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This one was shot through the window and mesh screen in my in-laws back door! :tu Focus was on the eagles face and I used f/4 so the screen wouldn't show up. Wish I coulda used like f8 or f9
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5500/9...97ba28e7_b.jpg IMG_2316 by emopunker2004, on Flickr |
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Thanks Ron, you know I love the animals.......
Win for me this weekend. I bought my sister a 50mm 1.8 Nikkor so she'd have a decent low-light lens, and for fun, I picked up this lens for me..... http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps77269483.jpg It was $20, and the aperture was stuck. Now I do not have a very great history of taking things apart and putting them back together, but over time, I have had a few victories on stuck mechanisms on old tape decks and such that did not require anything but some jiggling and maybe a little dis-assembly. Problem is, these lenses are pretty complex inside, so I REALLY figured I would most likely destroy it, giving me a few lenses to burn ants with, and if I got it to work, I would have a cheap 70-300 to carry around when I didn't want to get something better ruined. On the day it was delivered to work, I tried to take it apart and found I needed a finer screwdriver than I had here once I got past the mount. So on Friday after work, I took it further apart, and got the aperture unstuck, put it back together and took it out for a quick test shoot. Halfway down the greenway, the thing looked like it was gonna break in half. I got it home and took it down again, this time a little further. Apparently the previous owner had tried to fix it, and couldn't, but half re-assembled it for a quick sale to the used dept. There were three screws that were loose inside. I tightened them up and put it all back together and it worked fine. It has a REALLY nice macro feature with 4 settings, it is a so-so focuser speed-wise, but for the most part is sharp enough. While it is extremely cheap in overall build quality, I bet it is worth $100-$125 new, so I septupled it's value, lol. I am not going to buy any more beat lenses, although I did want to try and de-fungus a short prime instead of this one, but that prime 50mm was 60 bucks. Not worth trying that. I like a $20 project much more. |
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Kitty!
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5342/9...5492bac1_b.jpg IMG_2382 by emopunker2004, on Flickr http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3756/9...c8c290b9_b.jpg IMG_2372 by emopunker2004, on Flickr http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3703/9...c13e74a3_b.jpg IMG_2365 by emopunker2004, on Flickr http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7322/9...5d41285b_b.jpg IMG_2353 by emopunker2004, on Flickr |
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CATS!
I thought that show closed? Damn those eyes look WILD. |
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I wish I could just randomly pull out MY full frame camera and shoot with it. But that sucker stays in the
closet til I HAVE TO USE IT, lol. It's like the Iron Shiek's knees, it ain't got many flexes left in it. On that note though, I finally got around to checking the shutter count on my NEW old D90. 8069. That made me VERY happy. That means two D90s and only about 15k shutter acts between them. Whew. I love the idea of full frame A LOT, but that D90 REALLY pleases me in real time situations. I am always happy with what I come home with even though I sometimes force it to create bad shots. What I most want is to STOP SPENDING MONEY on camera stuff and just take pics. If I had listened to Justin, I'd be buying a house by now. |
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Couple of garden pix shot with my P7000. Left the D200 in the bag.
http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...pse3386238.jpg http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...ps5ba952a5.jpg |
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Nice pics Jeff!
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Ahh, another D200 user. I love mine. YES its OLD, but only in dog years. And man do I love being able to
strap on an $60, old, heavy, optically juicy lens on it and shoot away with full metering functions. Great camera. Nice pics, too, I ALMOST bought one of those 7000s this morning surfing the used market, but in terms of point and shoots, I guess I am gonna keep my ten year old model. I wish I was the kind of guy that actually needed the 'slip it into a pocket' ability my brain seems to think I need to complement my DSLRs, but if that day arrives and I need a pocket cam, I doubt I will be fussing about my little ELPH's lack of this or that. I am just happy it still WORKS, lol. http://i954.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps7d4e767d.jpg |
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Bought it to travel with as I didn't want to lug around a full bag of gear and it's been great for that and more. Pretty much same guts as D7000 and many of same features, albeit it requires a little more fiddling with submenus. Even does CLS if you have a couple of recent Nikon flashes. Briefly looked at specs of P7100 and appears to me the main upgrade was the flip-out screen. Better to save some bux and buy the 7000. |
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Ahhh yessss, that's what I needed to do to help with my dilemma at the zoo. If you look closely at the tiger pic, you can see the distortion from the fencing. That's the problem with most zoos that I've been to as far as photography is concerned. naturally you don't want animals getting out, or people getting into the pens, so whatcha gonna do? |
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I was looking at that bokeh, that was some distracting stuff. What lens was that, not the 18-55, was it?
