DSLRs, Travels, Perishables and Old Haunts
Got a new 40D last week. This is how it looks with my rock-star lens, the 35L mounted. The 5D still will be my primary camera, but I was starting to get annoyed by having to swap lenses all the time and I also wanted to have a backup camera when doing gigs. I did a little shoot comparison between the 40D and the 5D. Funny how even when the 5D is three years older than the 40D, it still makes a better picture. I’d have loved to get another 5D, but just didn’t have the money for it.
Tomorrow I’ll be driving down to Las Vegas to catch my flight to DC. I’m shooting a wedding there on March 8th. I’m both excited and anxious about it. I’ve done weddings before, but I still get nervous every time because I want the bride and groom to have the best possible pictures. Having the 40D with me will definitely help me capture both the wide shots and tight shots without having to swap lens.
I’m also feeling a little odd about heading back to DC. Seeing all my old friends, all my old haunts and the “big-city” feel that I left behind me. I’ve been adjusting to the quiet home-maker life here in Bishop, its going to be a quite a jolt, thats for sure. But I definitely am looking forward to seeing all my friends!
I looked into my fridge this morning to figure out what I should buy at the food store - and it occured to me that I’d be gone for a week. And there were a ton of things in there that were perishable. Chicken meat, fruits, vegetables, and a whole loaf of bread. So I have to eat everything I have in there by tomorrow morning.
I also have a pound of ground beef that I was thawing out. Would it be horrible to re-freeze it?
See? All of those things, I never had to worry about when I was living in DC. I ate out every day. Whole Foods was my kitchen. I bought only what I needed for that meal and nothing more. I kept nothing in the fridge…
A couple nights ago, I headed up to the Buttermilk Road to do some test night shots. I wanted to get an idea of what kind of setup I’d need to get for taking pictures of the mountains when it was utterly dark outside. There was no moon out at the time, and I could barely see anything. But even when it is dark like that, there still is light, and if you keep the shutter open long enough, you’ll get an exposure.
I don’t have a remote shutter release, so I was limited to a maximum 30-second exposure time. I shot this picture at f/2.0, ISO 1600 and 30 seconds. Obviously, I want to shoot at f/11 and ISO 100 for best image quality. That’s a full 4-stops slower on ISO, and 5-stops slower on aperture, for a total of 9-stops.
Each stop is twice as much light, so 30 seconds would come out to about 256 minutes. Or a bit over 4 hours. Mabye I’ll just make it ISO 200 and f/8, which would make it 64 minutes…
Other problem is that at 64 minutes, those stars are going to be star-trails instead…
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3 Responses to “DSLRs, Travels, Perishables and Old Haunts”
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Have fun using the new cameraQ
By the way, don’t refreeze the raw beef again. That’s a big no no
That is a lovely photo. I miss not being out in mountain country. I’m sure you’ll have fun trying out the new camera.
Next time you have thawed meat and have to use it in a hurry, either cook the ground meat loose and freeze for later or poach chicken pieces in low boiling water and chop into bite-size pieces and freeze for later. This can you can do while packing for a trip the night before.
Loose cooked hamburger is good for tacos, spaghetti or pasta dishes. Cooked chicken pieces can be used for a stir-fry or pasta dishes. If you have a microwave, you can thaw out the meat quickly and it’s a snap to make tacos quickly by reheating the meat with the sauce, for example. Guys! What their mamas didn’t tell ‘em.
haha! i bought the ground beef to make tacos. since i had to make a choice between the chicken or the beef, i went with the chicken since it was much more expensive than the beef.
and ill sadly have to toss the beef.