It's fall, yes!

The office

Early morning drive

Flight

The Eastern

Jaguar E Type

Nice.

Drive to work

Some drives are better than others.

Camaro in the wild

At the car wash

Removing a white dielectric material from large sea faring birds from my paint.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall at dawn

A old mural

This mural was painted on the south face of this building on Santa Monica Blvd near Federal.
Over the years the sun has bleached out the pigment of the paint and this post apocalyptic scene of the 10 freeway falling in to the sea is getting harder and harder to see, the fact that the seismic retrofit bolts are untreated iron that are weathering and leaving rust stains doesn't help either.
You can probably tell by how badly I had to "burn" this picture to get the colors to start to show up.

My Ultrasonic Scope.

Well, o.k. it's not my scope but assigned to me by the lab. It looks a little rough around the edges but all in all it is a smooth operating machine with my only complaint is the focus potentiameter is a little sloppy mechanicaly.

Another shot of the Green castle

Lucky Cat

Lighter than air

I love the fact that this blimp has three engines and the are mounted on the envelope rather than the gondola. Must make for a quiet ride. Look they are for hire! Cool.

One of my favorite old buildings in Down Town Los Agneles

Not bad considering I shot it out the window of my car while driving down Main St.
28mm
ISO:200
1/25 second
F2.8

Shot the litle dipper, with out a tripod.

During the recent meteor shower I decided to snap a couple of shots by hand and managed to get the little dipper and there are three white objects moving in slightly different directions. Could these be meteors, or just stars and lens aberration. ( The lens I shot this with shoots virtually straight lines. )

A rose with Green Castle in the background

Domo haveing lunch with Mario

Sneakey the cat.

This cat I found sneaking in my back door to do a little reon of my kitchen.. When he saw me he promptly ran out and got stuck on the edge of the 2nd floor walk way where he was paralyzed with fear for hours before finally growing enough courage to leave.

Night shot with the 28mm

11 seconds
f/2.8
ISO 200
28mm

Cool tree

F8 from about six inches

Still hand held and still not using flash. but better...

Toy car

 

Have my camera back and shooting with a 28mm prime

Nice close range correction.

Toy oil pump on an island

Toy Bridge

History

Leftover traces of the approximately 300 Nike missile bases can still be seen around cities across the country. As the sites were decommissioned they were first offered to Federal agencies. Many were already located on Army National Guard bases who continued to use the property. Others were offered to state and local governments while others were sold to school districts. The left-overs were offered to private individuals. Thus, many Nike sites are now municipal yards, communications and FAA facilities (the IFC areas), probation camps, and even renovated for use as Airsoft gaming and MilSim training complexes. Several were completely obliterated and turned into parks. Some are now private residences. Only a few retain any integrity and preserve the history of the Nike project.

• Los Angeles -
  Pasadena Army Support Center
  LA-04 Mt. Gleason /Palmdale
  LA-09 Mt. Disappointment /Barley Flats
  LA-14 South El Monte
  LA-29 Brea/ Puente Hills
  LA-32 Garden Grove
  LA-40 Long Beach Airport /Lakewood
  LA-43 Ft. MacArthur (Upper Res /White Point)
  LA-45DC Fort MacArthur (Lower Res)
  LA-55 Point Vicente (Palos Verdes)
  LA-57 Redondo Beach/ Torrance
  LA-70 Hyperion /Playa Del Rey
  LA-73 Playa Del Rey /LAX
  LA-78 Malibu
  LA-88 Chatsworth/ Oat Mtn.
  LA-94 Los Pinetos /Newhall
  LA-96 Van Nuys / Sepulveda
  LA-98 Magic Mountain /Lang /Saugus 
  

Toy Observatory

Toy construction site

Yet another camera story...

So as my camera is off for it's annual service, It is now a race between my camera returning from Nikon and the arrival of my collectible lens. Just for reference here is what a prominent professional photographer has to say about this lens. 

"Optically this is almost a perfect lens and one of the most perfect lenses you can get to fit a Nikon camera."

"Nikon let their designers go wild on this otherwise pedestrian seeming lens. Instead of a simple 5 element design that every other 28mm f/2.8 lens uses, including the original AF version, this lens has EIGHT elements in EIGHT groups. This allows it a level of correction seen in no other Nikon wide angle. Nikon wanted to show the optical world who was boss here." - Ken Rockwell

With my DX sensor this lens effectively becomes a 42mm that should be sharp down to f2.8, none of that pesky step down for sharpness that just about every lens today has. Good bye f5.6 hello f2.8, sharpness you are my new fast friend.

Oh, and ya, I turned down the notion of a f1.4 just because of the superior performance of the f2.8, although I have to admit that I am keeping a sharp eye out for a 85mm and under f1.2 AIS ( Sure would love to find a 58mm NOCT f1.2 for a stupid low price ) alens just to shoot the night better and still be future proof in anticipation of a new camera body in the very distant future... No time soon though, too bad.

O.k. So here we go, what I should be saving for..

O.K. the lens showed up today (Saturday the 7th) at the
post office. The note says my mail box is full. Only thing in my mail box was one thing of junk mail and this note. Guess I'll have to pick it up during the week.

6:15, and all is well

Full moon at 6:15 p.m. Nice.
105mm F2.0 Ai lens, not the AIS lens. Might have made a difference with the reflected clock face, but then again shooting it at a different aperture from a tripod would have been the right choice for this one. 

Twilight at the train station

My local train station as the sun goes down.

Little yellow crap characters

I was talking to a friend from Japan and she told me that these are supposed to be crap. Just think, now you to can have doo doo on the end of your pencil for the incredably resonable price of $1.49.