You have been quiet about what lenses you have picked up. I guess its its all a matter of distance, how far to the fence from the focus point, how far you are from the focus point, what lens you have mounted. But that is the same bokeh I get with my 70-300mm G lens, scary distracting. God I hate saying bokeh. Freaking word of the year. Hell, I hate talking about OOF areas, you should go back and read my posts from right before Justin goaded me into a DSLR (lol). I was spouting stuff like "that concept is over-rated." What a di(k. I always think I am right about everything. Its hard being me. :D I know that with your D90, you can DEFINITELY get into some of the higher ISO numbers which should free up both a smaller aperture and a good, fast shutter speed, if you are having trouble at wide open apertures. Your camera will take it. Not sure about the relation between tighter apertures and better rendering of out of focus areas, but I would imagine there is SOME correlation. Check the EXIF data on pics you do not like and you can see what you were doing when it happened. That should give you a good basis for correcting it, or at least experimenting towards correcting it. You can see it easily enough, although pitifully incomplete, by just right- clicking on the pic in Windows explorer and selecting Properties. I wish I had just gotten a $45 zoom membership. I figured it would all to soon be too hot to shoot there, and I blew it off for now, thinking SURELY I would be free of Memphis at the end of summer. But I am at exactly $45 spent at the zoo to this point, so regardless of if I ever went again, I am at the same dollar amount. :td |
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While I am here, I think this is a cool, but sick, pic. This was my money hole right before DSLRs.
My mom used to have a LARGE stainless steel frying pan and lid from Revere Ware when I was a kid, still does. It is REALLY nice cookware, or it used to be before they sold out and started skimping on materials. But if you know what stamps to look for on the bottom, you can get the old stuff. This is where I stopped after I had what I thought was enough Revere Ware. I still need the huge frying pan, the one in this pic is a VERY late one, with a totally different composition than the one I want, made in the 40s-50s. I saw the pic on my desktop and thought I'd pop it in here...IT IS a photo, lol. http://i954.photobucket.com/albums/a...psdd9e966e.jpg |
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Justin is certainly right, WIDE apertures, I mis-spoke. Of course, zoomed way in makes for
a pretty high aperture number, even wide open, usually about 5.6. Still enough to get it done with the right lens. So I guess the higher ISOs would give you mostly the higher shutter speeds needed to keep your subjects crisp, even zoomed way in. And at the zoo in broad daylight, you might be able to get it done at base ISO. When i started back in Photography, I tended to listen too much to Ken R*ckwell, mostly his preaching that on these Nikons, you should stay in auto-ISO. I was reading his reviews to help me choose the best used, cheap camera, and I just got too into letting him tell me stuff. GREAT RESOURCE, and a great guy to give it all up for free, basically. But he is also a freak show that deals in a lot of hyperbole. But for auto ISO, I am now not on board with him. I have found that while that is SAFE, its rarely best FOR ME. I like to only bump ISO when I just can't get a decent shutter speed. Other than that, I end up getting noise when my 'smart' camera tries to give me a happy medium on all the settings, which I don't necessarily want. I have taken to using Aperture priority almost exclusively, trying to make sure that at a minimum, I get the depth of field I am looking for. I used to be so excited to start shooting, that I rarely concentrated on what the 'smart' camera was choosing for me. And I still forget to pay attention sometimes. |
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Brad that's the benefit of more expensive lenses with a wide aperture across the whole focus range. Like my 70-200 f4 L
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That was my 70-210, f5.6 1/1000 sec. |
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And I noticed too with long exposures, say 1 second or longer, at higher ISO's, I get a lot of I guess dead pixels in the image. They look like multicolored stars, and all are in the same spot from frame to frame.
