Scattered Thoughts . . .

The other night went scrolling through an old hard drive of image files.  I came across a folder of bird photos from when I was testing my new little Sony a6000 camera three or four years ago.  I scrolled through the entire folder before realizing it was difficult to choose just one photo so I simply went back to the first photo in the folder.  There are a few things to point out about this particular photo: 1.  Song birds...  in this case, a Dark Eyed Junko...  flit around quickly, unexpectedly jumping from branch to branch so they are difficult to capture even when seemingly statically perched on a branch.  These birds are never static even if they appear that way in a still photo. 2.  Getting a camera to focus on something jumping around quickly and taking flight unexpectedly every couple of seconds is difficult enough but having to focus on this bird when it is hiding behind twigs, leaves and branches is even more difficult.  The camera often will focus only on the neare

Sony a6000 camera So, after writing about my "first light" experience last night, I realized that I haven't really written anything about this telescope or even the camera I used. Let me start by saying that both of these pieces of equipment are considered "entry-level"... the telescope is an entry-level telescope for just getting started in astrophotography... and the camera is an entry-level, all purpose mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.  Let's start with the camera since that is what actually captures the imaging. It is a Sony a6000 camera body... quite small and almost pocketable... but works great for action photos of the grandchildren as well as wildlife photography. This is also the camera I bring to the hospital because its shutter is quieter than my better camera and because it is a bit smaller than my better camera. This is an old camera by digital standards but it far surpasses entry level cameras produced today by all other manufact

A week or so ago, I had written about having problems with our old home theater receiver. We had upgraded our television to 4K HDR but we found that our home theater receiver would not pass through a 4K signal. There were some other little quirks with that older receiver so I opted to purchase a new Sony Surround Sound Bar system.  I've been using this new Sony system for a few days now so I figured I would write a little about it now.  The first thing I noticed about this new sound system is it is very simplified compared to the controls of the old home theater receiver. This is good and bad. I'm not going to get into any detail here but being simplified is very much a positive and this part of it was very welcomed. That old home theater receiver made it difficult to tweak the sound because the controls were in the form of menus inside of menus inside of menus with no graphical interface. The sound quality of this new sound system is quite good. Most noticeably is that

Back in early December, we bought ourselves an early Christmas present... a new Sony Bravia 4K HDR television for our living room.  As most of you already know, I am a big fan of Sony products and we have many. We already had a Sony Bravia television but it was rather small for our living room and only "HD" in resolution ("HD" as in 720p...  not even 1080 Full HD). It was time for a much needed upgrade since there is such a tremendous difference between 4K and Full HD... and our resolution was even lower at 720p HD! Early December was a busy time for us... Sheila's cancer treatment and recovery, Liza's wedding, Christmas fast approaching, etc... so I made a quick swap with the televisions. I pulled out the old television and quickly hung the new, larger, better 4K HDR television. Everything seemed to be working fine and the picture was far better so I just left it all as is. Well... I must admit that I  did slightly adjust the picture settings to get a

It was a fairly nice afternoon the other day so Sheila and I went for a walk with the grandkids. This was a pretty good opportunity to test my new little action camera so I brought that along for the ride. A screenshot from the video... preserved highlights...  detail in the clouds...   nice clarity...  nice color... nice video!   I figured this would really be putting this little camera to the test... I'm walking with a pronounced limp lately so I knew to expect a bouncy, jerky video... I didn't have any way to strap this camera to anything so I just held it in my hand down at my side... and it was quite breezy out so I knew wind noise would be an issue. Regardless... the resulting video clips look pretty good! I definitely want to make a little homemade wind-cut filter out of open-cell foam to cut down on the wind noise. The primary purpose of this action camera is to use it for recording video of kayaking at the lake and there is almost always some variable winds ou

The Sony FDR X3000 action camera.      The other day, I wrote about how video resolution keeps increasing exponentially rather quickly. Unfortunately, my old Fuji waterproof camera that we've been using at the lake for video is a bit dated and is showing its age. This put me on a search for an affordable waterproof video camera (rather than a waterproof stills camera) which will hold me over for the next five or more years. I quickly found that, once again, Sony has proven that they are listening to what the consumers and professionals want and need. It seems the best action video camera on the market today is a Sony camera... the Sony FDR X3000, to be exact. It has 4K resolution... comes with a waterproof housing... has a separate controller with LCD screen that I can wear like I would a watch (or I can mount it on an accessory)... it has an app which allows me to sync and control with my cellphone... and has perhaps the best video image stabilization on the market today.

I'm still waiting to get in to see my doctor (appointment is tomorrow) so I was still just hanging around doing nothing but hoping to find something to do. As I was boiling an egg for breakfast, I noticed a Nuthatch outside our kitchen window... "Hmmmm... I haven't seen these guys since last year!"  I quickly decided that I'd grab a camera and a lens and try to capture a few photos.   Last week when doing the same, I grabbed my smallest camera and longest lens. Since my smallest camera was plugged-in to recharge its battery this morning, I decided to use my larger Sony camera body. Once again, I grabbed my longest lens. I haven't really used this combo yet so this would be a good test while giving me an opportunity to practice on these jumpy fast moving birds.  None of these birds outside our kitchen window ever sit still for longer than about three seconds so you need to be quick if you want to capture a crisp photo. This morning was no different. It

I was hoping to find some wildlife outside today... even if only a squirrel or chipmunk... so I could test a new super telephoto Canon lens I picked up recently. The weather was pretty nice but I was feeling rather lousy. Nevertheless, I pushed the crappy health aside (and all the nausea and pain that goes with it) and I still headed out to the backyard with my camera and new (used) lens in hand.   So, not finding any wildlife to shoot left me with some withered old flowers and a few remaining leaves on tree branches. "Well... that is kind of a let down..." One of the problems with shooting small subjects such as flowers and leaves with a long super telephoto lens is that these subjects are rather tiny... even smaller than typical song birds. I didn't see any of them either! Not only are these subjects small but I can only get so close to these subjects because every lens has a minimum focus distance. On long super telephoto lenses such as this one, this minimum focus

As I've written previously on this blog, as much as I truly love my Sony camera, I've been quite frustrated by Sony's slow lens development. A few years ago, Sony released a few new cameras in a new mount... the Sony e-mount. At that time, I didn't give Sony much of a thought... that is... until I held one of these cameras in my hands at a local Best Buy store. The moment I held this new Sony camera body in my hands, I said, "WOW!" It was small... it was relatively lightweight... it had a HUGE sensor... and it really felt like a solid, high quality product. I went home and started researching (I never buy anything costing more than a few bucks until I research... and research more... and then research again).  I was liking what I was reading about this camera system but it was completely new with a new lens mount so lenses were few and far between at that point. I thought, "So... how long could it take to fill out a fairly complete lens lineup?... Two

Two years ago, I purchased a Sony camera. It is, by far, the best camera I have ever used in my life (and I've used a lot of them over the past 40 years) but the selection of lenses available for this new Sony camera is rather poor.  Sony produced this outstanding camera line and keeps pumping out new models of cameras bodies in this new line but Sony has been exceptionally slow at filling out a full line of lenses. To say I've been frustrated by this delay is a huge understatement. I'd like to get rid of all my old gear (other brands not worth mentioning here nor anywhere else) but I've been hanging onto and using my old gear to make up for the holes in the Sony lens lineup. The problem with trying to use my old gear is that I've advanced enough in photography that these older cameras are even more frustrating for me than Sony being slow to fill out their lens lineup. I really should also mention that after using this new Sony camera, I do not enjoy using any of