I'm a few hundred messages behind at the moment.
*Part* of the reason for that is that one band's busy season has
begun, and another band got involved in a play.
Anyhow, I was on stage (well actually _beside_ the stage, since
it was too small to fit all nine of us, and was only a platform a
couple inches tall anyhow) at the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival,
noticing the occasional flash of a p&s and catching glimpses of
small digital cameras here and there, when all of a sudden I found
myself staring into a HUGE EYE about four feet in front of me.
It turned out to be the business end of a Nikon 28-70/2.8, with
a funky hood on it, an F100 behind it (with a flip-flash bracket),
and a fairly cute photographer behind that. She let me look at
her camera afterwards.
Now y'all may recall that I like the KX, K2, and H3, and say that
the Super Program would be a little small for my hands if it weren't
for the grip-thingie on the front of it, but I gotta say that my
first impression picking up the F100 was, "Hey, isn't this thing
a little large?"
No, I didn't hold it up to my KX to compare, but it did occur to
me that I was mentally comparing it to Tom's MZ-S that I'd seen
three weeks earlier.
I've got to admit that it seems to be a nice camera. We spent a
little while talking cameras. She said she'd switched from Nikon
to Canon a while back to chase some feature (I *think* it was
autofocus speed??) and had recently moved back to Nikon because
she wanted digital (her digital camera was in the shop, so she
didn't have it with her). She mentioned what a Truly Great
Camera the K1000 was, so I showed her the KX. She agreed that
Pentax forward and backward lens compatibility between generations
was a Very Good Thing, and said trap focus sounded really cool.
We bitched about Kodachrome 25 going away.
The band had a good set, we sold a bunch of copies of our CD, I hugged
friends I don't see often enough, I had a little homebrew (a Scottish
heavy ale brewed by the folks of Clan MacAthair; a little on the
sweet side (positive attribute in my book) with a distinctly
fruity flavour -- I liked it a lot), I got really sweaty and tired,
and I got to listen to a bunch of other really good Celtic musicians.
And I got to see lots of pretty women in styles of clothing I happen
to really, really like. (Hmm. I could edit that line out, but hey,
I have eyes and I have certain tastes, and I do rather enjoy seeing
folks wandering around in 16th, 17th, and 18th Century Scottish
attire.) I burned some film, but my attention was pulled in a lot
of other directions most of the time. It'd be a great event to
seriously photograph if I didn't have other things I have to pay
attention to.
That stage was under a tent with the back wall down and the other
three walls open. White, so it was a metering issue. When I had
some Tri-X loaded, I started thinking that a couple of musicians
in another band would make cool silhouettes. Gonna have to see
whether any of the frames I shot wind up being good for that.
Then there was the ceilidh afterwards, fourteen miles away, which
my band was hosting. So this has been a _long_ day for me, and I
went and did tiring stuff after I got myself good and tired. But
it was a good ceilidh -- people got into it, people danced, other
musicians performed, and we ended with a big jam session. Halfway
through I even remembered I had an FL-D filter in my bag. (Yeah,
I was really awake, uh huh.) A certain flutist decided to run over
and start tickling me while I was playing my guitar behind my head.
Sheesh! Every try to keep on the beat while being tickled and trying
to run away? A challenge.
But I've got a gripe about fluorescent lighting other than the
colour: I *really* wanted to shoot faster than 1/60. I was tired,
and I wanted to use something longer than 50mm (I used the 85/2
there for the most part, but longer would have been better for
several shots), so bumping the speed up a couple steps to help out
with the camera shake issue would've been nice. *sigh*
Of course, the really cool thing to photograph at the ceilidh would
have been the Scottish dancing, but I had a guitar in my hands
instead of a camera at that point.
So that was my day: good music, good company, good audiences,
good beer, good weather, photography geeking, some cute shots
that I hope I held the camera steady enough for (three and a
half rolls), a lot of potential photos I saw but didn't get,
a big dose of sweaty exhaustion, and about three and a half
hours of driving.
And ten hours from now I'll be playing for a matinee performance
of that play I mentioned. ("The Taming of the Shrew", if anyone's
curious. In the first wedding scene -- Act I scene III??? --
Catherine whacks me with her bouquet and knocks me over in the
middle of a tune.) So for me 'tis off to bed; to sleep, perchance
to ... oh, wait, that's the wrong play, isn't it? ;-) Good night!
-- Glenn
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