Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! And if you don’t know what Thanksgiving is, well, us Americans like to get together with the family once a year, and eat a mandatory huge meal, then sleep for a couple of days. We did not watch any football.

This thanksgiving weekend was fun for me. I got to spend some time with my parents! It was just my parents and I. Both of my sisters and their families could not make it. Fortunately, for my parents, they still have one child that is not occupied by a spouse, children, or live a long ways away. Such a wonderful Thanksgiving feast! I talked my mom into cooking chicken instead of turkey, just because chicken tastes better, and she agreed. It was great! Not to mention that afterward we watched together, the entertaining “Santa Claus 3: The Escape Clause,” and then shortly after the much more exciting, “Live Free or Die Hard.” I know, those movies don’t seem very exciting back to back, but they were a nice blend.

I brought all my camera equipment, and decided to snap some pictures of my pets, because, well, it was my last opportunity to get some decent pictures with my old Nikon D200. I also missed my animals, and wanted to catch them in their prime and hopefully print out some pictures for my parents. We have some really photogenic pets.

Then Friday rolled along, and I casually woke up around 11pm and strolled over to Shutterbug where I received a phone call earlier in the week that the D300 would be available for me to pick up. So, short story shorter, I have now upgraded my gear from a Nikon D200 to the brand spakin’ new Nikon D300. I was able to sell the D200 the next day for $1100 with the battery grip thanks to Craigslist! I was able to sell the camera to a local man who was delighted to venture into photography, and hopefully I will get to see some of the stuff he comes up with using the camera. I utilized the micro studio that I made a few weeks back for the pictures of the items I was selling. I am also trying to sell my GL2 and a MTX Amplifier, but neither has been showing much interest except for a few people in relations with people in Africa. Red flags anyone?

I haven’t gotten to do too many photo shoots with my new Nikon D300, just a few messing around pictures, and a shoot at my church of a couple dancing, and a ballerina. I had one senior photo shoot lined up for the weekend, but the father felt it was too expensive and cancelled the shoot. I am still baffled by this, because I feel like I am way too inexpensive. To each their own!

So far I am extremely satisfied with the Nikon D300, the image noise has been reduced a lot, and I can shoot in RAW with much higher ISO, and not worry about such nasty color noise and quality decrease. Of course, shooting with lower ISO will always increase the image quality! I try to shoot at ISO 200, but for the dance pictures, I shot at ISO 1000, and the pictures are definitely usable, and one of them will be in next weeks bulletin.

I am still looking forward to my first actual photo shoot with the camera. I will keep everyone posted when I have an opportunity and finish a photo shoot. Here is just a couple random pictures.