Mom Go Blue!

Julie and I went up to Royal Oak, Michigan to celebrate her mom's 80th birthday and to catch a Michigan football game.  The trip was a lot of fun and everything went splendidly.

Friday was Joan's birthday so we went out for a nice dinner with one of her best friends, Mary Ellen (left) and her significant other Al.

Joan is doing great for 80.  She's still driving everywhere and zips around with an energy level that would be admired in most 50 year olds. The only downside is that she appears to be shrinking, or Julie is growing and I hadn't noticed that.

21 years of marriage and still in love.

Saturday brought the Michigan - Michigan State football game.  As always, we joined Julie's cousin Kathleen and her husband Bill.  It threatened to rain all day, but never leaked a drop.  Below you can see the spread Kathleen prepared.  As best I can tell, it could have supported a large number of the 113,000 fans in attendance.

Michigan manages to pack the fans in every game, but the place was rocking for a big rivalry game with no obvious favorite.

We have seen some unbelievably exciting games over the years.  This one wasn't pretty, but it was an adrenaline rush.  Michigan marched down the field and kicked a field goal with 5 seconds left to win by 2.  I don't think they would normally rush the field after beating a 5-2 unranked opponent, but it turns out that this was Michigan's 900th football victory.

On Sunday we went out to a great little restaurant with Julie's Uncle Tom and Aunt Marie.  Although we have a lot of great restaurants in Park City, I would love to see one of these open near us.  They have both savory and sweet crepes and they are to die for!

We left Michigan on Monday. It was sunny and 70+ degrees.  The weather for the next three days was supposed to be in the mid-70s.  Back in Park City, here is what we have.  It is nice to think about skiing, but I could use some Indian Summer.

Choosing a new DSLR

You may have read my blog article about Superzoom cameras and my recommendation of the FZ200 from Panasonic.  While these are great cameras, there are a lot of people who want the power and control of a Digital SLR.

First, do you go with Nikon or Canon?  I am a happy Nikon user but the truth is, they are about equal.  Once you pick one and buy some lenses, that generally drives your upgrades for many years to come because the lenses are not interchangeable. I will get around to making a set of Canon recommendations, but let's start with a Nikon system. Remember, there are lots of alternatives and an equal number of opinions from "experts". Here is my opinion:

First, the camera body.  Right now Nikon is selling the following DSLR bodies: D3200, D5100, D7000, D300s, D600, D800 and D4.  They range in price from $500 to $6,000.  If you are looking for a good DSLR  without overdoing it, I would go with the D7000.  Why?  The D3200 and D5100 are nice cameras, but they are missing a number of features that make a bigger camera worthwhile.  If you don't care about those features, I would suggest saving money, weight and complexity and go with a Superzoom.  The D7000 runs around $1000 for the body, about $700 less than the next model up, the D300s.  I love my D300 but it is built with 4 year old technology and desperately needs to be updated by Nikon. The other models are more expensive and would be hard for a beginner to justify unless you just won the lottery and simply don't care.

For lenses, you want to be able to cover a wide angle view through a fairly long zoom.  To grab that market, the lens manufacturers have come out with lenses that cover an amazingly broad range. Nikon has an 18-200 and even an 18-300 lens.  While it is nice to have one lens that does everything for you, these lenses sacrifice quality and sharpness, which is one of the big reasons you are buying a DSLR.  I suggest finding a pair of lenses that covers most or all of your needs, at least as you get going.

• Nikon 18-105 zoom.  This is one of Nikon's kit lenses, which means you can buy it with the body and save some money.  This is the lens you will probably use 80% of the time.  Portraits.  Parties. Landscapes.
• Nikon 55-300 zoom.  This gives you the ability to zoom in tight on things that are further away.  Make sure you get the VR version of this lens (see link below).  Nikon currently sells three different 55-300 zooms. Argh!

