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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — 1/800 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hosin' Off The Ole' Backhoe
As I mentioned yesterday, we're in Ohio for the summer, and Anthony quickly started to enjoy the benefits to country living. He caught toads, played with fireflys, played baseball and basketball with Daddy, chased geese, played in a big sandpile, and generally explored around. That was his first full day here at Grandma and Grandpa's place.
The play backhoe (whose many-year provenance was provided in the previous post) had more spiderwebs and such than he cared for, so he wanted to rinse it off.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm — 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Eventually I put on one of those multi-nozzel sprayers, which provided a slight improvement in washing ability, and a large improveent in fun ability...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Mist” Setting Should be Labeled “Rainbow”
I didn't like the angles I was getting, with the deep shade in the background,so I moved around to try to get a more balanced shot...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Industrial Cleaning Zone
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 60 mm — 1/2000 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Mist” Setting Should be Labeled “Cool Mist”
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Moments Before Daddy Yelling
“I told you not to get me or the camera wet!”
Not content with getting me wet, he wanted to get more wet himself, so we switched him to a bathing suit and let him at it. He enjoyed shooting a burst straight up, then having it plonk him on the had...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Preparing to be Plonked
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
As Always, “Mist” Is Fun
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rainmaker
I just love his hair in this one.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Watching from the Veranda
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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
KidZania, Ohio Style
Well, no, not any kind of business like the KidZania play spot in Japan that I've posted much about, but perhaps even better: Grandma and Grandpa's place in Ohio.
Anthony generally spends the summer at my folks' place in rural Ohio, both to bolster his English ability, and, well, to be able to see Grandma and Grandpa. They live in the countryside, so it's always a great experience for him.
We arrived yesterday evening. Our luggage arrived this morning. It didn't take long before he was playing outside, power-washing some heavy machinery. The toy backhoe has been a recurrent theme during our summers: 2006 · 2007 · 2008.
Grandma and Grandpa have a new big sandpile, and so of course he wanted to play right away, but had to wash off the backhoe first. “Washing the backhoe” quickly became “playing with the hose”, and much fun ensued.
I got lots of nice photos, but lost them all to a corrupt memory card until I could recover them... most of them, at least. I was planning on posting a fun sequence, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow... jetlag... must... sleep....
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As soon as I switched to a Nikon D700 from a Nikon D200, I started getting corrupt memory cards. I brought the camera to the Nikon Service Center in Osaka, but they said that it's probably the memory card that's the problem. I used only Transcend compact flash cards, which are not on the official supported list, so they suggested that I move to an officially-supported card.
In those early days, the problem manifested itself with a scrambled view of the image on the D700's screen, but they downloaded fine and I never had other problem with the images. In any case, they soon went away and for months I forgot about the issue. Then last December I had a full-card meltdown, and would have lost all the images from the day if it hadn't been for the image-recovery tool I wrote about in “Recovering Photos from a Corrupt Memory Card with PhotoRec”
I wasn't entirely convinced the problem was with the card.... I half suspected that it was due to my card reader, but I threw the card away and got another. Unfortunately, five months later I ran into the problem again, finding upon return from a vacation that all the images from our trip to Ishigaki Island were lost to a corrupt card. Again, PhotoRec came to my rescue, so again, I sent a big fat donation of thanks to its maintainer.
I still felt that the problem wasn't in the cards, but to be prudent, I switched to cards on Nikon's official supported-for-the-D700 list of cards.
So yesterday, I arrived at my folks in Ohio after a long flight from Japan, and this morning I took some pictures of Anthony playing, and found my Lexar Professional card to be totally corrupt. Sigh. PhotoRec is running right now.
The problem could be my card reader (a different one than before, I think, but I'm not 100% sure... I have several), or this and the previous time it could be the airport X-Ray..... or it could be my D700. I dunno.
Sigh.
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In my previous post about our recent trip to Ishigaki Island in southern Japan, I mentioned that we'd taken a side trip to the small but nearby Taketomi Island. The trip involved a 15-minute ride in a boat similar to...
