Clare de Lune, Or, Why I Love My New Camera Body

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The photo above and this well-known tune by Claude Debussy are the reasons for the horrible attempt at a joke in Monday's "Tomorrow" blurb. However, it was also a technical experiment.

I scored a Canon 5D Mark II last month and I want to tell you, I am smitten. Its highest resolution RAW file gives you an image of astonishing clarity, weighing in at 21 MB a shot. So, on Sunday night, I went down to the riverfront to shoot the rising full moon.

Photographing the moon well isn't easy, so I read up on it. The advice I found was conflicting. This picture was shot at ISO 400, f 16, 1/20th sec. I used spot light metering and mirror lock-up. Of course, the camera was on a tripod and I used a shutter cable release, all to minimize vibration. My longest lens is Canon's 100-400 mm L series, so I used it at max extension. It's not nearly long enough. The image you see above it perhaps five percent of the original shot, a very tight crop. It's not perfectly sharp but not bad IMHO. Pretty good camera.

WHAT I ORDERED FROM AMAZON: some orchestral excerpts from Wagner operas. The St. Louis Symphony had an opera-oriented program last weekend, ending with four selections from the Ring cycle. It swings from bliss to despair to heart-pounding majesty.

TOMORROW: more lunacy, perhaps.


There is a new Arch photo today on Gateway,
also shot on Sunday night.

Thursday Arch Series (Christmas Edition)

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Merry Christmas From St. Louis

Here we are, near the end of another year. Santa advises us to "wine a bit - you'll feel better," a concept endorsed by some of our CDPB colleagues (you know who you are). I must have been a good boy all year, 'cause look what was under my tree! (Below. left.) Well, actually we don't have a tree - haven't had one since the kids moved out. That's not important to us. We have each other.

I am grateful that my wife and I and our two children are all together today; that we are all healthy; that we all have jobs; that the mortgage or rent is all up to date and that there's enough left over for a couple of bottles of that stuff Santa is pushing. We don't need no stinkin' tree.

WHAT HAPPENED ON OUR QUEST FOR AN OPEN RESTAURANT LAST NIGHT: our favorite Vietnamese restaurant was closed, too. There is a stretch of South Grand Avenue with a regular United Nations of ethnic restaurants. We ended up at Mangia Italiano, happy as can be. They were busy! Two of the five lawyers in my office are Jewish so I asked their advice earlier in the day. Get Chinese carry-out and go to a movie, they both told me. Now there's a Christmas tradition.

TOMORROW: winter whirl.

There is a new Arch photo today on GATEWAY.
It's kinda cheesy but you might like it.
Oh, and a story! Everybody loves a story.