Camera Things (Part 1)

Man...It's be like forever - almost 2 years, really - since I've done a blog entry.  There's been a Sunshine Community Garden plant sale and everything (spoiler alert: I bought too many tomatoes and they only produced a handful).

Anyway, today's blog entry is brought to you by Roberta's Camera, El Presidente.

El Presidente got sick about a month ago so he was sent off for treatment.  Now he's back, but there's a new stud in town (Pincay) so he's been relegated to second fiddle.  Because I always talk about how I need a better camera than my trusty ol' Rebel XTi, Roberta offered to loan me El Presidente with one of her lenses so I could play around and determine if I really wanted a new camera. 

I haven't done a "camera" test yet, but I did do a "lens" test the other night.  I used El Presidente with different lenses to see what type of difference a lens makes.  The lens I borrowed is a 70-300 IS lens.  The IS stands for "Image stabilization." That means that it tries to account for you moving ever so slightly while taking a photo so that you get a clear photo instead of a blurry one.  I have a 70-300 lens, and Shawn has a 70-300 lens so I put them all to the test.

All three lenses have autofocus on them, though Shawn's is a pain in the ass and you really have to use manual to get it close, then switch it to auto so it actually will focus.  In any case, while I took a bunch of photos, the ones on the tripod looked about the same, and the ones where IS was turned off on Roberta's also looked about the same, so instead I'm only showing the three photos that demonstrate why you either a) want to use a tripod when taking photos at full extension (i.e. at 300 or b) why you want an IS lens.

As mentioned above, because Shawn's lens doesn't really autofocus, I decided I'd use Manual focus for these photos.  Aperature (how much light is let in) was set to 5.6 for all the photos (meaning that the background should be kinda fuzzy).  The shutter speed was set to automatic, but ended up being at 1/20 of a second for all three photos.  Usually, to cut down on motion blur (i.e. the camera moved), you want your speed to be 1/your distance - that is, I had these all set to 300, therefore I should have set my shutter speed to be 1/300 to cut down on motion blur.  Unfortunately, because it was dusk, I didn't really have the luxury of setting my shutter speed faster (unless I changed the ISO - i.e. film "speed" - it's why they always used to tell you "use 400 speed film when photographing sports, 100 if you're doing portraits")

The lens line up:  My lens (on camera), Roberta's lens, Shawn's lens

First up: My lens at full extension (300) attempting to take a photo of our formerly feral cat, Stripsie.  As you can see - terribly out of focus.  This is worse than normal - Shawn's lens is closer to what I expect, but you also will end up with a LOT of photos looking like this.  In this case, I probably didn't properly brace myself (bend the knees, engage your core, breathe in, breathe out, and as you breathe out, press the trigger - it's like shooting a gun, really)

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens= Canon 70-300 EF 4-5.6 III ($200)

As you can see, it looks a little washed out, but that's something that's easy enough to fix in GIMP (free photoshop)

a little better but still really bad.  The one thing to remember about photo editing - you can fix a lot of errors, but it's damn near impossible to fix 'blurry' so you really want to start with a crisp photo.


Shawn's lens

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Sigma 70-3004-5.6 APO Macro Super ($200)

Much clearer, but still a little on the fuzzy side.  That fuzz is from motion blur - I probably stabilized myself well, but you still have to depress that shutter button which moves the camera a little.  This is the type of stuff that can be fixed by using a tripod or monopod.

And with the level fixing: (btw, this is what happens when you click that little sun at the top of the screen on Instagram if you go into "edit" mode - and aren't using one of their pre-set filters - I believe they call it "lux")

Finally, we have the Image Stabilization lens.

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Canon EF 70-300 4-5.6 IS USM ($650)

As you can see immediately, the image is much clearer.  It's not actually 100% clear - there's still a little motion blur, but it's so much less than the other photos that it appears clear.  I also technically had this set to the wrong type of motion correction - I had it set to II, when I maybe should have had it set to I as II is to be used for when you're panning, vs when you're not panning to the side.

And with levels fixing:

So yeah if you plan to be using a telephoto lens, it really does make sense to pay the extra cash for an image stabilization lens unless you're going to use a tripod/monopod for everything.  As I said, the photo above is STILL blurry from motion blur, and the only way to fix that would have been to have either a faster shutter speed or use a tripod.

Next up: the different camera bodies: 
- Canon D30 (Shawn's. It may not even work any more - it's been probably about 10 years since it's been used if not longer)
- Canon Rebel XTi (Katina's)
- Canon 6D (El Presidente)
** Also, sometime in the last 20 years, Canon changed their lens mount so I may not be able to do my camera test like I want to anyway.

Timmy and Coco Adventures: Lexington Edition

Roberta and I try to get together about once a month to go on an adventure - they really are of the "grab your coat, we're going on an adventure" style.  So far we've gone to the Lonestar Round Up, lunch and walk around old-town Bastrop, photo trip at the New Sweden Church, McKinney Falls State Park, went on a geo-cacheing adventure but got sidetracked at the cemetery, and went together when Roberta got her most recent tattoo.

Roberta's husband, Michael, started calling our trips "The Timmy and Coco Adventures" because I name all the opossums I see "Timmy" and Roberta calls all the cockroaches "Coco."


Based on a recommendation from Michael, we went to Lexington to get Snow's BBQ.