Similar Boat, as Seen From Our Own
Photo by Anthony Friedl
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inside Our Boat
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Checking the Sights
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Arrival on Taketomi
Busy Port
Photo by Anthony Friedl
Anthony took the picture above likely due to the whale-themed boat in the center, but it turns out that we made an impromptu decision to see the coral in a glass-bottomed boat, so we ended up getting onto the boat shown at right, for a short trip out to some of the many coral beds....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Inside the Glass-Bottom Boat
above the coral
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Some Fish, Too
All the color were muted blues as you see above, but in post processing, I could extract a few real colors...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fake Real Color
it's likely much closer to reality, but not what you really could see
These kind of coral beds were all over the place, creating dark zones in the blue sea. Here's a view out the boat window, back toward Ishigaki two miles in the distance....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
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This is #8 (and the final post) in a series on our visit to KidZania in Nishinomiya, Japan, where Anthony's day included working at a gas-station, banking, construction, driver's ed, journalism, and pilot training.
Having procured his driver's license earlier, he was still interested in renting a car so he could drive around a bit. Every time he'd tried before, there was a long line, but this time he was able to get in.
However, for reasons I didn't initially understand, he came back to us and said that he wanted to do something else. This was surprising, and it took a while to find out that the lady had told him that if he did this activity, it would be his last (because KidZania was closing soon), and was that okay? No, he wanted to play forever, so he came back to us. I quickly explained that they were closing soon and whatever he did would be his last, so he ran back to the car-rental place, but in the intervening 30 seconds it had accepted its last customer and was now closed for the day. Sigh.
It was pretty freakin' ridiculous of the lady to have said what she did, because working there, she must understand the situation. The KidZania session closes at 9pm, and with most activities taking 30 minutes, you have to get into an activity by 8:30 or you lose out. It was 8:20, and everyone was running around like a chicken with their heads cut off looking for any activity that was still open. (Activities whose last sessions were already filled displayed a “closed” sign, and pretty much all of them did by the time the lady talked Anthony out of doing the one activity he'd been itching to do all day.)
We, too, joined the headless-chicken crowd, walking at a brisk pace every which way in hopes of finding something not closed. For a moment I saw that a beauty salon had an opening, but in the intervening few seconds it took me to ask Anthony whether he wanted to do it, it closed. I should have just gone in.
Remarkably, we did find one final place that was open, a “graphic design shop”. We couldn't believe our luck as Anthony was able to take a seat in the waiting area. Others continued to come up and check, but Anthony seemed to be the last.
The graphic-design shop actually cost a few KidZo (KidZania's play monetary unit) to attend, but having worked most of the day, Anthony was flush with cash...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Touching Base With his Finances
Even though he had to pay, it was still hands-on work...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 95 mm — 1/250 sec, f/4, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Graphic Designer at Work
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 98 mm — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Situation-Induced Soft Focus
As I've mentioned in these posts, KidZania is excellent for kids, but not well designed for parents. Parents pay a steep fee for the privilege of babysitting their own kids, have almost no place to sit, and can watch their kid having fun only if they don't mind being uncomfortable and in the way of others. Photography is allowed, but everything discourages it, from the weak and wildly-mixed lighting to poor or nonexistent viewing angles.
The two shots above were taken from outside through a glass wall covered with writing. I did my best to combine a nice angle with limited interference in front of the lens, but it was challenging.
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
It turns out that he enjoyed it – he got to make some stickers from his coloring design – and photography aside, we enjoyed it particularly well because we could actually sit comfortably while he was in there, owing to the fact that the design shop was just across from a small (and real!) pizza place with outside seating. We appreciated both the pizza and the seating.
When he was done, we had some pizza and guava juice (!?) waiting for him....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hearty Meal After a Day's Honest Work
While he ate, we recounted the fun of the day, then I asked him which activity was his favorite. Without hesitation he gave his answer, which surprised us to no end.
He fell asleep in the car on the way home, most likely quite contented with a wonderful day, but already wishing he could go back.
(UPDATE: We did go back, in May 2010, so the KidZania story continues here...)