I've got a photo on Google Earth now. I've seen photographs linked to locations all over the world and set up an account to be able to add some of my own. It isn't automatic, after you submit a photo it has to be approved, which can take more than a month to do.

I'd given up on seeing the photo I'd submitted show up, then one day it was there. The only bad news is that I made a type when submitting it ('damn' instead of 'dam') and whoever actually put it in place made a second one ('Hydo' instead of 'Hydro'). So I am now quite proud to be the ONLY photographer in the world to have a picture of a 'Hydo damn' on Google. If you have Google earth installed, clicking this link should bring you the photo. Bellows Falls Hydo Damn.

Tthe photo 'button' itself is a bit above and to the left of the marker once things load. If you don't see any blue photo buttons, make sure you have the 'Panoramio' option turned on under the 'Geographic Web' layer in Google Earth setup.

These are good solar days.

This fall, we installed the passive hot air panels. Through the fall and early Winter, they weren't as efficient as they could have been, since they were shaded by some oak trees that refused to drop their leaves. In the dead of Winter, we had a lot of grey days so the output was 'spotty' at best. But now that the Sun is back and the trees are bare, they are putting out all the heat we need and then some.

Nikon D200
80-400 Lense
Various exposure time
(click on the image for full size)

The eclipse was a month ago (Feb 20th 2008) but I wanted to get these pics online before I lost them. I took a lot of photos of the eclipse, experimenting with different exposure times and aperatures. I found that I got good color with the long exposures, but the moon moved enough through the field of view during the exposure that it was impossible to get a sharp image (unless I had a tracking motor of some kind).

On the other hand, I got a much sharper photo with a faster speed, but didn't get any color to speak of. These pics are NOT what I got in the full frame, they are significantly cropped down from the D200's original size (but not enlarged at all).

I figured I wasn't going to be resist the siren call of the D300 for very long. I finally gave in last week. So far, it has been everything I'd hoped it would be. Now to get out there are start putting it through its paces.

In short, it offers vast improvements over the D200 in some pretty basic things like shutter release speed and high ISO noise, and even more significant improvements in areas like autofocus modes (and speed). On the other hand, there are some new features that I just don't care about (Like 'Live view', so you can make your top end SLR camera work like a point and shoot!)

I think it will take me a month or so to really start feeling comfortable with the camera.

As always, the DNS updates are messing things up. At this point, the basic scanline.com domain is pointed here, but the 'www.' and 'gallery.' subdomains are going... who knows where!  And I don't want to KNOW where my MX (email) record is!

This all should resolve itself in the next 24-48 hours, but until then it might look like the site has a bunch of broken links. Until the 'gallery' subdomain fixes itself, you can use the links at the top of this page to cheat and go directly into the gallery's subdirectory.  

I like to keep an eye out for birds while out with the camera. They are a fun target, give me good practice with the camera and SOMEDAY maybe I'll get that 'perfect' hawk or owl shot. Until then, I'll be jumping out of the car whenever I see a nice looking bird perched at the side of the highway (or in the parking lot behind Best Buy in Lebanon NH, as was this guy).

We looked him up when we got home and are pretty sure he is a red-tailed hawk.