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I have yet to document all the times it tends to happen. That's how I got my 2nd D200 for $150. "DEAD PIXELS ON SENSOR" I couldn't order it fast enough. Now the joke would have been on me if there had been a ton of em, and at all times. But I was pretty sure I knew what I was gonna get. The D200 is the worst I have seen, but you won't see it much on the D90. But since I process files pretty easily through Photoshop, I can take care of them on the most important files in about 15 secs per shot. If I don't plan on printing them I usually blow em off. You can go to the menu and use both Long Exposure Noise Reduction and High ISO Noise Reduction and see how you like what that does. It targets em pretty well, but I don't use it since I fix em myself. i'd rather not have a copomputer fix my pixels, though I ought to test it to see how much other problems it does or does not cause. |
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I have switched to mostly old manual focus fixed lenses for zoo stuff. The out of focus rendering on my 'new' 180mm 2.8 ED
is PERFECT. Of course, I have to be johnny on the spot with the focus, which is REALLY a long throw. It seems like 360 degrees of rotation, although i bet it is less. I miss some stuff when I shoot with it. But the shots look perfect. I will admit it was a more expensive choice than my usual $40-$60 used lenses, but WHAT A LENS! As close to the perfect lens as I have found, as is the 105mm 2.5. That one was $99, which was distasteful enough, but the 180 2.8 was even worse. I think it set me back $150, and it was only in 'very good' condition, but once I shot with it, I could have cared less about the price. Plus of course there is NO 70mm end, lol. But I always carry two cameras at the zoo. Hell...everywhere. So I always mount at least one auto focus zoom lens on my second body. I carry a nice little holster that I picked up used at Ado. for 20 bucks it was a great buy. This little sucker is SUPER USEFUL and perfectly sized. it hangs there and holds my spare really tightly, securely and in a small 'footprint'. if you can get one used at B&H or Ado, I certainly recommend it. |
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This is the 180mm 2.8 ED AIs manual focus lens....
http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps02dcd250.jpg As is this one, I THINK..... http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psb36542d2.jpg The only caveat with it is that you REALLY need a D200, D300, or D700 or newer to get ALL the metering choices you would get with a modern lens. But you can hook it up to any modern Nikon and use the LCD screen and adjustments to get what you want. Takes a little longer that way, but once you bolt on a 105 2.5 or one of the other super- classics from the old Nikkors, it does tend to make you smile. I only suggest it in a situation where you can't stomach paying for one of the modern FAST Nikkors that essentially give you similar or even better optics, fast-ness, and of course, autofocus. I have found some GEMS in that Ado used rack. |
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not the worst lens, but why take this one over the 180...
http://www.adorama.com/US%20%20%20%20401645.html Unbelievable lens. 2nd best buy I have made since I started messing with this stuff. http://www.adorama.com/US%20%20%20%20568548.html here is the real deal....this one is NON ED, which might be OK, but for only $5 more, EVEN with it being only a "good" lens, I would take the ED version ALL DAY long. http://www.adorama.com/US%20%20%20%20535707.html The ED version, in Good condition http://www.adorama.com/US%20%20%20%20551374.html In every case, to me it is a better deal than going for the modern, "please give me your $500 now, thank you" lenses Nikon is selling now, although I am sure they are really great lenses and certainly fast. I like fast as much as the next guy, but I just can't stomach the price. Manual focus is a bit of a pain in the butt when you find yourself in a autofocus situation, but the quality of the lens, coupled with the price, just too hard to say no....for me. And all these lenses are fast. |
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My plumeria opened its first bloom today. I'm excited because I've been nursing this sucker for a couple of years and she finally produced blooms for me...
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/g...psd67a2c94.jpg http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/g...psba1881ab.jpg |
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I am kind of like that....I seem to find a new plant every time I go to the Smokies area, and I have been growing
them here, sadly in much lower, hotter conditions. But my backyard, with it's tall fence, tree cover and the pond and waterfalls, seems to provide JUST enough cooling and moisture in the air to keep them at the edge of happy. And the winters are much less harsh for them. I love plants. I am not a hobbyist, but I do enjoy trying to expand the growing zone a bit to see if I can pull it off. Same with St. Augustine grass. It doesn't belong up here, it is a gulf coast type of turf, but dang that stuff loves it here in West TN. it feels like a carpet when it gets nice and lush and you put a nice medium length cut on it. I need to photograph my latest pickup from Banner Elk, NC. it is very photogenic, and it has put up some tails that could be flowers or seed heads....we will see. |
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Beautiful plumeria Mark, and I love the softness of the photos too.
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WOW, I read the wiki article on it and that sucker is no picnic to grow well.
