This is a Chipping Sparrow.

Poor thing, smacked into our sliding glass door and was stunned. He let me get some photos, though.

It was interesting because his mate was hopping around trying to make sure he was okay — she flew away when I came near.

I may have posted this before. Sorry.

What with the baby and enmeshment at work, I forgot that renaissance fair season is nigh! Time to bust out the sword, I guess.

This is me being a dad. Or at least dressing like one.

She had her first shots today. I think it would have been easier to deal with (for Nicole and me) if she ever got upset and cried in normal life. As it is, we don’t have enough experience with her actually crying, so it’s heart-wrenching when she does. And man did she cry

I’m glad she’s vaccinated though. Hooray for science!

There’s another photo I want to post of her that’s pretty awesome, but it has my wife’s nipple in it, alas. I’ll see if I can crop it.

Were you aware that if you take a 24 or 50 mm lens and shoot backwards through it, you can do macro photography?

It’s a little ghetto, but it works. The only downside is your depth of field is insanely narrow. I’m still messing with it a bit, but it’s good fun. Check my photostream to see a few more examples.

I’m still learning how to use this new lens, but it’s pretty fantastic so far. The color accuracy and luminance of all my photos is so much better than the kit lens. Definitely worth the price!

The depth of field takes a bit of getting used to, and if you’re not paying attention shooting in P mode the body’ll drop down to 1.4 because it can. I find myself going to aperature priority a lot of the time, so I can get some control over the depth but not having to mess around with manual mode all the time.

I am so happy for this purchase. I definitely recommend it to any hobbyist photographer who’s looking to kick it up a notch.

I need to read more stuff like this Lighting 101 on Strobist

I’ve done two studio shots, now; each time I’ve basically been winging it. Thank God for digital, because if you take a hundred shots, something is going to turn out. And fortunately I have a fairly good eye for what looks good, so I can actually take a decent photo and determine which of the hundred or so is the one to save.

But I’d love to be able to look for a shot and get it to be what I want, rather than a happy coincidence. For example: This shot I rather like, but the slight vignette was unintentional and the center is a little more blown out than I would want it to be.

Ah well, with experience hopefully things will get better.