Moving Day

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Judd the One-Eyed Cat
Judd the One-Eyed Cat (no really, he lost the other eye as a kitten)

We are moving tomorrow. Which means that we have a lot of packing to do – because we slacked most of this month and after the intial round of 5 or 6 boxes that Leah knocked out – we didn’t make anymore progress until this past week. Leah was planning on getting quite a bit done over the weekend while I was in Phoenix, except she came down with a really bad flu-like sickness that really knocked her out for the entire weekend. And of course, I wasn’t there either.

Still. Leah has today off from any work and she’s made considerable progress (as of Lunch time.) So it shouldn’t be too bad… relatively speaking. She’ll get pretty much the rest of the stuff boxed up, I’ll throw all of my loose electronics into more boxes and then I’ll drag it all down to the garage. Then we’ll take apart the bed, our big Ikea bookshelf, and our desks. I’ll drag those parts down and then we’ll clean the walls and scrub things – leaving only sweeping/mopping for tomorrow after the movers have come and gone and brought our stuff to the new apartment… that’s a loose plan at least.

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We had dinner with some friends last night and they are so polite – they let me shoot away with my camera (and you’re always aces in my book if you allow that.) They cooked some awesome Korean food and although I arrived just after they finished eating – I got more than enough to fill me up – just in time for dessert! and RockBand!

Their daughter, pictured below – she’s REALLY good at drums for that game. Me on guitar? Not so much.

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Because a 50mm lens is actually a 75mm lens on a digital camera (mine at least) – all of my photos lately have been a lot more ‘close up’. I kind of really like it. While it wouldn’t be appropriate for everything – it’s just a lot closer than I’ve ever really shot before.

I also just purchased a Nippon Kogaku Nikon 35mm Nikkor – O  f/2.0 lens. to go with my 50mm f/1.8

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I’ll admit that the seller’s marketing/written text did convince me – I bought into the whole idea of this lens having some history/personality to it – and then that coupled with the good price, I bought it. I like that it’s kind of beat up and needs to be cleaned a little. As long as the glass is in good shape, I’m alright with everything else. It’s manual on my D40 but that’s how these photos were taken and I’m actually getting quite good/fast with focusing that way.

It IS tricky like they say though – if you look at the first photo of Judd – his nose is out of focus but everything that sits back in line with his eye is generally sharp and in focus. So it’s a really small depth of field/window where you can have something be clear or blurry beyond usable. Of course, that was at a f/1.8. I’m gonna stick with prime lenses for a while and aim for a f/1.2 or at least a f/1.4 – but first, I’m saving up for some off camera flashes and triggers.

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And yes I know – file this under yet another one of my hobbies/interests. While it’s a drain on resources to always have a different hobby/interest every other month… it could be worse – I could really suck at them as opposed to having some potential – even if it is luck half the time.