Roberta talking to Tootsie

Snow's BBQ pitmaster, Tootsie, is, I believe, the only female pitmaster in Texas, and boy does she make some freaking delicious barbeque.  Snow's is only open on Saturdays, opens at 8 in the morning and stays open until they run out of meat (around noon). I remember hearing about Snow's years ago, probably7 or 8 years ago when they were named best BBQ in Texas (beating out Kreuz's, Black's, Smitty's, Mueller's, and City Market), when some friends decided to get up at 6 in the morning to go wait in line at Snow's in Lexington.  I couldn't understand why anyone would want to go wait in line for hours for food (and I still don't get it - the lines at Franklin's confuse me).  We only waited for about an hour before we were at the front of the line and able to order our meat, and let me tell you - it was freaking delicious.  I fell in love with the chicken, and I liked the brisket better than Smitty's (the only other BBQ joint on the list that I've had the brisket at; at Luling's City Market, I had the sausage).  A list of the 50 best BBQ joints in Texas can be found here

After eating food, we went and looked at the store across the street - it's run by a gentleman named Buddy who also makes rings out of coins. All the girls at Snow's wear his rings.

Buddy explaining the story of the carousel horse to Michael and Roberta (Roberta's standing behind Michael).  The picture at the top is also from Buddy's.

After Buddy's we took a quick stroll around the town - stroll implies that we meandered, and we did, but Lexington isn't big so it was still a quick walk.  At the end of the street there's a livestock auction house.  The guys there were so helpful - I mean we're obviously City folk and we're walking around with SLR cameras at an Auction house, we didn't know if they were going to chase us off with pitchforks or if they'd allow us in as long as we agreed to not take photos or who knows what.  In the end, the onsite veterinarian had seen us taking photos of some of the cows up for auction outside, and Roberta asked if we could go in the Auction house.  He said he didn't see why not and we just needed to stop at the front desk to explain that we wanted to watch the auction, but didn't want to participate.

Auction.  The auctioneer sits in the area between the two lighted signs and talks very fast just like you would expect.

The auction is a well-oiled machine.  The auctioneer was talking constantly and so fast that I couldn't understand a word he said. The guy on the left would open the door, a cow would run in, would basically run the half circle to the other door where the guy on the right would close the gate and open the door which led the cow back out to one of the holding pens.  After we got in and watched for a little while, we noticed there was a cattle dog in attendance and moved over to sit next to him, because of course we would do that.

Blue

Blue's owner was happy to explain the auctioning process to us (he had brought his steers in to be auctioned).  The cattle are sold individually by the pound - not by the lot as we had assumed based on how quickly the process was going.  The number in red on the right hand side in the auction photo is the weight of the steer in the auction pen.  $0.85/pound is pretty standard, $1/pound is good but a few years ago the prices were much higher.  Most of the cattle being sold at this auction were to be raised for meat, with a few very young bulls being sold to be breeders in a few years.  Earlier in the day there was a goat auction, and if we had waited around another hour or so, there was to be a cow (as in female cattle) auction.

Watching the Auction

You can see Roberta's photos from the day here: http://www.mercyphotoblog.com/images/

2016 Try New Things

So it's 2016, and I'm trying to do new things.  This means that my gardening has been falling to the wayside.  BUT, it also means that I went to the Lonestar Roundup (i.e. the classic car show) with Roberta and her husband, Michael.

The show is for classic American cars made prior to 1963.  This means that there aren't any of the standard American Muscle cars that most people associate with classic car shows (no Chargers/Challengers/GTOs/Mustangs/Corvettes).  That being said, I think the only requirement was that the chassis be from prior to 1963 because most of the cars were modified, chopped, or otherwise customized.  Even the ones which looked accurate on the outside had the engines altered - for example, the day after the show I drove down the highway behind a Ford Model T and a Ford Model A which were easily going highway speeds.

Roberta reliving the memories from driving her boyfriend's 1948 Ford pickup back when she was a teenager.

An old Chevy outside the show (probably 1930's)

RatRod hood ornament.  This was on the MadMax car (see photo below)

Roberta and Michael's favorite Hot Rod at the show.

Chevy gages.  I think it was from a Chevy Apache (which I've decided is my favorite old pick up)

Mad Max RatRod. You can tell because of the skeleton arm from Mad Max: Fury Road.

Pepsi cooler in an old pick up with the wooden bed.

Roberta found this truck driving around town on Saturday morning (and texted me a photo at 830). We were so excited to have found it at the show!

Chiricahua National Monument

After saying goodbye to my grandparents, we headed off to Chiricahua National Monument.  I gotta tell you, my desire to see National Parks and Monuments really paid off with Chiricahua.  It's out of the way so you're not just going to 'come across it' and even knowing how far away it was, we still were like, "did we miss a turn off?"

After arriving, we went for a trail run (which is where the first couple of pictures came from), and then did a long hike the second day.

Chiricahua was formed by an old volcano spewing ash all over and hardening into rhyolite; the elements have been at work ever since.  It's also a location where you can see coati mundi - I'm sad that I didn't see any - though we did have Arizona Whitetail deer walk through our campsite.

Camel Rock.

Duck Rock

"Wall Street"

Intriguing rock formation

chin on the left, forehead on the right - looking up at the sky

"organ pipe" formation