I'm still here...

This is a quick blog entry...just a place holder...to say that I'm still here. I have been so swamped with work, family, and projects (and my Mom's upcoming 90th birthday party) that I have had virtually no time to get out for photography or process what I have managed to shoot. Someday soon though, I promise to get out to take more photos and to get around to updating this blog.

At long last, it is time to add another photo. I've been pretty swamped over the past few months, and when not preoccupied with work and family, I've been fixing things, clearing downed trees and taking care of everything that needs doing around my home.

I purchased a Canon 5D MKII a few weeks back, and finally today had a chance to actually use it for a short while. I took a trip to the Seattle Zoo for a few hours this afternoon, along with my family. Here is one of the first photos I took, converted to black & white. With my family along, I was fairly distracted, and really could not focus a lot of attention on photography, and we arrived fairly late in the day, so the light was not ideal.

This photo of a gorilla is an approximate 1/6 or 1/8 frame crop of an image taken with my 300mm f/2.8 lens using available light and an ISO of 3200, 1/160th sec exposure at f/2.8 (not a lot of light!). The photo is entirely hand held (no monopod/tripod), so perhaps not as sharp as possible. In fact, it illustrates one of the most amazing qualities of the 5D MK II, and that is the low noise characteristics of the new 21.1 megapixel sensor. In this black and white, I have used the NIK software DFine noise reduction tool (just using the default settings). Overall, I liked this photo, and this crop, as to me, it conveyed well the thoughtful nature of this large animal.