And courtsey the Weather Underground:

Ike. Who we are more concerned about.

Hanna. Who we’re less concerned about.

• When taking candids of younger kids, being able to take long bursts of shots seems to increase the odds of getting a better shot. The DR comes up short in this regard. Certainly better than the Kodak DC280, but more and faster would be useful.
• I’ve a bias against flash. In that I prefer not to use it. Probably because I have no clue what I’m doing with it. That aside - I really really like natural light. So when you add natural light + wild insane running children, that means a really fast lens to keep the ISO low, or a higher ISO and a moderately fast lens. And higher ISO means more noise in the image. I was looking at an image shot at 6400 with the new Canon 50D, I’d judge the quality to be equivalent to what I would get at 800 with my DR. As I increase the ISO, I should be able to get better results at higher f stops - meaning better shots at f/3.5 or f/4.
• I like the idea of a full frame sensor, with higher resolution. The down side of the full frame sensor is that my Tamron lenses might really show their limitations at the edges of the photograph. And the downside of the higher resolution is that I’d need more cards and more disk space. The up side is that I’d have more flexibility in how I cropped the shots and still have enough photo to print 8×10s or larger.

While the Canon 1Ds Mk III really tickles my fancy, at $7,717, I can’t really justify that camera. Not even close. Easier might be the Canon 5D, which has a full frame sensor, and comes in at a more reasonable $2,289. On the other hand, the new 50D is priced at around $1,299, is a 15.1 megapixel camera, and with the smaller sensor (1.6x field of view crop) should get good performance out of my Tamron lenses.

But I’d really like that 5D!

• Scanned Piano Rolls
• Classical Piano midi files

I also took the opportunity to get a new shot of the monument to the Confederate Soldiers. They, too, had a dream. So it involved the subjugation of human beings. It’s a matter of State’s Rights!

I’m sorry. But if it involves matters of inequality, we might want consider whether or not it should be left up to the states.

Trey Ratcliff, photographer, pixel wrangler with mad Photoshop Skillz and proprietor of the the absolutely a-may-zing “Stuck In Customs” website recently noted that:

All of my work is Creative Commons - No Commercial Use Allowed. This means that anyone, anywhere can use my images all they like for fun, desktops, art, etc., but no one can use it to make money. I’m a big fan of the Creative Commons movement since I think it is a smart move in digital distribution of creative effort.

Well, it just so happens that a month or so ago I created 19 or so iPhone sized wallpapers from some of Trey’s photos. So - because he’s specifically posted that we (collectively) can use them under the CC license, I’m taking the liberty of posting them here. Feel free to download - but remember - no commercial use!

I’m going to assume everyone knows about right clicking or whatever you’d do on your platform of choice to save the files to your local PC for transfer to your iPhone/Touch.

Archway overlooking the foggy jungles of Indonesia

The Mysterious Shack with the Unusual Flyers

The Cup Cake Airstream of Austin

The Lighted Chariot at the Driskill

Downtown Austin at Night

Merry Christmas at the Driskill

Back home in Austin

Fireworks in HDR

Flower from Austin

Flamingos and an old Dodge

Some Circles

[One of] Three Unrelated Pictures

The Capitol Area

Texas Capitol

More pictures from around Austin

A few to which I must needs find links to the originals: