pierces

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

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!

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

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!

#5 is disturbing...ly funny! 🙂 Dave

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!

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

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

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

I am not familiar with your camera models but for reference, the images from the Iceland part of our 2019 Ireland/Iceland trip were shot with the 24mm-105mm zoom a bit over 90% of the time. Lots of big scenery. Dave

A polarizing filter would help but is not an absolute necessity. The following were taken with no filter: Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, February 26 and Sunday, March 3. This is it! Thursday is Bonus Dias! Get out and shoot those once-in-four-years photos. 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!

We were half-watching the news on Thursday afternoon when fate stepped in and decided the age-old, yet daily "what's for dinner" dilemma for us. The news person was babbling on about a bunch of inconsequential stuff when we heard the words "today is National Margarita Day". The first question that popped into my head was why haven't we seen any commercials or flyers handed out in parking lots or planes towing banners announcing the parade? How could an event this culturally significant be relegated to a brief “and in other news” mention just before a commercial break? Despite the failure of the Powers That Be to inform us properly, we managed to round up friends, head to the home of the best house margaritas ever and honor the day. National Margarita Day Dave

Well, that didn't take long. PC World posted a pretty comprehensive real-world test of the new T705 and though it did set a new record for reading data in one category, it was only "really good" in most of the others. The tests were centered on file transfers and such without the endless tests with various games that clutter most reviews and ended up pointing out that the older T700 is the best bang-for-the-buck choice for my use. This in no way indicates that the T705 is not a better drive (and a fantastic peek into the future of the technology), but as with the i9 vs. i7 CPU comparison, the increase in performance is not worth the price premium for me. Looks like the 1TB T700 is going to be my boot drive. Dave

We traveled to Salem for the last one. Crossed it off the bucket list and since my son moved back to CA from TX, we have no plans to travel to this one. It was spectacular, though. Composite image. Good luck! Dave

I recently upgraded my phone to a Pixel 8 Pro, mostly for the camera. I have a well-stocked camera bag, but the quality of the images from the latest generation of high-end phones has become way more than "acceptable" for travel photography. Upgrading to the latest iPhone would provide you with a simple and effective way to get great photos from your trip. The only big gap in depending on a phone for an Alaska trip is the lack of a long zoom for wildlife. The longer zooms on the latest phones are better than before, but still no equal to what is possible with a interchangeable lens camera. Other than that, for scenery, walkabout photos and pictures of the ship, you will not be disappointed. Here is a link to a short cruise we took where I only took the older Pixel 6 Pro phone for photos (an unforgivable sin only a few years ago). https://pptphoto.com/galleries/Travel/Cruising/2022-4 Navigator/index.html Dave

I picked up a new-build installation USB stick for Windows 11 Pro today. I briefly considered trying the free Linux operating system but laid down until the feeling passed. I also finished my go/no-go research on an i9 CPU vs an i7. The i9 is definitely faster, but just not $150 faster. The i7 is at least twice as fast as the one in my current machine and the 3%-5% bump in benchmarks for the i9 wouldn't give me much more than bragging rights. I'll use the difference to augment my graphics card budget. 😉 I have also been working to decide which NAS (Network Attached Storage) system to put together. I want something that will allow easy and secure remote access since I plan on sunsetting my PPTPhoto.com site next year. The 24GB configuration mentioned above seems to be a good compromise between size and cost. Now I have to decide which offering has the best remote access support. I'm hesitating on the Gen5 boot disk since Crucial is releasing their new T705 drive in a couple of weeks, and it shows a lot of promise if the price premium isn't too steep. I found that the Asus Z790-e motherboard on the list has four Gen4 drive slots in addition to the single Gen5 slot. I'm now thinking of adding another Gen4 drive just for the catalogs and miscellaneous support files. So many choices. Dave

Saturday was Hockey Day. We drove 50 miles to the venue and sat in the cold for an hour watching Matthew's team dissect their opponents. They played well and deserved the impromptu pizza party afterwards. It was just the kids and their Mom at the party since their Dad had to head off to work right after the game. The ride home was typical for any weekend afternoon in LA with the freeways moving at a blistering 10-30 MPH. This gave the kids plenty of time to engage in those popular sibling games of “She’s/He’s Bothering Me” and “Shut Up (fill in the name)” as well as a heated dispute over the use of Jackie’s Corgi-shaped pillow. This went on for about thirty minutes until bellies full of pizza brought a peaceful solution to the pillow dispute. Peace at Last Dave

Oops...wrong week.

Pictures taken between Monday, February 19 and Sunday, February 25. This is the third of four weeks in February. That is so inspirational! Be inspired and get out and shoot some photos. This forum is widely known as the perfect place to share them! 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!

It is enabled only when the camera app is active (still controls volume if the camera app is open but in the background). It also allows you to start/stop video recording. Dave

I looked at a bunch of these things and ended up programming the camera to use the volume button to trigger the shutter. That way I can hold it with both hands or tap to focus and still take the picture. The camera strap issue was solved with a BlackRapid Wander leash. Dave

Last year I documented both sides of the San Gabriel range after a record snowfall and while we haven’t set any records so far, a recent atmospheric river has left its mark. On the way to a Super Sunday party with family and friends, I pulled off the road to take in the view. This part of the High Desert has had a 10% increase in population just since 2020 but the Mojave Desert isn’t in any danger of filling up soon and views like this can still be easily found. This photo was taken from an elevation of around 3,200 ft. and the horizon cuts off the view of the mountains at almost exactly the current snow line. Stopping to “smell the roses” (Joshua Trees?) and appreciate nature’s beauty on the way to a very human-centric event was surprisingly refreshing. High Desert Dave

Old joke about the tourist asking the New Yorker how to get to Carnegie Hall has more insight than one would think at first glance. Of course, the answer was practice, practice, practice. That's your answer. Take your camera out. Set it to whatever settings you decide to use and take pictures. Take a lot of pictures and compare them to pictures you see and like on the internet. Is a composition right? Should you zoom more? Less? There's no real textbook answer for that. If you like it, it's right. This isn't meant to be a generic "just shut up and practice" answer. I have spent over 50 years practicing and it seems to have paid off. (To be honest and a little encouraging, I got pretty good after about a year...) Don't get discouraged. At least it's it's not $5.99 a roll and $7 to get it processed to find out you need more "practice". I did that for the first 25 years or so. Enjoy your trip. Where's the link to my cruising gallery. Maybe browsing through them will give you some ideas. There's quite a bit of Caribbean and a whole lot of Alaska. https://pptphoto.com/galleries/Travel/Cruising/index.html Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, February 12 and Sunday, February 18. 💘 Does 💘 anyone 💘 have 💘 anything 💘 special 💘 planned 💘 for 💘 this 💘 week 💘 ? Maybe 💘 on 💘 Wednesday 💘 ? Take a photo and share it. We would ❤️‍🔥 to see 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!