[caradoc]

Pop, the Soda Shop has Big Red on the shelf. Their storefront is just around the corner from my house…

[caradoc]

I love the second shot. It’s been too long since I’ve seen any lightning. Only twice in 12 years! 🙁

Do you get to see the Aurora Borealis up there?

I’ve *never* seen that.

[caradoc]

The second is a great shot. Were you far enough away to avoid getting your equipment wet?
There is supposed to be some kind of gizmo that you can use to sense a lightning strike and trigger the camera in time to catch the shot but it is quite expensive.

Yes, I was far enough away. The storm was passing from east to west due south of my location for those shots – the second shot is looking almost directly due south.

The gizmo you’re thinking of is a Lightning Trigger. I can imagine that one might be useful during daylight, sunrise, or sunset where you’re trying to capture the lightning and the ambient surroundings. At night, it’s just easier (and a lot cheaper) to set the aperture and shutter for ten second exposures of the city lights, and leave the camera aimed in the direction of the storm as you keep shooting.

[caradoc]

Sweeeeeeet, how’d you take them? Just keep taking pictures until lighting shows up in the right place? The sky’s too bright in the first one (damn light pollution) but the second is perfect.

Yeah, just keep shooting ten-second exposures until you catch a good one.

The light’s bright in the first one because I took it in the middle of a dust storm. That’s city lights and lightning being reflected by the dust.

It took me about an hour after the fact to clean all of my gear up.

[caradoc]

Papago Park, perchance?

Yes. I think my days of shooting there are over, though. The Park Rangers have started harassing me about getting a film permit, and I’m not about to shell out for a ONE MILLION DOLLAR insurance policy for hobby photography.

If I start getting paid for photography, sure – anyone in business needs liability insurance.

But hobbyists?

The part that really, really irks me is that they don’t harass the tourists with the point-and-shoots, but if you pull out a DSLR or SLR, you’re hosed.

(sigh)

[caradoc]

Nikon D80 with a Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8:

…and a 50mm f/1.8:

…and an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6:

…and a few extra SB-800s:

…and the little Canon Powershot A70:

One can get good images out of the little point-and-shoots.

[caradoc]

Maybe it just feels like I’ve been married that long? 😉

[caradoc]

Plus, if I buy a shiny camera backpack, I’ll have less for the 10-22mm lens! 😀

Oh God, I’ve started an epidemic. Canon should give me a commission.

Bah. I’m looking for a bag that’ll hold four lightstands, a few SB-800s, a couple of umbrellas, folding softbox…

Oh, and a Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8, and a Tamron 14mm f/2.8 rectilinear wide-angle… and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR… and a bag to hold all of those, too…

(sigh)

I need to win the lottery or something. The 50mm f/1.8 is a really nice lens for the price, but my only other glass right now is the 18-135mm kit lens for the D80 and it’s been showing its weak points for a couple of weeks now.

For a laptop, D80, SB-800, 50mm f/1.8, 18-135mm (on the camera), a couple of sets of batteries and assorted cables and stuff, I’ve been using a Lowepro CompuDayPack. It’s been working nicely, but I wouldn’t want to go hiking more than a couple of miles in it. The curvature where the shoulder strap joins the bag up at the top appears to have been designed with someone a bit smaller in mind, and my shoulders are just too broad for it.

And they’re not adjustable at that point – the length of the shoulder strap is all that you can adjust.

[caradoc]

Going to be playing with gunpowder, XenPix? 😛

My wife and I were in Oban, Scotland on that date in 2006. Good times… good times.

[caradoc]

oh and btw you will never ever get all the equipment you “need” for the shots you can imagine. never. trust me on this.

Oh, now that’s not a joke.

I seem to have contracted terminal NAS (Nikon Acquisition Syndrome) with about $4K in lenses alone on my wish list.

Don’t even get me started on my wish list for flash/strobe hardware.

(sigh)

I really need to sharpen my skills before I buy more *stuff*.

[caradoc]

In the owner’s manual there should be a section on setting everything manually. There won’t be an “icon” for aperture, which might also be called “f/stop.”

[caradoc]

If I may make one recommendation – I’m certain that somewhere very close to you is a community college that offers a one-day course in “Basic Digital Photography” or something similar. Those classes run between $50 and $90 depending on the college, and are about six hours of “This is what aperture does, this is what shutter speed does, this is what ISO does, this is how red-eye reduction works, et cetera.”

I cannot say just how valuable these courses are for anyone who’s just getting started with a DSLR (assuming you go with a Rebel, as you mentioned.)

I’d been shooting film for about twenty years before switching to digital, and I still learned things in that class that I’d learned years ago (in high school photography) and had forgotten again.

[caradoc]

I did some more poking around. From what I can gather, the entire Quantaray line consists of rebadged OEM hardware from Sigma and Tamron – mostly from the bottom end of those manufacturers. As staplermofo noted, your mileage may vary.

[caradoc]

One of the problems I’m having is that since you’re uploading to Flickr and you’re not a Pro account holder, the images max out at 1024x. This means I can’t see what you see when you’re looking at the original file.

[caradoc]

Well, the resolution is better… but the focus is just a touch soft. Unless that, too, is an artifact of the resizing?

[Author]

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