Falling into fall

What's the latest? Today I heard my first from Keith since the efx2 merry-go-round broke down.

If you go to www.efx2.com, it will forward you to a message from Keith (dated today, the 12th) about what is happening and what is going to happen.

Of course, if you had been visiting KingofAnkh's place at Blogspot all along, you know most of this stuff already.

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Anyway, as for me, geez, the weather has abruptly gotten cold here. Last week, it was in the upper 80s here and humid. Since then, the weather has gone from mid-summer to mid-fall without a minute of transition.

Today, it's in the upper 50s, with a chance of frost tonight. I'm driving to Ironwood to cover a football game Friday night, and they are predicting widespread frost. Better take along a sweatshirt for that one!

I haven't been getting many photos with my own camera lately, but I have been busy with the new work camera. (If you remember me writing about that at efx2.) It really does a slick job. Indoor shots and low-light shots are much nicer, the action is frozen, and you don't have to deal with "shutter lag."

Shutter lag? Better define that. It's the interval between when you press the button to take a picture and when the picture is actually taken. For most people taking pictures, it's not a problem. But I'm taking sports pictures, and every 1/10th of a second of shutter lag is a major concern. The "superzoom" camera I had before had major shutter lag; by its nature, a digital SLR doesn't. Much more responsive.

I covered volleyball last night, and my major challenge was anticipating the action--pointing the camera in the right direction. But when I fired, I got some great action shots--right at the instant the girl was hitting the ball. With the older camera, I had to "pre-focus" to lock in the focus and exposure settings and then press the shutter button before I wanted the picture taken. That doesn't sound very effective, and it isn't.

As I was telling the coach later, my old camera had the decency to die on me just before my vacation trip to Green Bay and Oshkosh in early August, thus giving me a golden opportunity to choose a replacement. We both laughed. She liked the action shots I got, too--I showed her some of them.

I have to wrap this up. My wife and I are going to my mom's place later this afternoon to get a few things. Not much more needs to be done with the house. Most of the stuff that had to be done has been done ... and now we are mainly waiting on the sale.