A Bad Word

Henry: "Momma just said a Bad Word."

Henry: "It started with a 'B'".

Bath Time

Dog Blog Post #2071

It was Day Spa Day (really!) and the boys came home exhausted (Henry) or hyper (Zachary), with the combined attention span of a teenage gnat.

I managed to get a few shots of Henry, who would have rather napped on that nice thick towel, and called it a night.

Zachary earned his "modeling" fee by putting his excess energy to good use running through his favorite tricks.

Photography Assignment

Daily Dog Challenge 1580. "Whimsy"

Our Daily Challenge - Feb 27, 2016 - "Bubbly"

116 Pictures in 2016 - #59. "Clean"

FWIW - not to disillusion anyone, BUT... Henry's "sad look" is a cued behavior - the combination of a "stay" cue followed by my moving a Cookie slowly in the direction I want him to look.

He dutifully holds his body still, but follows the Cookie with this eyes, creating "puppy-dog eyes".

I also have a "head down" cue, used for other shots in the series. Not that he needed much cueing, today.

Henry: (censored)

My Camera

The other day I was asked about my camera.

I have a Nikon D7000, and I absolutely love it.

I typically shoot with (99.9% of the time) a 60mm micro 2.8f lens, and I adore that as well.

60mm is the perfect length for the small space I shoot in, placing the camera ~8ft away from the boys on a typical night.

The lens is quiet and focuses quickly, reliably, and easily.

The micro ability is a fun bonus to capture tuffs of fur or up-close shots of paw pads, focusing on things only an inch or two away from the lens with ease.

It has no trouble at all capturing motion shots or when used for slow exposures.

The only thing it lacks is a pretty bokeh (the blurry, out of focus stuff) when the aperture is wide.

For that I have a 135mm lens, which creates incredible buttery foreground/backgrounds and gorgeous portraits.

Why don't I use it more often?

Because, at 135mm, the camera has to sit in the family room in order to capture both boys in the Kitchen.

That's well over 20ft away, and off to the side to avoid catching the edge of the sofa.

Here's some samples I pulled up from my Flickr stream...

Look at how smooth the out of focus stuff front and back is

Yes, that's the same floor as in today's shoot.

...and how crisp the in focus stuff is...

You can count every hair and whisker - especially if you click on the image to get the larger version.

Handsome Zachary - such a lovely portrait lens

(sigh)

My third lens (other than the kit lens (18-200mm zoom) the camera came with) is a Nikon 50mm 1.8f fast lens.

Everyone is supposed to have "nifty-50", right?

Everyone is supposed to love their "nifty-50", right?

Sorry, no.

I have never had much luck with it.

I find it noisy and slow/struggling to focus. Trying to capture the boys moving was particularly difficult.

But I haven't used it in quite a while, maybe I've improved since then.

Perhaps it's time to dust it off (along with the 135mm) and give them another go.

Of course, once I see the pictures from the 135mm, I might have a hard time putting it away again.


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