Christmas Lights, Angela, Adrian making Gnocchi, and Inara.

[Show as slideshow]

I took my camera to the B-Team’s Christmas party last Tuesday. These are some shots I got.

[Show as slideshow]

I decided to actually sort out what about my camera made focusing my f/1.4 manual lens so hard and I found this article about fast manual lenses and modern DSLR cameras. The root of the problem is how the camera splits light between the view finder and the auto focus sensors. The long and short of it is, that no matter how big your aperture, what you see in the view finder will likely be f/4 or smaller equivalent (at least with a entry or mid level DSLR).

This matches my experience. The depth of field in the view finder is huge even when the aperture is wide open (and you can verify that it is open by looking in the front of the lens). Even more frustrating is the fact that live view very obviously shows the correct depth of field.

This makes finding sharp focus through the view finder impossible, or at least very improbable and unrepeatable if you are using a very fast manual focus lens. The solution: use main sensor based live view and on screen zoom (when possible) to achieve razor focus.

Adrian’s Aunt Laura came to Texas to help us bake some of her families’ favorite deserts: Biscotti and Pitzels, for our wedding. I took a few pictures while the baking was going on.

[Show as slideshow]

A few pictures from Christmas in Rosenberg with Adrian an her Aunt.

[Show as slideshow]

I’ve finally done it… I bought a DSLR. After much reading around, I select the Nikon D5000. This is an entry level SLR, which made it very affordable (a plus) but that wasn’t my only reasoning.  The D5000 uses the same image sensor as the D90 and D300 and has a very similar feature set from a new photographers point of view. Compared to a D300, it gives up a number of physical buttons, and some of the more professionally oriented accessory connectors. It is still capable of using a remote as well as a GPS for geotagging.

We recently received the DVD of our engagement shoot with Danny Heinlein (dwphotoz.com).  Among other pictures, Adrian and I danced a little. Here are a couple pictures of us dancing I liked. These pictures were not staged. We just played around a little bit and he took pictures.

[Show as slideshow]