Bought some simple plastic lenses for my Nikon DLSR. Yeah – seems counter-productive but going retro can be fun. The lenses are actual called Diana F+ lenses – made of plastic, and I got an adapter so it connects directly to the f-mount on the Nikon. Very simple. Whole thing was maybe $40. So simple that you have to put the camera in full manual for it to even snap shots as it doesn’t recognize that a lens is attached.
Great thing about using a DSLR is that since it’s all manual, you don’t know what settings you’ll need so you can just keep trying and no film wasted. You have to test different ISO/shutter combinations. And to focus – there are only 3 settings on this little plastic lens, 1-2M, 2-4M and infinity.
Why? Cause I can. And a few of the pics have a fun color effect.
Check out the rest on flickr. I’m still figuring out the settings so these are all learning pics.
The snow outside a week ago combined with Olympic spirit provided inspiration. (…and I was about to swiffer the hardwood floor and looking for an easier way using Ben.)
Here’s a video of Ben’s 3 Olympic sports he entered: bobsled, ski jump and the skeleton.
(No children were hurt during the filming of this video)
We laughed, we cried, we laughed hard enough to cry…what fun to spend a day in Napa tasting wines again. I’ll never get tired of that. For those that like wine, here are a few wineries we stopped at while visiting the family in NorCal. We always try to taste new wines when we’re there. That’s not hard to do. So this time we hit a bunch of ones we’d never tried. Some good, some over-priced.
Artesa – Huge hilltop tasting room on your way over to Sonoma. Jen, my sis and I split 2 tastings – one regular and one reserve. I recommend doing this as you get to do side-by-side comparisons. (at this place – most of the reserve won out but not always given the price diff) With their Chardonnay – Reserve did win. (bought it)
Castello di Amorosa - literally a castle in Calistoga.
Built by the Sattui family (V. Sattui Winery fame) – great views, entertaining tasting room (underground), nice architecture. Notice I’m not talking wine. I will tell you it cost $16 per person just to enter. That did come with a complimentary tasting. But for $16 – you’ve definitely paid for the tasting. Wasn’t a fan of their wines. (maybe should have tasted the reserves – more $$$) They had a couple okay dessert white wines but nothing I couldn’t find cheaper elsewhere. And I’m tired of drinking a liquid that makes my mouth drier than when I started. Some wines are just too dry. Lots here if you like them. Oh and Jen got carded and had to go back to the car for her I.D. That little episode went like this:
Cashier: scanning our group intently, “I need to see HER I.D.” pointing at Jen Me: “The one holding her 9-month old is my wife.” Cashier: “That doesn’t mean anything, anyone can have a kid.” Me: “Well I think anyone with a 9-month old deserves to drink wine then.” Cashier: “Let me know when she comes back with her ID,” said ignoringly
Hey cashier lady – I told you that you’d end up on my blog…there you go.
On to better wineries. We tried to hit some that had reputations for being great hidden secrets or great tasting room reputations.
Rutherford Grove - not sure which list I looked this up on but it was one of the ones I wanted to hit. First we needed to eat so we parked in their lot, threw open the back of the suburban we’d been in and munched on a ton of cheese, crackers, hummus, deli meats, bread and chocolate – all while Ben slept in his car seat. Just great. That little snooty tailgater (and the wine) made the day for me – just kicking back in wine country munching on good food. Oh yeah – wine. Whites and reds were both very nice. I liked their Zin, Cab Sav, sauvignion blanc (bought it) and their very fruity/jammy petite syrah. (bought it)
ZD Winery - nice place started by an aerospace engineer along the Silverado Trail side of Napa Valley. Tasting room was fun. (I’ll always trust a tasting room playing Johnny Cash in the background) We again did a regular tasting and reserve. Both were good but I couldn’t see spending $60-$120 per bottle on some of their reserves. Won’t pay triple for “more velvety.” We were impressed with their non-reserve Petite Syrah that was very strong. (bought it)
Miner Family Vineyards - great views of the valley, this was supposed to be a “hidden gem” that apparently everyone new about. We tasted some good whites and loved their Viognier (bought it) They make an amazing red wine called, “The Oracle.” It was a great bottle of wine but a bit pricey, just confirming we have expensive taste. Great views and wine though. And their web site lets you see their solar power production – they went green in March 2009.
Darioush - Thanks to a wine order texted in by Jen’s sis (thanks Janet) we finished our day over at Darioush, Napa’s Persian-inspired winery. The wines are inspired as well. We had this place set for the end of the day as we knew it’d be the best tasting of the day. Wines are just amazing. We’d been there before but given we had a texted order and a couple who’d never been – was easy to add to the end of our day. Although all are pricey, I’d happily drink any of their wines. We especially liked their Viognier (bought it) and a blend appropriately called Duel. (bought it) Duel is a hearty Cab/Shiraz blend you will never find in a store that has tastes of fruit and cedar. Just awesome.
***** And that was our day *****
Again, Ben did awesome. Went into every tasting room with us. Only had a few instances where he got bored as we tasted. But we had enough people to swarm him and walk him places, look at things, etc. You can definitely do Napa with a baby and not miss anything. Thanks for driving us around all day Dave.
I was browsing some photo sites looking for ideas on learning more about my new Nikon and stumbled across the project 365 concept.
Basically – take a photo a day for a year. Anything you’re doing or how you’re feeling or things that are happening. It sounded like an interesting way to capture a year (the big events, the mundane and everything in between) and have a fun way of looking back on it. 2 phrases make me think it could be fun. The first is, “a picture is worth a 1,000 words” and the second is, “the best camera is the one you have with you.”
Lifehacker (which references photojojo) and flickr have some ideas to think about if you do this project. Plus I’m hoping it forces me to use the new camera more.
take your camera everywhere – having it on the phone makes it easier
don’t give up – when you get bored – shoot something new or in a new way
make it easy to keep up-to-date – getting behind on a project like this would suck
I’ll admit I’m still researching how to keep and post the pics. There’s flickr or facebook or just on RTB. (there’s even an iPhone app) Not sure yet. Right now I’m storing them in iPhoto until I decide where to post.
Here are 6 of the first 11 pics I’m storing.
Thought I’d pass along what could be a fun idea even though it’s the 11th.
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