Camera Thoughts

Camera Upgrades:
I am starting to get the itch for the next Digital SLR. I am thinking that it
is purchase for Fall 2007 or Spring 2008. >

• 
  I am starting to build a list of things that I want in the next camera.
  
  
  -Full frame? (There is a real price to this feature)
  
  -Move to SD cards (from CF)
  
  -Vertical grip
  
  -12 megapix or better
  
  
• 
  I am also looking at how I use my system.
  
  
  -This might mean changing bags again. (Maybe to a backpack)
  
  -I would like to be a able to use strobes.
  
  -Remote/wireless flash
  
  -Which glass I use
  
  
• 
  Software
  
  -Starting to look at software for inventory/lightbox functions

I am pretty happy with my current system. As I get more serious about my photography
again I am getting more critical about the little things in my system.




I handed down my first Digital SLR to my sons (4, 6, and 8 years old.) They are shooting
with my Canon D30. They enjoy the hikes and phototrip much more with a camera
of their own. 

Up North Photo Trip

Ben and I spent much of Saturday on the road. We did a "one day" road trip to Duluth.
We hiked around Cogdon Park in the rain taking pictures of the waterfalls.



Ben was shooting the Canon 30D and I was using the Rebel XT.



Overall a pretty fun day. I plan to burn the images to CD later today and load them
into photoshop to see what we have.

Free landscaping materials

Last night we made two trips to Litchfield for
landscaping materials. We picked up about 3 yards of recycled
wood chips. The city has free wood chips and black dirt for anyone that wants
it.



We are getting the wood chips to put around the base of our trees and in
the flower beds. Simple weed control and it helps to maintain the moisture levels
after we water the plants and trees.

Sun burned - Argghhh!

I normally work from home on Thursday and Fridays. Yesterday the weather was nice but a bit windy. After lunch I decided to work outside. I grabbed my laptop and cordless phone and sat on the deck to work on my projects.



I was wearing blue jeans, a tee shirt, and a sweatshirt. My hands and face are sun
burned!   Arghhhh....  how lame is that?

100 hour maintenance

Last night I finished the 100hr maintenance for the tractor. We have a Kubota BX
2350 with a loader, belly mower, and rear blade. I feel sorry for anyone that
is not somewhat handy as I can't not imagine paying the dealer to perform this maintenance.
They wanted a couple of hundred dollars which seems like highway robbery. It cost
me about $100 for the supplies and about 2 hours of my time which seems some what
more realistic.



I figure that this should be me through another season. I would guess that my next
100hr maintenance will probably be next spring.

Ubuntu blogging clients with Dasblog

Over the weekend I was working on testing some Linux based blogging clients with
Dasblog. Jason sent an email asking for details on how I made it work. I thought that I
would share the details with the public in case other folks needed the information. 




For Dasblog the keys to remember are:

1. Find the blogger.aspx file on your website.

2. Try the Blogger API first.

3. Try the MetaWeblog API second (if step 2 does not work.)

Tool Specific Notes:

Drivel Journal Editor:


-Set the type to Blogger 1.0

-Setup your server address like: http://myserver/blog/blogger.aspx






---------------------------------------

  

Blog Entry Poster:

-Type: Self-Run other

-Protocol: MetaWeblog

-URL:http://myserver/blog/blogger.aspx

---------------------------------------



Firefox Scribefire:

This is a little more complex so I created a PDF with the notes from
my configuration.

Link
to the PDF


 

Weekend Trips

I spent quite a bit of time in the car this weekend with my son(s).



On Saturday Jacob and I got on the road headed to southwestern Minnesota to take
some pictures. We stopped and visit a friend near Marshall,
MN. Jacob thought it was great to take a break from the car ride and play with
some kids. It was fun to see Tom and Lisa again as it has been a couple of years.
(Marshall is about 110 miles from our home.) It was not a great photo trip but we
did manage to capture some photos prior to returning home for pizza with the
family.



On Sunday we had to run to the big city so that I could ship off my Icom
746pro that I sold earlier in the week. Jacob and Joe both came with. After
dropping off the radio at Fedex-Kinko we drove across town. A little BK
lunch, a walk around the grounds of Fort
Snelling, and then over to take pictures at Fort
Snelling National Cemetery. Jacob and I took some photos while Joe got restless
waiting on us.  Jacob would point at a headstone and then I would read
the details to him which he thought was pretty neat. On the way out of the cemetery
we saw some neat headstones for veterans of the Spanish
American war.



The photos from the two weekend trips will appear on the photoblog for
the next 10 days or so. Jacob and I be headed back to the cemetery latter this summer
once the leaves are on the trees and flags have been raised. There is a lot of history
within the grounds of Fort
Snelling National Cemetery.

Drivel Journal Editor

I am trying out another blog client tool on Ubuntu: Drivel Journal Editor.





This tool looks like it has the standard text formating tools that you would expect.
I am not exactly sure how to set the Title of the post quite yet. This tool looks
like it might have some potential as a remote blog composition tool. It will probably
require some time for me to run it through it's paces. Overall... these tools that
I am trying on Linux are no where near the level of BlogJet for
the Windows based platforms. BlogJet rocks
and eveything has been a brutal second place.



-Follow-up: DJE completely screwed up the title of the post. I had to login from the
web interface and fix the title of the post. I am not going to be huge fan of this
tool either. Why is so hard to find a good Blog Client to use for remote composition
and uploading on the Linux platform?  Argghhh... the battle goes on.

Blog Entry Poster - Ubuntu

I am testing out this tool called "Blog Entry Poster" which is a bare bones client
for creating/uploading blog posts. When I say bare bones, I mean bare bones.

It has be button for "add link" and a button for "post entry" and that is about it.

I will use GIMP to get a picture of the app and then try to upload the image after
I post this to the blog.

-Follow-up: I uploaded the image via the web browser interface via Firefox.




--Follow-up: I also noticed that Firefox is now working the FreeTextBox tool within
DasBLog. I wonder what I have done to Firefox in past couple of days to get this working.
This was one of the problems blogging from Linux that I was trying to resolve.

Photoblog Posts 04-14-2007

Here are the images that have been posted for the past week. This is turning into
an interesting exercise. I spent an average of an hour per day looking at my current
images, loading RAW files into photoshop, tweaking the latitude of the pictures,
and resizing them for the web.




Today Jacob and I will grab the cameras and hit the road looking for some new photos.
I gave Jacob the option to go NE towards the North Shore of Lake Superior or
SW towards the Marshall, MN area. Jacob opted for SW. It would appear that we will
be looking for old cars, barns, and farm houses to feed the photoblog for this week.



Today: Forgotten
Era


Friday: Lonely
Goat


Thursday: A
slice of history


Wednesday: Wright
Co. Historic Site


Tuesday: Lake
Superior Storm


Monday: East
Sunday Sunrise




Picture of the day at: /photoblog/