Kathy & I are working on plans to see friends and family in Ohio and Pennsylvania in early July. When we talked about spending time with other people over the July 4th weekend, I told her that “we need a different sound track.” I feel like we’ve been listening to the same album over and over for 13 weeks and it is time to hear some new music.
In the mean time, enough of this sitting around at home with itchy feet. It’s time to “get out of Dodge” for a little while. So we’re headed to the beach for a week. Back tomorrow with photos from a new location. No power lines or shopping carts! 🙂
Oops. I spent all morning and most of the afternoon doing stuff and forgot to finish my homework! Here it is, a little late, and without any witticisms to accompany it. I doubt anyone will be disappointed. 😉
We took our first foray into the restaurant world last evening to celebrate Kathy’s birthday. It was a nice experience, not a lot different from what we’ve come to expect from our favorite restaurants, except the tables were farther apart, no one hugged and all the servers wore masks. It was our first restaurant meal since March 16, and between our travels and the Coronacrisis, it was our first time at this restaurant since Christmas Eve. We’re still not in a hurry to resume our normal visitation, but it was nice to see our friends.
This photo is one I took on our morning walk yesterday and it says several things to me. The new X-T4 handles dynamic range really well, and it has very little noise despite a lot of shadow and highlight adjustment. This was taken with the 23mm f1.4 prime lens. The in-body image stabilization seems to work really well with non-stabilized lenses – as advertised. In this photo, the lens exhibits very little flare and barely any chromatic aberration. The 23 has been my favorite prime, it works really well on the X-T4 and makes a nice walk-around lens.
Construction workers at the mini storage construction site
One of my weekly routines is to go through the sale ad for our regular grocery store. It amuses me to look at some of the foods that are advertised and wonder who eats them. Today’s chuckle came from something called “Daily Crave Bourbon BBQ Quinoa Chips.” I mean, that doesn’t even sound good. I like bourbon, I like BBQ and I even like quinoa. But I don’t know about mixing them. ‘Quinoa chips’ must be another one of the ways that food companies destroy otherwise healthy food by adding stuff to make it taste good to people who don’t know what healthy food tastes like. I suppose you would wash those down with a Snapple. 😉
I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the protests that have been going on around our country. Not because I don’t care, I do. But while I agree that things need to change, I fear that until the people in charge are held accountable, these demonstrations will only provide entertainment for the masses and actually accomplish little. I always try to be an optimist but optimism can be tough to come by these days!
It’s hard to be anything but optimistic when our grandson Edison is around! One of the things he enjoys is using an old pair of my binoculars to watch the birds and the squirrels, and to make people seem “right next to me!” He has a very curious mind and loves looking at interesting things and taking “nature walks” behind our house.
Edison examining the neighbors’ flowers with binocularsMay I come in?
Construction equipment at the mini storage construction site
I’m still working with the settings on this new camera and processing of the files. Our grandson visited yesterday so I got some photos of him. Shooting pictures of a moving 4 year old was a good test of focus tracking, and also of the user’s ability to use the camera!
No, these are not his toys. 😉 I may have a photo or two to share soon.
Yeah, it’s more transmission towers, but this time from a slightly different perspective.
We have about a 100 degree view from our patio, but most of the view is taken up with houses and other foreground clutter. These towers make for an interesting foreground silhouette, since I don’t have any palm trees. 😉
The night before last, we were sitting on the porch watching the sunset, and I said, “I should get my camera.” But I didn’t and the color got nice. Last night, I said, “I should get my camera.” And I did. The color was actually a bit better than the night before, so I chose correctly. 🙂 This shows the advantage of having a long lens – 128mm with my 55-200. I thought about giving the new IBIS a test, but opted for the stability of my tripod.
Are you tired of looking at abandoned shopping carts yet? There is an ample supply, and my other choice was more photos of transmission towers, so there you go. Tomorrow may be transmission towers again! I need to get out of the neighborhood. Soon, I suspect.
I spent yesterday afternoon fiddling with menus and settings and taking photos of the ceiling fan on our porch. It’s interesting what things can be controlled on these cameras, although I’m not sure what they all do or why I would need them. I’m trying to figure out some of the custom settings but am discovering why I seldom bother – they are fussy and frustrating to figure out and it is getting in the way of taking pictures. I’m going to keep trying, though. Because I suspect that there is value in using them that I won’t recognize until I’ve used them. Duh.
Today I’m working with the camera profiles in Lightroom to see what they will do. Fuji added a bunch of new profiles to their cameras over the last 5 years or so, and I need to catch up! There are 4 new black & white settings and a number of color/film emulations to figure out. I try not to use the same settings all the time, but I do like to have a common starting point. In order to know what to use I need to know (1) what I like, and (2) what they all do. So, the homework continues!
“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.” Incorrectly attributed to many sources, origin uncertain. I like it anyway. Sort of like the one about the journey being the destination.
The quote is on a card that I received yesterday with a shipment of coffee beans. Freedom Fresh Roasts is a small batch coffee roaster operated by a long-time friend and former restaurant manager. I’ve had his coffee in restaurants but he just recently started selling online. I haven’t had the beans yet but will report as soon as I’ve tried them. I have a feeling they’ll be yummy! 🙂
Delivery of building supplies to the new storage center under construction
The summertime heat and humidity have finally arrived. It’s typical here in the south, but we do the “thermometer dance” in the spring between heat and A/C, then BAM! it’s summer. We’ve been taking our walks early. Well, early for Kathy. 😉 That gives us a chance to get home before our shoes start melting into the pavement!
The Big Brown Truck is bringing me a special package today. I’ll write about it tomorrow. 🙂
