/dev/random

This one needs a caption badly. The best caption gets a promo code for ICHC Premium.

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Unfortunately I have to be home next week, so I’ll be missing out on WWDC. I did get a chance to walk by Moscone West and take photos of Apple’s preparation for the event.

Could this be a prediction of a 32GB iPhone?

See the full gallery here.

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I haven’t posted a photo of the day for a while, but I really like this one. This dove let me get very close, so I was able to take this picture with only a 105mm lens rather than the 70-300mm I usually have to use for birds.

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I really love the D90, but sometimes it’s just too big to carry. For those times it’s nice to have a compact point & shoot camera that will fit in my pocket. As much as I love Nikon DSLRs, I don’t care much for their Coolpix point & shoot cameras, since the image quality isn’t [...]

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I was lucky enough to catch the trail of the shuttle launch from my back yard tonight. Unfortunately I happened to have the wide angle lens on my D90 because I was shooting something else; I would have preferred to use a longer lens.

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This jar of cashews actually has a warning label that says it contains cashews. I’d be concerned if it didn’t contain cashews.

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When I attempt to take a photo of the moon, it usually comes out as a featureless white blob, due to being overexposed. Thanks to a tip on Flickr, I discovered that the secret to taking a photo of the moon that doesn’t suck is to use spot metering rather than matrix.
With matrix metering, the [...]

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After using the lens for a few days, I’m very happy with it. For the price, it’s a great lens and a good addition for anyone who wants a higher zoom and macro capabilities. It does take some getting used to, but it’s possible to get some excellent results from it. In macro mode, you [...]

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I received my Sigma 70-300mm AF Macro lens today. It was $147 from Overstock.com. For the price, it’s a good choice if you need a macro lens or an extremely long zoom. I got the non-motorized model, so AF won’t work on low-end cameras like the D40 or D60. The motorized version sells for about [...]

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I really like this picture of Cody I took using my 50mm/f1.8 lens today. I challenged myself to shoot with only that lens as long as possible.

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I’ve posted a full Macworld Expo photo gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_c/sets/72157612275428504/.

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This afternoon the sky looked like it came straight from “The Simpsons”, so I was inspired to take a few shots of the clouds. I decided to do exposure bracketing and use HDR processing so I could enter them in Hydra’s HDR contest.

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When you’re shooting in mixed light, most camera’s automatic white balance can give incorrect or inconsistent results. The most accurate way to get the correct white balance is by measuring it. Most photographers carry a gray card for measuring & setting white balance, but Photojojo has something a lot more convenient: the white balance lens [...]

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This is why I love the D90. I simply used ‘P’ mode with ISO 3200 to shoot our tree trimming party last night. I really love the lighting, sharpness, and clarity in this shot.

Many more photos here.

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D90 Video I captured at last night’s tree trimming party, with music added in iMovie.

Lots more photos here.

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The people in my condo really go all out for Christmas, so I walked around and took some photos of the decorations. The D90 still continues to impress and amaze me with its performance at high ISO settings. I simply used Aperture priority with the widest aperture and auto ISO with a maximum of 3200 [...]

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I haven’t had much of a chance to blog in the last week, since life & work got in the way. I had an awesome time Monday night when my friends took me out to dinner at 101 Ocean for my birthday.
People are already starting to put up their Christmas decorations – they don’t even [...]

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I went to Oakland Park’s Oktoberfest today. It took place for the first time in the brand new Jaco Pastorius Park, so there was a big traffic jam & lots of confusion with parking.
I took lots of photos and a few videos with my D90. Most of the activity took place in a large tent [...]

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Today I went to Lauderdale-by-the-sea, the same place we had the photowalk, with my D90 to compare it with the D40x’s performance in a similar situation. I find that the move from the D40x to the D90 is as big a jump as switching from a point & shoot camera to the D40x.
In general, the [...]

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The D90’s exposure bracketing feature is great for HDR imaging. When you turn on bracketing, 2 or 3 consecutive shots will automatically use different exposures. If you use continuous mode, simply press and hold the shutter release to take the 2 or 3 bracketed shots. The resulting shots are exactly what you need to merge [...]

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