A Few Christmas Photos

As I was sitting on the couch this evening, looking out the living room window toward our trash shed, the color difference between the old incandescent Christmas lights and the new LED "warm white" Christmas lights was abundantly obvious.  I said to myself, "I'll have to get a photo of that soon..." but quickly decided that "soon" should be "immediately".  

First, I grabbed my Sony a6000 camera body and shot a few photos but, honestly, I wasn't too impressed with the photo quality.  This was partially due to using a relatively slow lens at f4 in the dark so the camera used a very high ISO value making the image a bit too noisy and splotchy for my taste.  Usually, when using this camera, I would choose a faster lens in the f1.8-2.8 range but I had the f4 lens already mounted on the body so I figured I would use that one.  I was hoping that I could counter the relatively slow lens (slower lenses struggle more in low light) by using a feature I rarely use.  I used an Intelligent Auto ISO feature (I think that is what it is called) that fires a three shot burst and combines them in an attempt to cancel out the excess noise due to the high ISO that was necessary due to the lack of light in the scene.  Honestly, it didn't work as well as I had hoped in this particular situation.  

I then grabbed my compact classic Fuji X30 camera to see how that camera would fare on this same scene.  I wasn't expecting it to be any better though because it has a significantly smaller sensor.  This camera is not the worst camera I've used in low light but it is not as good as my Sony cameras.  Plus, I'm still learning its limitations.  I switched the camera to its "Low Light" feature which operates very much the same as the Sony Auto ISO feature I explained above.  Again, I was expecting noisy mush after seeing the results from my Sony camera.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this featured seemed to work better, in this situation, than my Sony a6000!  Here's the photo...

The purpose of shooting this photo, above, was to show the stark difference in the color of the Christmas lights.  The LED warm white Christmas lights on the wreaths are clearly a very different "warm white" than the older incandescent Christmas lights lining the trash shed.  The LEDs have a sort of greenish hue to them.  I'm not really liking them although they are significantly more appealing that older LED Christmas light sets.

Again, using my compact Fuji X30, I shot a photo of a book I purchased for Kenzie (below).  It is a book about a 12 year old figure skater in Lake Placid that I thought might interest her.  The book was sitting in my lap (I've been skimming through the book lately) and I shot this photo in macro mode using the "Pro Portrait" feature.  This feature blurs the background a bit more and it worked quite well here...

There are so many settings in this compact camera that I had to make myself a small set of notes in a flip-board checklist style.  I have about two dozen film simulations I can set on this camera.  Some situations work great with certain film simulations while other situations work better with other simulations.  These flip notes were sitting on the couch next to me so I shot a photo of them with the intention of writing about them briefly on my blog at some point.  Since this is as good a time as any, I stuck the photo in this blog entry.  (Although, I probably should write a more detailed blog entry specifically about some of the more interesting film simulations.)

One last photo for tonight...  Here is a shot of our Christmas tree...

This little camera really is an outstanding compact camera.  And, it is a sharp looking camera with a very classic look!

Sheila is still quite sick (I mentioned this briefly in a previous blog entry) with either some type of flu, some type of virus, or Strep throat.  She now has two medications, including an antibiotic, so hopefully she'll be feeling better in a couple of days.  We have our annual Christmas dinner with some close friends on Saturday so we don't want to have to cancel those plans.  We look forward to this dinner every year.  Hopefully I won't catch what she has!

I guess the positive thing about Sheila being sick now is that it is keeping her off her ice skates.  She had injured her leg about two weeks ago so what bug she now has is allowing her time for her leg to heal.  Also, it is better that she is sick now and not just days before we are scheduled to head to Manhattan!

I've been feeling "okay"...  well, considering my illness, I've been feeling "okay".  I've been able to do some light exercise and physical therapy most days so that is good.  I'm trying to build up enough strength for a few days in Manhattan in a few weeks.  I definitely could not keep up with Sheila and the grandkids at any point over the summer even for a couple of hours so I really do need to build up my strength significantly so we can do everything we want to do while in Manhattan.  There are a lot of Christmas sites to see!

Lukey broke his foot last week so he might have some difficulty during our trip to Manhattan.  He should be well enough to get around by the time we hop on the train to head to Manhattan as long as he does what the doctor says and stays off it until then.  We still don't know if he'll be able to put on a pair of ice skates at Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center but, as long as he has no problems walking around all day, things will be fine.