wow colorado is gorgeous!

and cool "new" camera, indra!

wow colorado is gorgeous!

How true, and especially after traveling through Kansas!

All pics below from hiking trails behind NCAR in Boulder, CO

View of Boulder at 17mm focal length...

...and at 50mm

Nice, I interviewed for my current job while at a conference at NCAR a couple summers ago.

Nice, I interviewed for my current job while at a conference at NCAR a couple summers ago.

It's a cool place, has a great view of Boulder. And they do some cool stuff, I've been inside a few times. The main attraction for the locals is the network of hiking trails behind it tho.

the main attraction for me is their supercomputers, since that's what I do

Oh sweet, I guess you get to work with Bluefire?

NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory: bluefire

That system is a monster! A monster! 76 teraflops, geez...

Contrast is better on the 2nd, color in the first. If I had to pick, I prefer the crispness of the 2nd.

X2. I do like the contrast on the second one more, but both are great. Those skies look at Hawaii but with less clouds. All the pics in Colorado look great Asr. Keep them coming .

Oh sweet, I guess you get to work with Bluefire?

NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory: bluefire

That system is a monster! A monster! 76 teraflops, geez...

No, I work on the system that was delivered a day before that to NOAA R&D in Maryland

I arranged a temporary trade this evening. I lent my EF 35mm F/2 (my favorite lens, I shoot with it extensively) to a friend of mine, and he in turn let be borrow his EF 85mm F/1.8 portrait lens. This is a very mutually beneficial swap. If he is sufficiently pleased the 35mm F/2, he'll buy it instead of it's F/1.4L cousin (which is about $1000 more expensive.) Other than EF 70-200 F/4L IS, the 85/1.8 is the lens I am most likely to buy next. It takes me a while to "get" a lens. Much more time than 5-10 minutes in a shop, or even an afternoon's rental (not that there is a lens rental place around here.) I'm looking forward to spending the next couple weeks working with the 85mm.

This is why I love the 35mm F/2:

I have shot with the 85/1.8 before, but none of the results are remarkable enough to post here. Hopefully there will be some soon.

eww wires

85 1.8 is pretty awesome. Focus' lightning fast and silent compared to the 35 f2.

The 35mm F/2 has the (in)famous "angry wasp" focus motor. It has never bothered me, especially in light of the optical qualities of the lens. The 85/1.8 is USM, but I'm not sure it focuses any faster. The main advantage of the 85 is that it has absolutely gorgeous bokeh. It has arguably the best bang-for-the-buck in the entire Canon lineup when it comes to background blur. Being something of a bokeh obsessive, this key for me.

Speaking of obsessive, Canon announced the 5D Mk II today. 21.1MP full frame, ISO 100-6400 (presumably in 1/3rd stop increments) and 12800 and 25600 in trick modes. I hope it comes close to the high ISO performanceof Nikon's D3 and D700, but I am not optimistic. Nikon wisely kept the MP of those two bodies at something sane. 20+MP is really not good for much except for filling up one's memory card and hard drive. Still, they're offering the 5D II with a 24-105L for just over $3000, which is the cost of a D700 body only.

Anyone want to buy a kidney?

It's funny, with all of the advancements in DSLR bodies and the fact that they churn out a new model every 9 months or so I can't help but wonder just what the hell their business model is (both Cannon and Nikon). Me, personally, at this point I'd love to sell my D80 body and move to a used D2H. The 4MP sensor is plenty unless you're doing 10' wall sized murals and the idea of a 20+MP sensor and shooting RAW with something like that is dumbfounding. Imagine the fricken storage and processing capacity that you'll need to manipulate a 50MB image file. That's just plain stupid in my book.

Yup. I'm tempted by the new sony for full frame, but the sensor in my minolta 7D is all I need for raw pixels.

You mean the new 24MP A900? I cannot fathom the point of that camera. In-camera image stabilization is nice, especially on medium to wide lenses (it won't do much for teles) but the high ISO performance is terrible. Slashgear took it to task for this very issue. 24.6MP looks good on paper, but it's going to clog memory cards and hard drives at an even quicker rate than the 5D. For $3000, I'd much rather have the 12MP D700. Image stabilization isn't so necessary when ISO 6400 is less grainy than previous generation camera's ISO 1600.

Its not liek the 5D is the only camera in their lineup. They have plenty of room with the XS/CSi, 40D, new 50D for prosumers who dont want to eat card space.

For my own purposes, the D700 would be awesome. Twelve MP is plenty for the print sizes I find appealing to keep displayed in a normal home. However, I could see the appeal of the 20+MP sensors, if I was to be selling a lot of very large prints. Considering how things are going, I'm sure it won't be long before Nikon puts one out.

I think 12-15 is more than I'll ever need. I wish Canon made a D700.

What size prints are you guys doing that you even need 12MP? I'm pretty sure that you can print poster sized stuff from 6MP.

I'm a cropper. =[ I suck at framing.

I disagree. More megapixels if you don't need them slow down the camera, fill up memory cards faster, and generally aren't needed. If you're ultimately taking pictures that will never be printed, or pictures that will never be printed larger than say 20x30, the only thing going over 6mp gets you is more room to crop. I'd much rather a lower noise sensor that is 8mp that is nice and fast than a 20mp sensor. I already fill up cards too quickly.

Even all things being equal, you're writing more data you don't need. That fills up memory faster, slows down camera speeds, etc.

Even all things being equal, you're writing more data you don't need. That fills up memory faster, slows down camera speeds, etc.

Best example of this is the weaksauce 3.9FPS on the 5D MKII. That's half the reason I want the D2H, 8FPS goodness.