And yes, it does seem that certain genus drop their leaves annually, so you probably have one of the ones that does that. There are severall cool facts in there, the one about the sphinx moths was very cool....it's heavy scent attracts the sphinx moth, looking for nectar, but the flowers produce no nectar, so it frustrates the poor idiot moth, lol. |
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Fluckr has sent me a head-scratcher of a email about being respectful to other users
and that my images may be inappropriate and possibly reportable to authorities. Since I have no offensive or illegal images that I could detect, I decided to act on my previously stated opinion on the 'new Fluckr' and GTFO of there. It has become a giant clone of a bad idea, it is unwieldy, obnoxious and slow, and I do not want to be associated with it. I have to apologize for the hideous, large white blocks of "we're sorry, this FLuckr image no longer exists" that people will have to see associated with any images I posted here from Fluckr. While I do not urge anyone else to take such drastic action, the surprise, vague and unsubstantiated email this morning left a bad taste in my mouth and that finally capped it for me. Its a real shame considering how great it used to be to me. |
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That's interesting. Seems like a bunch of whiners who get offended over anything and everything to me.
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Well, Shark, anyone who knows me from here knows I am an a55hole, so I guess I can't know how or who or what.
All I could possibly recall is telling what I imagine was a high school girl how she could better balance her camera so her pics had less noise. She said in her comments that she wanted to shoot portraits for money for friends at school and maybe others. But she was shooting entire series of people in 3200 ISO with a 1/2500 of a second shutter speed and f/11 on a entry level Canon DSLR. I was giving her (unsolicited) advice on how to set things for cleaner pics and a more portrait-like effect. MAYBE that was it, maybe she felt like she was being harassed. She certainly never asked for advice. I did it in the mail function so no one had to see me telling her that stuff. She never commented back so it could have gone either way for all I know. Maybe she complained of harassment. She never said anything to me, so who knows. I can say without a doubt that it couldn't have been anyone else. That's the only time I ever came close to saying anything remotely un-called for. They simply quoted from the user agreement the two sections I had supposedly violated. I sent them an email telling them that it would be more useful if they tried to be more specific about what I had supposedly done. The message had as part of the title a 'case number', so it was somebody saying something. But it really doesn't matter. I am not interested in participating in Flickr going forward. Its a useful tool, but I no longer feel like it was for me. |
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Brad, you big meanie! You made that girl cry! For SHAME!!! ;)
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It's times like this one, last night, that I really hate myself for not carrying my camera!!! So I'm stuck with crappy cellphone pics that don't even do this justice. It was an amazing sky last night.
http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/...ps53a286e6.jpg http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/...ps28456409.jpg |
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The only flying B-29 in existence. Sexy "Fifi!"
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...06419498_n.jpg |
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You know Hugh, I need to send you some pics my dad took....they will mean less to you since they are just plane pics,
taken by someone else's dad, but my Dad was meteorologist during the Berlin Airlift, and he flew along on a lot of missions. he took some really neat pics in flight. I just scanned them for my mom along with the actual family pics. I will load them up to a sharing site and post em up here tomorrow or tonight. I was thinking B-24, but some of them are of planes I am not familiar with at all. |
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Sorry about the fungus, these are really old. I wanted to clean em, but I really had to scan em first, in case
I screwed it all up. These are mostly just for Hugh, but if anyone is interested, there you go. NOT SURE the aircraft, but it sure looks like its set up for refueling. If he wasn't LONG GONE, I would ask him. A little poking around seems to indicate KC-97s....SAC seems to have taken delivery of their first KC-97s in 1951, and that makes these planes practically brand new in these photos. http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psc1bc1145.jpg http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psdba0e862.jpg http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps393a7b91.jpg http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps954f1d9b.jpg |
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This is one that is a REAL trip...obviously not taken by my dad, lol, scrounged of the net, but you talk about juxtaposition.
These are Texas ANG A-10s and their KC-97s. End of one era, start of another.. http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2f16fa72.jpg And here is the old man in Goose Bay Labrador....this was a place where the USAF was stationed to make for the easiest, shortest, landfall in North America from Europe. I guess flying over water is no fun, they want to get over land ASAP... http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps540c193e.jpg How they get around in Goose bay..... http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1a595582.jpg My dad's Team....Nina, Pinta and Santa maria, lol.... http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps256440f1.jpg |
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http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2889/9...52b6b666_c.jpg
Ready to eat by Jeff Carroll01, on Flickr http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2840/9...586fdff2_c.jpg Shoes, total happiness by Jeff Carroll01, on Flickr I wish I was this excited about anything :r |
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Dammit, I hate to post something right now, I KNOW that my pics are gonna put Taryn's party pics on a previous page.
