A1A

US1 is a highway that goes from Miami to somewhere up in Maine, all along the mainland of the eastern US.

But chains of barrier islands are also along much of the eastern seaboard, just off the mainland.

The highway that picks up travels along the length of many of these barrier islands going up to Maine, is designated A1A.

The parking lot to the Atlantic beach that I went to on Sunday afternoon in Melbourne Beach, Florida is along a piece of highway A1A.

I liked the quality of the evening sun on this A1A sign pointing south, with the colorful buildings in the distance.

ISO 1600

I keep a guitar by my chair so that I can pick it up and practice at least a little bit every day.

We have two skylights in the den, and at a certain time each morning, about 10am right now, the sunlight comes through one of them to shine right beside me and has a lovely quality to it.

It shined right on the guitar and I snapped a shot at ISO 1600 with my new Nikon D90.

I have the camera set for "normal" noise reduction at high ISO within the camera, so this is a shot as it came off the camera.

Although my D70s still has a place in my heart, this kind of performance at such a high ISO leaves me breathless.

I keep thinking of how much grain is in a print made from ISO 800 film and then seeing this, I know I'm going to really be loving this camera once I learn all it's tricks.

As someone who shot thousands and thousands of 35mm slides on slow ISO (50, 64, or 100) film just to get the best quality, to see an image like this from ISO 1600 seems truly magical to me. I mean that.

I always longed for the versatility of being able to shoot at high ISO, but the grainy images turned me off completely.

If I'd had a slide or print film of ISO 1600 that had this kind of look, I'd have paid big money for each roll, and would have paid it gladly.

The viewfinder of the D90 is large and bright, a true pentaprism whereas the D70s is an electronic viewfinder.

The "eyepoint" (in Nikon-speak) of the D90 is 19.5mm, where the D70s is 18mm. This means that I can see the whole image inside the viewfinder while still wearing my eyeglasses with the new D90 and I just got in the habit of putting my glasses on top of my head when shooting with the D70s to see the viewfinder better. That will be easier, not having to pop my glasses up there to shoot photos, and pull them down for the rest of life.

I have two friends with the D300 and I envied their camera's low light performance, and now that same image sensor technology has trickled down to a lighter, easier to carry camera that I could afford.

Sweet.

What IS That Sound?

It sounds like, like, like, a choir of ANGELS!








But no, it's just the doorbell ringing.







Who could it be?









Why it's the United Parcel Service man bringing me a box!











Whatever could it be?



Oh my, it looks exactly like a brand-spankin'-new Nikon D90 camera body!




I guess that sound REALLY WAS a choir of Angels singing.

Angels always sing when John gets a new camera.

Angels are cool like that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Clothes Pins

Sorry folks, just haven't been out photographing lately.

I haven't been scanning any of my old stuff either.

But here's one of a mundane object, but I like the photo anyway.

Find the Poodle In This Photo...

This is our 6 pound (2.7kg) monster, Angel. That's a whopping 0.003 ton doggy there.

If not for the big, black eyes, she'd be hard to find in the white sheets.

Black and White # 33: Bridge

The bridge area of a Stratocaster copy guitar than I own.

Hole In The Earth

One of my slide scans of a waterfall taken in Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas in 1983.

We had hiked to the bottom of an fairly difficult trail to be at the water's edge, but I like the photos I took from above at an overlook.

I wish I had experimented more with the exposure, I should have everything in focus, but I do like how the out of focus tree tops forces you to look at the detail of mountain walls and the swimmers below.