My lingering cold finally unlingered enough today that I could venture out for a bit: Anthony for a bike ride, and me to give my new Nikon D700 a spin. Other than the 20-minute night-time outing that resulted in the Impossible Photography post and its followup, I hadn't been outside with the D700 since the day I got it (the day I returned to Kyoto from summer travels).

I grabbed my biggest zoom (Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR and a 1.7× Extender), and put the camera into “Auto ISO” mode such that it'll kick up the sensitivity as needed to keep a fast shutter speed. I set the top ISO to 6400; if that's not enough, it'll then lower the shutter speed as needed for the shot.

We went out about 45 minutes before sunset, and we were mostly in the shade of the setting sun, so we quickly got into high-ISO situations....

Anthony rode around the same little path on which he first rode a bike almost half his life ago. The park area that the path is in looks pretty ragged today, but it has its moments of beauty (autumn · spring · winter).

While he rode, I sat and relaxed, got bitten my mosquitos, and took pictures of whatever wandered in view...

On the way back, Anthony stopped at a playground to play, and I aimlessly snapped shots, including one of a bolt sticking out of a rusty pole that is wholly unremarkable except the low-light circumstances under which it was taken...

The sun had been set for 10 minutes, but some high-up clouds were still catching a few rays....

The shot above is a case where the dynamic range of the camera just wasn't enough to capture both the detail in the clouds and the detail in the river/trees (which weren't really as dark yet as they appear here, because I opted to expose for the sky). It's a pretty area; click on the “nearby photos” link under the shot for lots of pretty pictures taken here.

Not far away, under the brightness of an “artificial sun” light, construction crews continued working on burying the power lines, a project that has been going on in one form or another since early 2006. I wouldn't mind that it takes so long if they'd actually get rid of the power lines. So far, it's all been preparation, apparently.

Finally, just before arriving home, I snapped a shot of this warm cafe window...

I really like the first and third shots (of Anthony, so I might be a bit biased), but otherwise, there's not really anything exciting here except for the low-light circumstances under which they were taken. In the same way in which people were once excited by a car that could go a whopping 20mph, I'm sure that the excitement over these kind of results in these kind of situations will wane quickly in the coming years.

But for now, it sort of like getting an extra couple of hours of daylight, which is spiffy.