So I guess I will do the bulk of this post tomorrow. But what I wanted to do was to show how freaking unbelievable this Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 lens is. I have never experienced something like this, a big old long lens, but still so fast I can hand hold it. And used to boot, in scratched up condition on the outside, but perfect where it counts, in the glass, picked up for a song, basically. I'd spent so much on crap, that I almost cancelled this order, I did not need to spend money right now. but I couldn't find a single bad thing said about it online. Glad I rode out the worry. Super sharp, even hand-held. I know there are lots of lenses out there that are fast and long, but I sure never had one, and I damn sure will never own one new. I hate to admit it, as superbly skilled as I am, :r, I am probably a hobbyist for life. I have to leave the $2000 lenses for the hoi polloi http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4feda123.jpg |
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What do you do when you wake up on a day that should be 80 at 7am and find that it is about 66 degrees?
Head for the place where every creature is as surprised and determined to get outside and enjoy it as you are... BLENDING IN http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps903c2a53.jpg |
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Brad, that lens is a keeper for sure! No worries about bumping her pics back a page, she's been the center of attention for far too long anyway. :r
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I have posted a comment and had relevant stuff be bumped to a has-been page while my single smart-a55 comment is the first thing on a new page. It takes the viewing of items intended for the enjoyment of others to second-class status in one shot. Only the people intent on seeing what they missed usually ever go back several pages and see that stuff. The majority of people look at the last page and move on. Watch, I bet this comment ends up being the first one on a new page, lol.... As far as the lens is concerned, I know photographers of skill and means would look at the pics and say, "you call THAT sharp?...its KINDA sharp, but nothing like you can get with XYZ lens." I have to keep stressing that I began this DSLR journey intending to only buy the cheapest body I could get, and only taking used lenses that were basically being given away. And the main reason I am so knocked out is the price, yes, but the fact that I had to focus it manually, WITH MY OLD EYES, and against all odds, hand held, I could still get a shot that looks as good as those do. THAT is why I can't stop talking about it, lol. You can take a great photo with any camera or lens, obviously, but as much as I did not want to ever admit it, there IS a difference with a well-designed, no compromises lens. I am just happy to have at least one, and now two, that I can be proud of, and mostly stole em, lol. This is my favorite thread. There are only a few of us here, but we keep it interesting. I appreciate all the sharing everyone does. It's "what's in your smoker" without the meat. |
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Love that tiger picture brad
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When this cool morning came, I knew I had to go to the zoo, but it was an extra bonus when I came to the enclosure first and saw all three walking around. The White Tiger quickly took it's spot, then the Melanistic cross tiger took it's spot, and only the Big Bengal stayed up, and he swam, and he paced, and he swam and he shook and he paced and he swam some more. It was a treat. Another treat was the friction between the Bengal and the Melanistic cross-bred, everytime the bengal passed the other, the MC-B tiger got low, flattened his ears and ROARED at the Bengal...this happened 10 times while I was there, and it was easy to warn the kids standing there, "Watch what is about to happen in the corner over there, the Tiger is gonna roar." When it happened, all the kids squealed with delight, especially for having been warned to see it happen as it happened, not to look over after the fact. That was cool. Congratulations on the sweeping Canon victory today, with the specs on the new Canon 70D. If y ou don't know the specs, here is the long version. ALL CROSS-TYPE AF sensor array, that's impressive, as are the rest of the specs, and the price is right, too. I have a great photo of the cross-bred tiger, but it is not on my flash drive. I'll pop it up later. http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps815a728f.jpg http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps63966960.jpg |
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Brad all those moldy airforce pictures are amazing, I prefer them dirty.
Thank you for sharing them. |
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Kinda boring though, End of Runway kind of shots, but I was quite surprised to see them in my family's slide collection. I do not recall shooting slide film back then. My mother must have stored them for me without my knowledge. When I scanned the entire box of slides for her last month, I was all :confused: :sh :) |
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