Finally got my stolen stereo replaced in the Tacoma with a JVC KD-R810 head unit. Cost a bit more than my old unit, but for an extra $50 bucks I get built in Bluetooth and iPod/USB integration. I’ll do a full write up on it later, but I just have to say it is nice driving to work with some sort of audio entertainment.
The Big Photo Repost
I’ve taken a ton of pictures over the year, but have done relatively little sharing. My Picasa collection has 25 albums and that is barely the tip of the iceberg. Over the next year or so I’m going to go through album by album in Picasa and post pictures that people might not have seen before. I’m only going to pick out the top pictures that best represent the set as a whole to keep album size down.
All sets will be posted to Picasa and sets that are interesting enough will get cross posted to Facebook. I’ve softened my stance on FB and have returned to a level of minimal usage.
While picking out what to post I will be deleting shots that are useless or duplicates. My hope is to really pare down the amount of noise in my image library. If I bring up a set of photos, I only want the pictures that I like or can use. There’s probably a ton of out of focus or black frames that can just go away. I’ll also delete photos that are unflattering to the subject (unless you do so intentionally, a la Denise).
In our move I found all my negatives from high school so those will probably be scanned and posted as well.
Now to look into WordPress custom post types and developing a child theme with templates to make posting these galleries easy.
The new Nikon D3100 vs D3000 vs D5000
Price Comparison (as of 9/26/11): D3100 is $529 (big drop from $600) at Amazon and the D5100 is $759
Update 5/09/2011: D5100 was announced at the beginning of April. See what’s new and some of my thoughts at this post: Nikon D5100 DSLR – What’s New and Impressions
The new D3100 really shakes up Nikon’s lineup of lower priced DSLRs. In my previous comparison between the D90, D5000 and D3000 I had a hard time recommending the D3000 and the extra money was well spent on the D5000. The D3100 changes this recommendation.
Major revisions to the D3100:
- New 14MP CMOS sensor – big improvement over the D3000’s ancient CCD sensor
- 1080p24 video – nonexistent on the D3000 and better than the D5000 and D90
- Autofocus while recording a movie – a first on any Nikon DSLR, before you had to lock focus before recording and tweak it manually
- Live view mode – brought over with the video features
- Automatic chromatic aberration correction – This is big, fixes fringing in your pictures before they are saved, previously only on the D90 and D5000
- Customizable function button
The D5000 is essentially obsolete now. The D3100 and D5000 have comparable sensors now and the inclusion of better video capability makes the decision between the D3100 and D5000 simple; until the D5000 is updated just get the D3100.
A lot of features from the D90 have been pushed down to the lower price points and the one thing that really sets the two consumer segments apart is the inclusion of an AF motor on D90. If you are going to use lenses without built in AF motors then the D90 (or it’s soon to be announced replacement) is still your only choice. If I was just starting out though, I wouldn’t hesitate to get the D3100 which beats the D5000 in bang for your buck.
You can get the Nikon D3100 from Amazon at a very competitive price.
Change of Address
After 3 car break-ins we decided it was time to vacate the Wallace condo after being there for 3 years. We boxed up everything we don’t need regularly and moved into my parent’s house. Hopefully that will let us save up a bit more to buy something or take our time to find something else to rent.
I’m also filing my first insurance claim ever for the break-in on my truck. The damage was up to about $1200 between the window, door lock and handle, stereo and dash kit. All that so some tweaker could grab the stereo and sell it for $20.
AUTO ISO on the Nikon D90
I usually leave the main ISO at 200, AUTO ISO on with a minimum shutter of 1/15 and MAX ISO of 1600. That means the camera will raise the ISO to 1600 to try and maintain a 1/15 second shutter. If it reaches ISO 1600 and there still isn’t enough light to maintain the minimum shutter, then it allows the shutter to fall below that setting. If you need to raise the shutter to avoid blur then you either have to lower your f-stop (if you aren’t wide open already) or add more light to your scene (i.e. flash).
If you have the minimum shutter set to something faster like 1/60, it will start bumping the ISO once your light drops off a little, especially with slower apertures like f/5.6. What’s your minimum shutter setting at? Which lenses are you using? The consumer lenses with f/3.5-5.6 apertures are fairly slow even wide open. In falling afternoon light this combination of slower aperture and high minimum shutter could cause AUTO ISO to kick in unexpectedly.
To complicate things a little further, if the flash is on, it ignores AUTO ISO and sets the ISO to the normal ISO setting (200 in my case) and it uses the “Flash shutter speed” (custom menu e1) as the minimum shutter. I have that set to 1/30 most of the time.