We got some unexpectedly heavy bouts of snow today. Nothing stuck until the sun went down, but now it's smearing on the frosting. So I should get another opportunity to practice my hand-brake cornering in the morning. (heheheh) All the Phoenix news stations were out of their minds covering HAILSTORM 2004! with the bugeyed weather guys out on harrowing streets picking up lumpy piles of pea-hail from the gutters while holding golf balls next to it to demonstrate that, no, it isn't really the big stuff.
Our niece, Amber, is getting married this weekend, so we're going to cruise down to Phoenix, and hopefully all the massive hail-drifts will have melted and we won't get stuck and end up cursing ourselves for not signing up with AAA.
Some freelance jobs from a couple months ago finally ponied up, and I made a move on a digital camera. It's a Canon EOS 300D. I've been wanting to get away from film for a while now. Because:
A) As we speak, I've got 9 rolls of film from the past year decaying on the bookshelf because I never get around to getting them developed.
B) Even when I do send them in, the old 'instant gratification isn't soon enough' thing pops up
3) 6 megapixels will give me as much enlargement potential as I've had with print film anyway
iv) I'm all about long exposure & special effects shots, and now I don't have to wait 2 years to finally see if I got it right. Shooting lightning this summer will be excellent--no wasted film, just one shot after another until I get something good. (booyah)
The night after the camera came in, I did one 30-second test exposure of the night sky with the floodlights of the neighborhood cement factory hazing everything out, and I could still pull lots of detail from the image.
(Note: Contrast was coaxed, saturation boosted a bit & unsharp masking applied)
I think that's Jupiter I got all overexposed in the lower left.
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