Back in November I finally bought the macro lens that I’ve been eying for ages. And when I say ages I actually mean that I’ve wanted a macro lens since I got my first Nikon 3 years ago. I’ll also say that when my husband asks me how much money I would spend on camera gear if I could I tell him that however much he can think of, that’s how much I could spend. $2,000? Sure, that will get me a really nice lens. $3,000? Full frame here I come. $5,000? $10,000? No problem. Here’s the thing: I’m not an impulse buyer. (Usually; my new hair straightener was a bit of an impulse but my old one is 6+ years old!) Even when I take my time, do research, and fully consider the pros and cons of buying new camera equipment I often end up with buyers remorse. That’s just how I am about money.

I could talk about all the technicalities of the lenses I already own and all the technical reasons why I bought the one I did but this isn’t a technical post. Basically, the 90mm focal length is helping to fill a gap that I have and the macro feature is a bonus. My problem is that I haven’t actually used it all that much, a problem I need to fix. Warm weather, please come quickly! Considering that we’re in Wisconsin now that’s probably not likely.

These are, once again, some older photos. When we traveled south to visit family for Christmas the weather was warm enough for me to walk around and test the lens out on my mom’s Boxer, Chief, and her flower bed. While her glorious day lilies are not in bloom I still enjoyed it.

This photo makes me think that I did make the right lens choice. I’m very excited to be able to get outdoors and do portraits with it.

This last one was just too funny not to post. Apparently, this is how he reacts whenever anyone first approaches him, stranger or no. It probably didn’t help that I was wearing my hood that is shaped like a wolf and forgot about it…

Today I thought I’d share some photos from last October. It was one of the last times I went out to take photos before the weather turned. This river isn’t so very far away from my apartment. It’s a nice place to go but not without some friends to go along. It’s a rather popular fishing spot but there are parts of the mini peninsula that are rather isolated. I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly unsafe but wandering around alone with my camera just doesn’t seem the best idea. Anyway; on to the photos!

The part that we walked out had quite a few trees growing on it. I loved how you could look ahead and see the path.

That one is probably one of my favorites. For some reason I don’t know they’ve blocked off a portion of the river or are redirecting a dam or something. The backhoe was parked beside the part that is now drained (I think) and the reflection came out looking like a painting. In this last photo you can see the ripples in the water:

What I do have is an enormous back log of photos that I’ve never done, well, anything with. So far 2012 has been rather photo barren, which is another thing that bugs me. So a (largely) unused blog, photos that need something doing with, and lacking motivation to take photos? (Though I can guarantee that the Wisconsin winter is at least partially to blame for few photos this year.) It all fits! The site is a bit of a shambles but I make no promises as to when everything will be fixed because the truth is it probably won’t ever be finished. That’s what happens when you have a lazy perfectionist. If such a thing exists, I am it. I’m going to stop apologizing for not writing, stop making promises that I know won’t be kept.

As everyone knows, the best use of a DSLR is to take photos of one’s cat(s). Can I just stop to say that I googled whether or not “one’s” should have an apostrophe in it? Because I did. Why? It just has to be right. I’m not lazy all the time! Ahem. Anyway, I have more than a few but not a ridiculous amount of cat photos. Here are some that are recent. All shot with my Nikon D90 and 50mm f/1.8.

This cat. This cat. He is huge. He snores, unfortunately not loud enough for my phone to record it very well but it’s hilarious. Sometimes I can hear him over the TV. I think he loves nothing more than to hear the crinkle of paper (usually fast food wrappings) and play fetch with them. Yes, he will wait for us to throw it, go play with it a bit, drop it at our feet, then look at us and let out a hoarse “meow” and wait for us to throw it again. I love him.

Now that I have distracted you with cute cat photos, about that unintended 7 month (ish) break. I’m really not sure what to say. Not much happened. The things that did happen I’m not even sure how to categorize so I’ll just list them in chronological order. More or less. I’ve dyed my hair red and not taken any photos of it. My husband spent 5 weeks working out of town and got shorted on his compensation. One of two expected babies arrived in October, the second is due in March. (I’m still not sure how much to talk about family because I’m not sure how they or I feel about it. This is not me saying that I’m expecting this March.) I worked for exactly 90 days as a freelance newborn photographer. It didn’t work out, and not because of the newborns themselves. I’m currently not working and I’m not sure how I feel about that, either. I still dislike our apartment but we haven’t made any decisions about what we’ll do come May 31. There’s a lot that could happen between now and then. Yes, I’m being vague. I’ve played a lot of too much Skyrim. I’ve read… some but not as much as I’d like. I have an issue with picking up books and not putting them down until they’re finished.

Those last two items show me that I definitely have issues with managing my productivity. As in I’m not very productive. I didn’t make any actual resolutions this year but if I needed to pick on one thing to work on, productivity seems to be the thing to choose.

