise and I only hope that we met with their expectations.
Every time we do this, I am continually amazed at how much I enjoy it. It’s tiring and stressful, but I come away from the event with a sense of wonder and satisfaction. I never thought that this would be the direction I would go. I thought that I would spend my photographic career taking beautiful landscapes or close-up pictures of bugs and flowers. But it seems that people in celebration are pleasing to photograph. Especially when you can sneak up on them and take a picture without them noticing!
It’s official now. No Dive Turkey this year. So, Laura and I will be going on our own little jaunt to Los Cabos in Mexico. This is our first venture to the Pacific coast of Mexico and the Baja. It’s certainly possible that we could see some large sealife – even up to the Whale Shark. Now THAT would be exciting!
Now I have to find a camera to use underwater…
It looks as if we might be able to do the sort-of-annual Dive Turkey trip if we place the travel days beginning with Thanksgiving instead of ending with it. More rooms are available. Now, we just need to see if others are okay with the dates we’d like and then book it. It will certainly save us big money if we can do the trip by driving and using points.
Instead of permanently fixing my motorcycle at the shop, they only had to replace the battery to get it up and running again. It’s likely that the battery has gone bad due to the poorly connected ground wire in the front harness [see recall post below]. They told me what the recall notice says: “Don’t ride your bike!” Right. How was I supposed to get it home? Or was I supposed to leave it in the shop for who knows how long waiting for a part? I don’t think so.
So, I had Laura follow me while I rode it home. It’s in the garage now.
Now what was I going to do with it? Leave it in the garage idle? That doesn’t sound right. I researched some things on the Internet and found out the specific wire that causes the problems I’ve been having. I even found an article outlining a fix that will keep me on two wheels until the new wiring harnesses become available. Here is even quite a lengthy discussion about the recall.
So I fixed it. I took a nice little wire and patched that there ground wire. Let’s all hope that it is now fixed… at least until they put the new wiring harness in for the recall.
There’s a recall on my motorcycle. I have a letter from Honda describing exactly the problem I’m having and they say: “Don’t ride until you get it fixed! This could result in your death!” Great. Thanks. Too bad they didn’t mention this BEFORE my bike broke… or before I put over 22,000 miles on it…
Well, it’s at the shop anyway, so I’m hoping that that it will be fixed soon – and permanently, too.
After so many long hours at work, I get to take a breather of sorts. I say “of sorts” because the in-laws are in town and we won’t actually be relaxing, but we will probably be out doing stuff. The most important thing is that family is here and I won’t be working.
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