New Camera, New Zoo

Some people have work-related hazards such as ergonomically incorrect keyboards or desks that leave them bent in uncomfortable positions.

Others are Iike Maricela, the nice lady at the San Antonio Zoo in charge of the parrot cage. While most of the streaking rainbows buzzed around the cage, Snowflake sat on her shoulder, nibbled on her shirt collar, then finally nestled into her hair.

Finally, Maricela was forced to swing her head side-to-side to shake the nesting bird loose.

The parrot, dislodged but unruffled, promptly hopped back onto her outstretched hand and headed back toward her shirt collar, nibbling on the button hole.

The parrot cage, and the zoo as a whole, is my go-to place for testing new camera gear. In this case, it was my new Sony A99.

My initial verdict is very positive. The images are very, very sharp. It's a little disconcerting to have the LED viewfinder show the image I just shot before going back to live action, but I was getting used to it by the end if the day.

The manual focus option is also different - it can be locked in through a menu, or if you just want it for one shot, hold a button on the back of the body and focus. Take your thumb off the button, though, and it snaps back to auto.

I found the light sensors to be a vast improvement over my A-350, which is forgiving in its own right. Having a sunny day helped, but on shots in dark shade, I was getting good results at ISO 100.

It had been at least two years since I had been to the zoo, and I was more than a little impressed with the number of improvements and additions it has made. The interactivity has increased a lot, especially in the birds area - I nearly stepped on a couple of tiny birds on a walkway through one of the cages.

Zoos are always a little sad after a while - I like to see animals in nature rather than behind steel mesh. But in comparison to other zoos, San Antonio has one to be proud of. The rest of my zoo pictures can be seen here.

Energy and apathy

Massive celebrations! I've got my first photo show!

How, you ask? (Humor me and ask, would you?)

One of the local libraries has a summer reading program centered on London (the hook is London is hosting the Summer Olympics this year). The Amazing Superwife happens to work at this library, and knew I had a collection of London photos from our trip there a couple of years ago.

(Yes, that's inside information. No, I'm not ashamed.)

I called my show "Toasting London" and put it up last weekend at the Brook Hollow Public Library here in San Antonio. It's a fairly small show - 17 pieces, in total - but it ended up fitting the space well. I did a lot of re-correction and re-cropping of images, and found some new shots in there that I hadn't seen before, which was very rewarding.

How did I celebrate this milestone? (If I was some corporate cliche machine, I'd roll out some nonsense about millstones becoming milestones with enough effort. But I'm not, so nyeah.)

Massive brain-suck! I spent the rest of the weekend playing Skyrim.

Aside from a carnitas burrito from Los Robertos, my celebration was getting sucked into Skyrim. It was an inexpensive celebration, but perhaps lacking in the celebrate. But there was a reason for that.

Sidebar: Skyrim is a prime example of why I rent games before buying.

If it sucks, I can take it back with minimal loss. If it's so damn addicting I can barely leave the couch, I can take it back and remove the temptation from the house. (But it might have snuck onto my Amazon wish list.)

But what this was, really, was recharging and dealing with the post-project hangover. I find that after a big project is completed, I don't want to do anything for at least a couple of days. With several projects winding up at once - stories I've been working on, photo shoots, this photo show - unplugging from work and plugging into something else - was necessary.

So, the celebration continues unabated (the photo show hangs through the end of the summer) and I'm feeling better for having zoned out for a bit.

Movies update: Prometheus was the best thing I've seen this summer since Avengers. All kinds of creepy alien goodness. Men in Black III was agreeable, but didn't really make an impression. Snow White and the Huntsman was decidedly average, on an extreme curve - the visuals were great, but Kristen Stewart was not.

Work update: I've had a new story published by the San Antonio Express-News about our time in Ogunquit after my sister's wedding. There are several other projects on the burner, too.

What, you ask? All in good time...all in good time. As long as I can stay out of Skyrim.