Here are a few shots of the surgery.

The old zoom ring, slipping a bit.

With the zoom ring removed

Like new again!

Also there are a few updates to the website that I’m pretty excited about!  First is my new splash page, which I mentioned in a previous post.  Now it’ll be easier to get where you need when visiting my website! Simply go to http://www.rekphoto.com and click where you’d like to be.  You may also notice a new theme, which I really like!

The other update, which is clear from that splash page as well as the new icons near the top of the blog, is you can now connect with me on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter (I have Tumblr too but not sure how much I’ll use it — or how!)  If for some reason those aren’t enough, there’s always good ol’ email!   Also, at the bottom of each post is a set of icons, so if you read something you’d like to share, there’s an icon to do so for many of the social networking services — please feel free to share if you think something is of interest to others.

The last update is my camera (Nikon D80) went out for repair last week.  Working on my 365@50 project, I’ve been taking my camera everywhere — without a case.  Well it got me, because getting out of my car I must’ve bumped the camera on my parking brake lever, and then I noticed:

1. The shutter speed wouldn’t go beyond 1/200.  I have been doing a lot of shooting in manual, and being brighter in the mornings than in the evening when I take a shot, I had to up it, but no matter how I spun the dial, it wouldn’t go past 1/200.  Thinking I may have turned the control dial a bit (weird things happen when the dial is stuck between M and one of the picture modes!), I looked and it was definitely set on M.
2. Knowing 1/200 is the max sync speed for the flash, I pushed the flash button and it wouldn’t pop up.  I could slip a fingernail under it and manually release it but it wouldn’t go up on its own.
3. There’s a small crack on the top of the pop-up flash.  That’s how I figured I must’ve bumped it.  It wasn’t hard but I guess it was enough to do some damage.

It’s at Nikon’s repair facility in Melville, NY — hopefully the repair won’t be too much!  I’d been eye-balling the new D300s for a bit now and my wife was gracious enough to give the nod!  I’ll sell the D80 when I get it back as other than this bump, it’s been babied and has less than 7,000 shots.  If you know of anyone looking for a 1-year old D80 (I also have the MB-D80 battery grip which is newer than that), let me know!

Here are a few of my recent shots from the 365@50 before “the incident”:

Getting them to Flickr is a bit more tricky, but it can be done (from what I have read, more integrated Flickr uploading is coming soon).  You just have to go to your Flickr account page, click the e-mail tab, and get the Your Flickr upload email address, put that in your address book, and go from there.  The app gives you the option to email during the share process.  Click here for a shortcut to that page (you’ll need to be logged into your Flickr account)  The method I actually prefer to share on Flickr is to use FlickIt [Free, iTunes link] which will allow you to upload more than one image, add tags, put them into groups and sets, etc.  Saves time later, especially if you’re not at a computer.  Flickr has their own app as well, but I like the expanded features of FlickIt.  I also prefer the Twitter integration with FlickIt since it sends people to your Flickr stream rather than thebestcamera.com — that way they can see all of your other photos, not just the iPhone ones!

My Best Camera photos are available for viewing at:

• The Best Photos
• Flickr

All of my iPhone pics (using Best Camera and other iPhone apps) are here on Flickr.

The book is quite cool, with tons of great photos Chase took with his iPhone.  It’s available at Amazon, Borders and Barnes & Noble.

I’ll often take photos at work during my lunch break, so with my file structure of “<TODAY’S DATE> Vienna Flowers”  If I’m looking for a particular daisy shot, which folder do I look to?  Another benefit to Lightroom is I can edit multiple photos in a more streamlined fashion, since they’re all loaded up in a filmstrip sort of method.  I can quickly pick and choose which ones to make the cut, working my way to the best of the series.  I can then edit them as a whole or individually, and export at once.  In Capture NX2 each one needs to be open and saved/exported individually (you could batch it, but there are extra steps), and even share some of the settings, but in Lightroom it seems so much easier.  I can still use NX2 for some filters that I have with it, exporting the file directly from Lightroom to NX2 for editing, upon saving it and closing it, it appears back in Lightroom stacked with the original.  Pretty cool!  For heavy “pixel pushing”, I still use Photoshop Elements, which is superior for cloning and touch ups.  And now that PS Elements 8 has been announced, it’ll be even easier.

The selection brushes are quite good as well, actually.  In NX2 I can select areas to brighten and darken (among other things) but Lightroom 2 allows exposure adjustments with the brushes as well!  The shots below had some issues with dynamic range, so I used the exposure brush to decrease exposure on the sky while another brushed increased it in the foreground.  Even using a ND filter in NX2 couldn’t save these as well as the brush in Lightroom did. The color one had a fair amount of noise, which is still evident in the clouds, but the image was able to be recovered, so I’m quite happy!

We’ll see how it goes!  I really enjoy using Lightroom, and with some of Matt Koslowski’s presets and tips, it’s getting a lot easier.

edit: Here’s a good tutorial on LR2.