Many people get the body and lenses but forget about all the things required to use the camera and protect it. My recommended shopping list:

• Nikon D7000 16.2MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR ED Nikkor Lens
• Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom
• Tiffen 67mm UV Protection Filter ($8 protects your 18-105 lens)
• Tiffen 58mm UV Protection Filter ($7 protects your 55-300 lens)
• SanDisk Extreme 16 GB SD card  (Get two. The are fast and reliable. Stick with Sandisk)
• Kingston's USB 3.0 Media Reader  (USB 3 is so worth it)
• Extra D7000 Battery (Not required, but I wouldn't go without one. Stick with Nikon!)
• Giottos Medium Rocket Air Blaster (the best $10 gadget to keep your camera and lens clean)
• Induro AKB2 Tripod Kit  (a good tripod at a good price)
• Case (I won't even bother to suggest one.  People like such different things.  Get one big enough for your camera and both lenses.  I am a big fan of both Lowepro and Tamrac brands)

Some optional stuff

• Nikon SB-700 AF Speedlight Flash (A larger, more powerful flash than the little on-camera flash. The on-camera flash only reaches a few feet)
• Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens  (a good lens that shoots at a low f/stop.  Great for indoors without flash and shots with reduced depth of field)

Let me know if you have questions or feedback.  I would love to keep updating this list as better things become available.

The Apple Ipad Mini

Been thinking about a new tablet computer?  Waiting for Apple's new iPad Mini announcement to take a look?  Don't even bother.  Less features and functions than the "real" iPad.  No innovation whatsoever.  And the $250 expected price?  Nope.  It starts at $329 or $459 if you want cellular connectivity. 

I would seriously consider either Amazon's Kindle Fire HD or Google's Nexus 7 if you want a smaller tablet.

As a current iPad owner, I think today's announcement was a real dud.

My mom, a new photography pro

My mom has been doing a good bit of photography over the past few years. Seems to run in the family. She recently submitted two photos to a local exhibit and both were accepted.  One was a sunrise taken out here in Utah's Antelope Island. The other is the newborn fawn you see below.  Two for two is very impressive!

 At the exhibit, someone bought this framed photo, taking mom from amateur photographer status to pro retailer photographer.  Way to go mom!

April Mountain Visions

I have slowly been taking my hobby of photography and moving towards creating an interesting business.  A year or so ago, I picked a name for my business and grabbed the Internet domain.  Now I have taken the first step and put together a web site with some of my better photos.  Lot work to be done, but please stop by and take a look.

www.aprilmtnvisions.com

Choosing a new camera? Steve's recommendation

There are so many cameras available today: compacts, superzooms, and SLRs, ranging from under $100 to over $6000.  The choices are complicated because it is so difficult to sort through all the marketing hype, with every camera company making up different terms for the same functions.  I am writing a fairly complete article to help people decide which camera is best for them but in researching the newest cameras, I came across one I just had to share.

I know a lot of us have bought compacts that easily fit in your pocket. These were great, but they are being replaced with the rapidly improving cameras on cell phones.  Personally, I don't see any reason to carry both.

The question is what to get for more serious photo opportunities. You're going on a vacation.  Your kid is playing soccer or acting in a play. You scored tickets to a big sporting event.  In these cases, you want something that can:

• Work well in low light
• Zoom in on distant subjects and still give a clean picture
• Take a rapid series of photos
• Record movies in HD

To accomplish this, some people go buy an entry level Digital SLR. They quickly learn that these cameras, with their requisite lenses, are big, heavy and expensive.  When I travel, more than half my carry-on baggage is always camera gear.

A possible solution:  the Superzoom.  Canon, Sony, Panasonic, and Nikon all make decent cameras in this category, but I was just blown away by Panasonic's newest: the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. It does everything well in a nice, tight package.  Some people will get caught up in the fact that it "only" does 12M pixels. The mega-pixel war is one of the biggest mistakes of "more = better" that I have seen.  The DSLR I have been using for the past few years (Nikon D300s) is a 12MP camera and is completely sufficient for printing pictures up to 18 inches.

