Arboretum

Hey blog fans! Out today with Momma for a stroll. The buds are poppin! St. Patricks day and 80 degrees today. Yow! Great corn beef and cabbage dinner and now a little b-ball, NCAA.

Macro lens

Hey all! Third straight day of 70+ weather and more to come next week. Pulled out my cheapo macro lens that had been gathering dust for a number of years. This lens is 100mm (150mm on my d7000) and I shot this at f/10. I always knew it was pretty sharp and I am still imressed. I think I paid about 80 bucks for it 10 years ago. Phoenix is the brand. Any way, I am off to Glen Ellyn tomorrow and then Shanghai on Sunday morning. They don't let you view blogs in China but you can post to your blog through email which is what I'll try to do. Thanks for looking!

Day Two: Opening

Well, we'll do just about anything to get excited about spring and we're excited to see any kind of color pushing through in the fields. On day two I went to check out the flowering tree on the horseshoe trail and the flowers are coming right along!

SPRING?!

Well, if this isn't spring I don't know what is. An earlier post had a picture of this tree with just buds. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is but today the buds opened. 75 degrees today. Crazy. March 14 in Pennsylvania! We should be preparing for a nor'easter! Another new lens today. I know, that's it for a while. It's a 50mm Nikkor 1.8 (75mm on my DSLR) and boy is it sharp. So enough of those manual lenses for me. I'm done being a luddite.

More Horseshoe Trail

Out on the trail again today only this time with Elsa! Still testing lenses. This is the 35mm 1.8G that I have had for a while. 

Horseshoe Trail

     Here we are, living in Hershey, PA. and right in our backyard is the Horseshoe Trail. This trail runs about 140 miles from Valley Forge then northwest through Pennsylvania until it connects with the Appalachian Trail. We are about 50 miles from the Northwest terminus of the trail. I've ridden my mountain bike on many sections of the trail but I have yet to make it up to the Appalachian trail. The trail is really rugged in sections and I have found that a mountain bike is all but impossible unless your willing to carry it up and down steep hills. In the pictures are some common trail markers that are maintained by the Horseshoe Trail Conservancy. The wooden posts have yellow blazes that keep you going in the right direction. In the bottom right foreground of other picture you can see a rock with a yellow blaze painted on it. 

     I took these pics with the new D7000 and a 100mm manual focus lens. I love the feel of the manual lens but not sure about the sharpness.

In Tokyo

I have a new toy, a complete 180, I think it's a good decision. More to come!

Spring in the East?

Wow! 50 degrees today and 60 tomorrow, the buds are out, is winter over? Last year we were in the deep freeze here in the east but this year we have yet to have winter. We are supposed to be heading out to the desert this weekend but we have a sick dog and a sick daughter so we will have to see. My brother and his wife are heading to LAX from Maui tomorrow and hopefully we will be meeting them there.

China

BRRRR!

Here's the old homestead after a little bit of snow. We're looking forward to a little desert time. Hopefully it will be warm. Last year was beautiful although one morning last year we woke up to a bit of a dusting of snow! Yikes! Anything will be better than the 0 degrees we woke up to this morning and I'm not talking celsius!

Another try at this post

Now I'm trying to get the copy to go along with the email. I put the copy under the photo and it didn't show up on my blog. Anyway, this is my micro four thirds mirrorless setup. I'm just getting used to the new lens to go along with my 40mm f1.7. It's a Olympus 90mm f1.8 which gives me great depth of field.

My micro four thirds rig

NEW OBJECT OF DESIRE?

Well the OM-D was released today. As my readers may know from past posts I am not an early adopter. Don't want to get burned, (see  fuji X100 whose prices are dropping like a stone on ebay)

Learning the quirks of posting from my ipad. Turns out if you want to edit a post everything before the edit is deleted. Oh, and this bluetooth keyboard that I got in China is a bit tough to get used to. Very sensitive.

Gift from a Danish friend of ours (reposte)

A gift from Heidi, a new friend in our lives. We met her last month and she sent these trolls to us from Copenhagen.

A gift from a Danish friend of ours

Well it was working but in editing the pic disappeared, hmmm?

Ch-ch-changes in China

Still figuring out how to get images from my ipad to the blog but I think success is close. Love this pic I captured at Beijing weekend antique market. "New China" girls juxtaposed with Mao girls in the picture to the right of them.

new post

Hello all, I've gone for a bit but now I am possibly back. Working from my ipad and a portable keyboard is a bit of a challenge but we will see if it works. Adding pics is another story. I am off to google now to see if that is possible.