It has been a long time since my last post...

Hello everyone, it has been a long time since my last post. I have plenty I could post but nothing is prepared. I could be revisiting the Elk and Whitetail ruts that I was posting when I stopped or I could be posting a few HFD calls I photographed or even bringing you up to speed on what has been happening at the Harrisburg Fire Department, but I won't for now. Instead I think I will bring you something new since it is prepared.

If you have been reading my blog for sometime then you all ready know that Shane and I are very much into history and World War 2. His paper work is in everything he needs to go to war (summer time anyways) from the HBT uniform to the belt, haversack and small items right down to the Springfield M1 Garand have been purchased, now it is time to face the enemy. His first encampment should be the beginning of June in Reading. If I have everything I need for battle I just may join him in camping out that weekend.

We have already attended one event this year, the Battle of the Buldge with about five more planned. Now it is time to read all we can on the 45TH infantry to really play the part and pass on the living history. It is always fun to find things to do with your children and even more so when it is remembering those who served this country. It will be an honor to keep their memory alive and pass along history to the next generation.

I guess now is the time to give you a little back ground on the photos. Late last year Nikon came out with a new body the D7000 that took what was good about many of their DSLR's and incorporated new features like full 1080 HD video capabilities with auto focus and stereo audio recordings. Needless to say I was a little excited about a new camera body. The camera had been unavailable at every location until about two weeks ago when one of the large New York dealers got some in. I had been very active selling items on eBay and other places in an effort to downsize with retirement potentially nearing. Along with that I sold the D70 and passed along the D90 to Shane with the intent on getting the D7000. About two weeks ago the camera arrived at the front door and from the time I unpacked it the excitement level rose.

Things have been busy and weather lousy so I had not used it except to photograph my feet and the cats as I played with it learning the new controls and menu. A couple of days ago Shane's M1 helmet arrived and before you knew it he was dressed and ready for battle. Wanting photos for his face book page was perfect, I can try out the new camera. It felt great, I played with high ISO settings and was surprised at the low noise on the LCD, it even sounded different than the other four Nikon DSLR's I have owned. Now it was time to download the card and get his photos ready for him. With the card downloaded and in Adobe Bridge it was not allowing me to open them in camera raw, I could not even open them in Photoshop. It was time for some research even though I already had an idea of what the problem was. Shore enough CS3 is not capable of handling the new NEF files from the D7000 just like CS2 was not able to handle the new NEF files from the D300 when I purchased it. I found that the only way to work the files was to upgrade to CS5 or Lightroom 3. This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time so now I have to.

I have not gotten the new programs yet, I am excited about them but not the learning curve required of someone with my computer skills. So you are wondering how did I post these photos if I didn't purchase the programs yet. I remembered that if you use the in camera editing features and save the new file to the camera it keeps the original raw file but the new file is saved as a jpeg. That is exactly what I did then opened them in Photoshop cropped and resized them for Shane too use.

For all you bloggers out there that I frequent I know I have not been commenting lately but I am still looking, Willard is still teaching me thing and posting great stuff, Coy's photos are always awesome and I enjoyed your Florida birds (I am not getting there this year), Woody, I am glad to see some new post, you catch to many jobs to not share them with us and Haney's is always interesting. Are you shore that is you at the snow bank, wow we looked young once. I am hoping to start posting more often on both sites very soon, but for now thanks for stopping by.