I won't duplicate all the marketing detail, but here are the things I care most about:

• 24x optical zoom
• f/2.8 lens throughout the entire zoom range.  This is extremely unusual and very valuable for both low light (school play) and portraits (soft, faded background)
• Up to 12 frames per second
• Shoots both RAW and JPG format pictures.  RAW is what advanced photographers use to capture more color depth and detail from each photo.This is normally only found on DSLRs.
• Excellent movie capabilites

At the time I am writing this, it costs $550.  Not your cheap $150 compact, but a great deal compared to an expensive DSLR and lenses.

You can read the details about the FZ200 (and even order it) from here.

I you want to compare some of the better competitors, you can check out the  Canon PowerShot SX50 and the Sony DSC-HX200V. I think the Panasonic is the hands down winner, with the Sony in second place.

I like to pass along good solutions when I find them. Feel free to post questions if you have them.

Clouds over Jupiter Peak

I didn't have time to make a production out of this, so I just let the camera do its time lapse thing.  Fun to watch the clouds roll in with a cold front.

Much better in HD mode and fullscreen.

The Last of Fall

The last few photos I took of the fall foliage up around Guardsman Pass. Too bad the leaves can't seem to stay around any longer than they do. Switching from fall to early winter is rough when you are still in the beginning of October.

The Montage Hotel is snuggled nicely up in the ski runs and fall colors.

While perhaps too small to see, we are looking up at Park City Mountain Resort's Summit House.  Come ski season, they serve up fine dining at its most mediocre.

A Superb Political Statement

I know everyone is tired of seeing political commercials and hearing friends and relatives talk about why your view is the wrong one.  We all hate to suffer through this and we are waiting for election day to come and go.

Just the same, every once in a while I see a political piece with such creativity and high production values that I have to share it.  Warning:  this is a pro Obama piece.  If you don't like Obama and can't watch just to appreciate the uniqueness of the piece, please don't click the link below.  I'm not trying to sell you on who to vote for.

One Term More

Last Antelope Island trip this year

I figured Jasper and I could make one last photography visit for the year to both Antelope Island and Farmington Bay. We won't go again until the cold of winter, hopefully to find lots of Bald Eagles.

This first series of photos are all Avocets. They are such cool looking birds and there wasn't much else of interest along the Causeway.

The water on the north side of the Causeway was great for reflections.  The south side had too much glare and more waves.

So cool when they fly...

You probably have to double click on this one to see it, but the Avocet in the back looks like he's barking out orders to the three in front.  It reminded me of a track coach barking at his training runners.

The bison were everywhere, but this one really stood out.  He was wearing a bouquet of pretty yellow flowers on his right horn.  Although it looked very decorative, he didn't seem that happy with it.  Try as he might, he couldn't get them off.

This shot of a Red Tailed Hawk was almost an accident.  I had been trying to get a shot of him, but he flew off too far.  I was about to put the camera away when I noticed he kept flying near the moon.  He's a very, very long ways off so it isn't a great shot, but the idea worked out pretty well.

I was getting whiny because I hadn't seen any coyotes.  Suddenly one walked out onto the road in front of me and laid down.  Too weird.  My best guess is that the pavement was warm on a chilly morning.  I think he would have let me get a lot closer, but a big truck came from the other direction and scared him off

Once I found the first one, I found a lot more.  This is the closest I have come to my holy coyote grail picture of one pouncing while hunting prey.  The sot is from quite a distance, through some grass, and he didn't get much air, but it was a pounce and it was successful.

I grabbed a bite to eat at the Buffalo Island Grill, which is the only eating establishment in the park.  I finished, got back in the car, and 200 yards down the road spotted another coyote.  You can really tell that they are trading in their scraggly summer fur for their big winter coats.

In Farmington Bay, there wasn't much happening.  The ducks, grebes and herons were all too far away.  This Meadowlark was very cooperative though.

I didn't see any eagles yet (too early) but there must have been a dozen Harriers and a pair of hunting Osprey.

The fall migration is just about done. The leaves are all losing their color. The temperatures are dropping into the 20s in Park City tonight.  I think my wildlife photography will probably decrease to a few local moose until winter.