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pierces

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About Me

  • Location
    Southern California
  • Interests
    Cruising, cruising, wildlife...oh, photography too!
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Royal Caribbean, Celebrity
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Alaska
  • If you have a personal or hobby CRUISE or TRAVEL BLOG, include the url here:
    www.pptphoto.com

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  1. After more than a week of spending all my free time on the latest addition to the back yard, the new gazebo is pretty much done. I still need to add a few bolts anchoring it to the deck but since there have been no tornado alerts for a while, I may wait until tomorrow. We are nearing the end of the project that we started back in mid-2020 when panic outpaced reason and everything was shut down. We decided to make a place where family and friends could gather when all other options were taken away. It has been a great success, having hosted many a happy gathering. Next up is more decking. This will not only serve to expand non-temporary seating but will advance our other agenda. We are winning our war on dirt...one square foot at a time. Almost There Dave
  2. Pictures taken between Monday, March 25 and Sunday, March 31. Egg-laying rabbits running wild this week... Have your camera ready! Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!
  3. The healing tool in Lightroom is good for small touch-ups, spots, and (very) minor object removal. If you need to remove something more substantial or do a more complete cleanup, Photoshop is a much better choice. Especially with the new object removal brush. One thing to note is that with the Lightroom healing tool, the source area of the spot healing isn't always perfect but it can be moved by dragging it. I was lucky with the file structure. Having used PCs pretty much since there have been PCs, I've gotten used to storing files in a hierarchical structure with groups, subgroups, etc. and used the same method when I started storing digital images. Turns out this is pretty much ideal for sorting and grouping images in Lightroom. I also batch rename images from a particular source (so and so's birthday party 2018, Alaska 2013) as well as naming files individually, which makes searching for particular images much easier. The batch rename feature in Lightroom is very flexible and easy to use. It has useful options like renaming to a keyword/keyphrase with the original file number or keyword/keyphrase with a sequence which makes it very handy for displaying and sharing photos. I especially appreciate the ability to drag images into a particular order in the thumbnail window, highlight them and add a sequence to them in that custom order. Also, if you haven't already made use of the facial recognition feature in Lightroom, keyword tagging images of people with their name makes future searches extremely easy. It also provides entertainment. While it's remarkably good at identifying faces, some of the things that it thinks are faces are quite humorous. Dave
  4. The 70-350 might be worth taking. There are bits and details that you just can't get with a 150mm equivalent lens. This shot of a lucky traveler kissing the Blarney Stone would have been a little less detailed with a shorter lens. Dave
  5. I took a quick look at lens usage in Lightroom from our Ireland/Iceland trip a few years ago. I looked at the Ireland segment and it shows that I shot over 90% of the images with the 24-105 f/4 on my A7. I actually used the 70-300 mounted on the A6300 more than the 12mm f/2 Rokinon, but neither were used very often. It looks like you are pretty well covered. Dave
  6. Busy week. Again. In recent years, our family gatherings have been sheltered under our current 12' x 16' gazebo and a large 10' x 20' "party tent". We set up the tent, moved the tables and chairs and strung the lights enough times that it seemed prudent to switch to something requiring a bit less pre-party preparation. We decided to simplify. Last week, Costco delivered a thousand pounds of adult Legos for us to play with. The five boxes contained at least a tree worth of wood, hundreds of square feet of sheet metal, a bucket of brackets, and I swear, 30 lbs. of screws and bolts. It will be pretty, but I figure we will break even on the effort required to assemble this attractive shelter versus putting up the tent for every party sometime around Easter 2030. Work in Progress Dave
  7. Pictures taken between Monday, March 18 and Sunday, March 24. Pick up image recording device. Use image recording device. Post recorded images. Simple, eh? Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!
  8. Could you clarify "theoretical"? Do you mean things like the Trinity of Exposure (aperture, sensitivity and shutter speed), depth of field and composition such as the Rule of Thirds or the technology behind cameras themselves? There is a vast array of information on all of these things available on the web without donating to some academic organization that likely built their curriculum on the same data via a Google search. Clarify your target and there are several regulars here who can supply you with what keywords to search for and favorite informational sites. Dave
  9. Early Sunday morning, we went to the local ice rink to watch an in-house competition where Jackie would be performing her first long routine. Her flowery outfit was dreamed up by her mom and made real by her great aunt. I debated a bit about the title, with things like “Wood Nymph” and “1960s Hippie Without the Drugs” being some of the possibilities. I finally decided on “Flower Girl”. Simple and descriptive. Watching the routine through the viewfinder, I almost wished I could have just watched it like normal people do. Jackie has become quite the performer with her jumps gaining altitude and spins starting to speed up and last longer. That wish evaporated when I downloaded the photos. She deserves her hard work to be documented. Flower Girl Dave
  10. Pictures taken between Monday, March 11 and Sunday, March 17. This week ends with Saint Patrick's Day. Maybe post pictures of yours or your neighbor's Saint Patrick's Day decorations...which I guess only applies if you or your neighbor own a bar. Anyway, get out and use your image recording device to record some images and share them with us! Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!
  11. #5 is disturbing...ly funny! 🙂 Dave
  12. Pictures taken between Monday, March 4 and Sunday, March 10. March! In like a Lion and out like a Lamb! I was told it was a weather thing with the end of stormy winter at the beginning and the start of gentile spring at the end. So poetic. That give us some creative license with a wide variety of potential weather photos or some lion or sheep-based images, if you have access to lions or sheep. Just do it. Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!
  13. A very slow week for photos. We're having a tree taken out and there is some prep work needed. Between that and many days of rain, there was precious little to photograph and what there was, wasn’t. The only half decent image this week was a fortuitous find Son Dan made while on a birthday trip to Vegas. He is a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay and while dining at one of his locations, he had a Browned Butter Old Fashioned. He was impressed enough to message me a photo and the name of the main ingredient. That ingredient (pictured here) was immediately searched and the only location west of the Mississippi was a Total Wine store in, you guessed it...Las Vegas. He picked up a couple of bottles on the way home and I must say, it was worth the trouble. Tasteful Surprise Dave
  14. This is an honest request for insight. We've been cruising for 30+ years and never once have I felt the need for binoculars. I have a nice pair that belonged to my Dad, but have never packed them when on a trip or used them at all since he passed in the early '80s. I'm sure this is because I've been using some kind of camera or another since I was about 10 years old and a telephoto is my go-to for distant subjects. My mindset has always been to share my travel experiences with family and friends and "a picture is worth a thousand words" is a phrase that carries the weight of religion with me (and explains my abysmal typing skills). Share your thoughts and opinions. Dave
  15. Only use a polarizer if the window is glass. Polycarbonate plastic windows (very common in aircraft and, incidentally, domed train cars) or vehicle windows with UV coating or tint film will cause color banding due to the plastic being itself polarized. A large rubber hood pressed against the window will eliminate most reflective glare unless you are shooting towards the sun. Dark clothing is a big help. Having your bright Hawaiian shirt reflected in the window could be interesting, but probably not desirable. 😉 Dave
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