Today I got my 5D Camera Armor from MADE Products. The first question many of you will ask is why. Those who know me understand that I am a gadget freak. Not only must I have the latest gadgets, but they must look as “new” as possible years after owning them. I think this is a mental illness, but I enjoy using my gadgets and taking great care of them as well. I love my 5D but I do not want to be too careful removing it or putting it back in the bag. I would like to pull the camera out quickly and take a shot but still protect it as much as possible. This is where the armor comes into play. After a couple of reviews, I ordered it through Amazon and now it is here. Continue reading

Since it is a bit of a pain to carry around my 5D, I am going to do more shooting from the hip. I am going to start a series of pics from the cellphone. Let’s see if I push out some quality pictures. Remember it is not the gear… Well we see about that

This is a shot from SU while I was working late. Not bad on noise considering it is coming from a ridiculously small sensor.

If I was on the fence and looking at which prosumer camera to buy (Canon or Nikon), I would lean toward Nikon as the new D300 looks to finally trump Canon. In the recent past, Nikon Dxxx series were always compared to Canon’s xxD bodies. Time and again, Canon’s superior CMOS sensor would always prevail with low noise. It seems Nikon finally dumped their CCD chips and went over to CMOS. Not only that, they also added pro-level auto-focus engine with 51-AF selection points. 51 points, on a prosumer-level camera! This camera kind of smokes the recently announced 40D with it’s paltry 9-point AF system. Hey, I use a similar system on my 5D and it works well but I always wanted to play with an AF system that has greater than 15 AF points like the 1Ds Mark III (which by the way, the camera of my dreams). All there is left is to see if the Nikon CMOS sensor can hold it’s own against Canon’s. With a new processor, more durable shutter, higher res lcd screen, and ridiculous amount of AF points, it seems Nikon did not want to just one up Canon, they set a whole new standard. I am a Canon lover but have to give it up to Nikon for not conceding defeat when it looked like Canon was heading down the path of being the king of prosumer slrs. Come on Canon, give me these features in the next version of the 5D!

Well I went back to the place where the waters were high and took this post-flood pic. Compare this picture to the flood image. That is just the runoff from upstream. We are getting rain but mostly spotty. As you can tell from this pic today, the sky is blue and the sun is out. As for our home back in Austin, there was no damage. I am still getting runoff from the neighbor but that is because they have not put down sod yet. I really do not mind as the soil is rich and is doing wonders to the grass on my lawn, which needs to be cut. For my protest against big oil, I purchased a reel mower and use a cordless trimmer. If you ever see the size of my lot then you will understand the purchases. So once again, life is good.

So I figured out why I was losing exif data on my pictures. When I convert them from raw to jpeg, I use the function “save for the web” in Photoshop. This feature strips out EXIF data…dang. I am too lazy to go back and fix my previous pictures but I will have the data available with future post. I will put this in the “now it makes sense” pile.