Virginia Breeze

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

[Show as slideshow]

Beth and I both enjoyed this sailboat.  Blue is a favorite color for both of us.  Doesn’t this look like a lot of fun?  One person can run things and I bet it goes fast under the right conditions. I will add a few NextGen photos of sailboats here this evening.  They are a cheerful island in a sea of gray photos I took this past weekend.  I’m so sick of looking at most of them.   Everything is gray and white.   I thought maybe the camera was busted after looking at them awhile.  But occasionally a colorful bathing suit or sail will pop up in a photo.

First, the D40 is twice as sensitive to light as the D40x and D80. (The D40’s ISO defaults to ISO 200 instead of the less sensitive ISO 100, making for sharper photos in any light.)

Second, the D40 is far more flexible with flash in daylight. The maximum shutter speed of every Nikon other than the D40 when used with flash is only 1/250 second, while the D40 easily shoots at 1/500 with flash with no loss of performance.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

It’s pretty interesting stuff ( I thought my D70 defaulted to ISO 200).  He has without question guided me towards a lens that has been just amazing in terms of taking photos thru a wide range of distances with amazing clarity.

It’s a miracle! I bought mine in November 2005 and love it. It’s replaced an entire bag of lenses. All I bring anywhere is my 18-200mm, and maybe my 12-24mm for 99% of everything I shoot.

It’s small, fun, flexible, sharp and fast. VR, instant auto/manual focus override and macro and zooming all work perfectly. This lens is too much fun!–Ken Rockwell

He is talking about the Nikon 18-200mm  VR

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200.htmI

You can save a lot of money reading this guy.  I swear.  Eventually I will get a Nikon D700 most probably.  But right now I still have too much to learn to plunk down 2500 bucks for a camera.   Although I did spend that much for a computer a few years ago (it’s all about conditioning).    And  televisions can easily cost that much these days.   But some of these cameras are heavy.  And this one ( the D40) is supposed to be very light.  I saw a couple of guys at the beach this weekend with some very heavy cameras and lenses sitting on a tripod.  I’m just not ready to go there yet.  i want to travel light and (hopefully) capture more just by being in the right place at the right time.

I recently discovered a photographer who takes photos that I really enjoy.  I’m going to have to add him to the list here and encourage Ron, Bernie and the rest of you to take a look at his work.   He’s a professional and travels around New England working for clients and finding  very interesting subjects for his own purposes.

I don’t think my fascination with these photos has anything to do with the fact that I grew up in these parts.  It’s something else.  But I can’t really put in into words.   Maybe somebody else can help.

In any case, I hope to learn something here.   His writing style is also very relaxed and interesting so it is easy to follow what he is saying.  He’s a fan of Adobe’s Lightroom and enjoys taking photos of Lighthouses!  His name is Jeff Folger.  Enjoy!

http://vistaphotography.blogspot.com/

http://www.vistaphotos.net

*

Jeff is doing Fall Foliage Reports up there in New England.  Here’s the link if you would like to follow along.  Please let me know how the foliage is doing in your area as well.   It’s always of great interest to those of us who like to take photos of nature having a big party.  Here’s the twitter link

http://twitter.com/foliage_reports

While we were walking around Harbor Island one of the kids was yelling at me “Hey! Take a picture of THIS!”

His favorite subject were the lizards that are everywhere.  They are cute little guys and so I did get a lot of practice taking photos of small animals.

The flash seems to help out a lot (although someone might disagree).

We are back in Richmond and I am slightly depressed because I can’t walk across the room and check out the sunrise. For somebody who likes taking photos of the emerging daylight you can’t beat a room with a balcony by the ocean.  Maybe there are better oceans but this is our ocean and we won’t even go there.

Virginia Breeze was in the number one slot on its Google page but I see that a Virginia condo deal has edged back into first place. Now what does the wind in Virginia have to do with a condominium I ask you?  You want air conditioned comfort in your condo.  And Robbin Thompson who sang the wonderful Sweet Virginia Breeze and should be number one is number five.

But he has been edged out by some organization that sells kites and simply took his song title in toto and ran with it.

Life is not fair. I will admit thinking briefly about Robin and his song when I named this blog Virginia Breeze but I do feel some shame from time to time and so you will not find “sweet”  attached to my breezes.  The dogs will no doubt vouch for that fact.  In fact. . . well we don’t need to go there either.

Speaking of Sparky and Malarkey they were glad to see us. We didn’t find any bad blogger parts around the yard so apparently nobody chose to visit while we were away.  Zach my large son and a few others like to hang out here while we are gone so I’m not really worried about it.  And the dogs do need to be fed so they don’t chew a hole in the fence and go looking for the trash man.

So all is peaceful around here. There is a sad piece in the Richmond paper about a young man down at Georgia Tech who died in a sky diving accident in the past few days.  My other son Jeremy went to Georgia Tech and I am so grateful that he didn’t choose to sky dive or ride a motorcycle.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of this young man.

Sigh.  Clearly I need to stop ruminating about just packing up and moving to the beach. We have things to do here.  Somebody needs to keep an eye on the younger son who is downtown setting up his new apartment situation with the lovely Ashley this weekend.  I am sure she plans to keep an eye on him too but one (or two) eyes may not be enough.  Fortunately he has not fallen off any more ladders lately but there are numerous other ways he can slip up.

It doesn’t cost very much to go to VCU (relatively speaking) so I have decided that Zach’s talent for obtaining  parking tickets, overdrafts, late fees and the various other methods he has perfected for giving away money are like an extra course in learning about life. At some point you realize that you are just driving down Broad St.  and tossing twenties and fifties out the window. It’s Throwing Benjamin  Away 101.  When you are done doing that you are ready for Bowling 260.  Overall, however, he is still saving money.  Because, as I said, VCU is downright cheap when it comes to college educations.

So it’s time to walk on this lovely Sunday morning.  Yes we are still trying to stay fit and eat right.  Somebody needs to keep an eye on us too.  And at our age it looks like the only ones who can do that would be. . . . .us.