I know last week I made some progress on actually writing. This week that all fizzled. Between attending two birthday parties last weekend, trying to spend as much time with family as possible, going to the dentist three times this week (3!! I had three cavities all on different sides of my mouth so they filled them different days), preparing at work for someone else to come in, and packing (!!!) I just haven’t written.

So here is a photo of a rose.

The big moving dates are June 4 and 5. I’m somewhat prepared but there’s still so much stuff that I need to do. Pack. Arrange. Make calls about. I may not be able to devote much time to writing until after the move.

Both of the cats have loved the boxes that are sitting around waiting for magic elves to start packing things. Who knows how they’ll react as more and more start piling up. Hopefully, those boxes will be full and the cats will be content to sit on top of the boxes rather than in them. I have a feeling our moving date is going to be here before I can turn around twice.

So for those who don’t follow twitter, I got a new camera! The Nikon Rumors guy posted a tweet last Thursday that contained a promo code for Newegg. It was good for that day only for 10% of DSLR cameras (except for Sony). Out of curiosity I checked it out; when I saw what the final price would be on the Nikon D90 I felt like it was too good to pass up. I pondered for a bit, talked to my husband, and decided to buy it. I did hit a bit of a snag during checkout when it decided that the promo code was no good. A quick chat with their customer support cleared that up and the camera was mine! Well, it was this past Tuesday.

And what a camera it is. I have not had a whole lot of time to use it yet but so far I LOVE it. It feels right at home in my hands. There is a whole slew of features that are steps up from my previous camera. (I think the D60 may have found a home… with my husband. We still haven’t decided for sure.) The controls are much more easily accessed, making it so instead of having to dive into a couple of menus to change the shooting settings I can instead hold this button and turn that wheel the intended direction. Biggest feature for me (right now)? The focus motor. I know I have whined and whined (or at least brought it up many times) that I was very disappointed by the lack of a focusing motor in the D60. Basically, unless lenses were of a very specific type, the only option available was to manual focus and sometimes that just doesn’t work well for me. Now? I have it. I can use the 50mm that I bought a year and a half ago much more regularly.

There’s so much more that I could talk about and so much that I don’t know about it yet. But I am extremely excited and pleased with the little I have used it since I got it. One thing that is really bumming me out is the time change and ever shortening days. Even though I typically get home by 5:15 the sun is mostly gone. The local hills and mountains do not help with that. If it weren’t for one hill in particular I’m sure we’d have a little more daylight each day but my house is sort of in a little bit of a dip. As soon as I got home today I ran into the house to grab my camera and a telephoto lens that my sister is letting me borrow. It also requires a motor built in the camera to use auto focus so I wanted to see how well it works. I got the first shot in this post with it and this next one:

But it didn’t take long for the sun to go completely behind that pesky hill and I was left with little light. This is a different tree, if you were wondering. It’s one of the maples in front of our house that had some gorgeous yellow leaves but they are mostly gone now. (I’m pretty sure they’re maples.)

It was also getting cooler so after trying to take a few shots of the moon (will try that again later with a tripod) it was back inside.

One thing that I still feel like I’m missing with regard to photography is a good image editor. My trials of Lightroom, Elements, and Photoshop have all expired. While I know that there are, um, alternate sources to obtain these programs I am not going to do that. I want to have valid licenses and full rights to everything. Yesterday I downloaded GIMP to try out again. I have heard so many people say “It’s just like Photoshop!” that I thought maybe my first experience with it was just not long enough. However, I quickly found out that GIMP doesn’t have adjustment layers in the same way that Photoshop does. I am going to show my geek here again. I think typically there are two categories of editing: destructive and nondestructive. Destructive means manipulating the actual pixels of an image. If you need to undo a manipulation you have to undo all of the steps you have done since. Nondestructive editing allows you to change the image by using layers and other means, ones that don’t have to physically change the image. With layers you can hide them or unhide them to see the changes, go back and edit that one specific effect, use them at different strengths, and so forth. I have become very accustomed to being able to use adjustment layers for editing and I’m really not keen on learning new ways of doing that. I know the difference is GIMP = $0 while Photoshop = $600+ but I think it’s a big difference. Photoshop is the standard for a reason.

Until I can purchase Photoshop (or Lightroom; I can’t decide which one takes priority) I will stick with View NX and GIMP. I am also going to explore the custom picture controls that are available on the D90 itself. The quick glance I had at the retouching menu also looked pretty good. Again, I’m sad that daylight is practically gone by the time I have free time but I hope to make the most of my weekends and practice practice practice. I want to whip up a new design (which is sorely overdue) and possibly include a daily (or almost daily) photo page and use that to encourage me to get out and take photos.

However, until the sun stops setting at 5PM I think I’ll be moping like Mr. Poe here:

Photo Information; Camera: Nikon D90; Images #1-3 shot with the Nikkor 70-300mm G (non VR) @ 155mm and 105mm; Image #4 shot with Nikkor 50mm 1.8D)