After watching the Nikon School’s breakfast series and having my own woes to speak of during low-light photography, I purchased a mini tripod.  It was expensive – about 3x the price of my full sized tripod – at $65.  But after hearing the professionals talk about the need to carry a mini one with ‘em, I’m sold.

I’m using an ExpoDisc with my Digital Rebel to set the correct custom white balance.

Dan also pointed out to me the other day that you can use the ExpoDisc to calibrate your camera’s meter, too.  By leveraging the “Sunny f/16 rule,” you can just place the ExpoDisc on the lens, select an ISO of 100, place the camera in aperture (Tv) mode to select an aperture of f/16 and then aim at the sun.  If your exposure meter is calibrated properly, you should get a shutter speed of 1/125s.  If you don’t, then you know how much over or under you need to expose for a proper exposure.

I’m happy to report that after suspicions that my meter may not be calibrated properly, it is indeed calibrated properly.

You may be asking, “What is the sunny f/16 rule?”  It’s pretty simple, actually.  On a bright sunny day, shooting at ISO 100 with an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1/125, you will achieve a correct exposure.  I’ll expound on this in a future blog entry.

Building management where I work is doing major updating to the bathrooms and hallways.  When I asked the “painters” what color they were going to paint the walls, I was told they were going to use “wall covering” instead.  Wall covering?  What happened to wall paper?  Is wall covering some how more chic than wall paper?  Couldn’t you consider paint as a form of wall covering also?

 I’m currently reading Understand Exposure by Bryan Peterson.  It came to me highly recommended and, from what I can tell so far, is an excellent book on the subject.  As a result, I’ve signed up for Bryan’s Internet-led class on the same subject.  Should be interesting.

Note there’s an updated version of this book coming out in August that also deals with digital photography.

 The more I try to learn about becoming proficient with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel, the more complicated things become.  Here’s just one example of the complexities of understanding the flash metering system in Canon’s EOS cameras.

Angelique took the girls to be tested for allergies today, as Abigail seems to be having a reaction to scrambled eggs.  Turns out she has an egg allergy and, according to the doctor, it’s as serious as a peanut allergy.  We were given a prescription for epinephrine – an EpiPen Jr.  I pray we never have to use it.

I went to BestBuy yesterday to buy a second battery for my Canon EOS Digital Rebel.  The aftermarket Energizer battery was $69.99.  The Canon Digital SLR Accessory Kit comes with an excellent camera bag, a 58mm UV filter and a battery for $79.99!!  Much better deal to grab the kit if you can afford the extra $10!  Only problem now is I’ve come to like my Lowepro bag given it’s form factor, but the Canon bag has more room and can carry a tripod.  I’ll carry the Canon bag for a bit and see how it fits me, and maybe carry the Lowepro when I’m traveling on business.

Bryan (who I would link to but haven’t yet convinced of the value of blogging) and I spoke yesterday.  He was a local Starbucks and properly tee’d off.  He’d bought a collection of T-Mobile HotSpot “day passes.”  Something like $9.95 a day and you can use them in the future – buy a bunch now and use one on a day when you need a HotSpot.  Pretty cool idea – except they expire after 120 days.

Unfortunately for Bryan, his four day passes had expired and his $40 bucks was gone.  Apparently, a call to T-Mobile Customer Service was anything but – they pulled the, “Of course you’re aware of the terms and conditions, aren’t you?”  Technically, they are correct – but so is a broken clock twice a day.  So, let this blog posting serve as a reminder to check your T&Cs carefully and to voice your concern of T-Mobile’s policy directly to T-Mobile.

I myself had my own negative experience with T-Mobile’s HotSpot a few months ago.  When they first rolled out, I bought a number of minutes for something like $39.95.  I guess T-Mobile felt that plan wasn’t too good, as when I stopped into a Starbucks a few months ago and tried to connect, I found out they canceled the per-minute plan, took all my minutes and then told me I had to subscribe to another plan.  And no, they didn’t refund my money or provide me a credit for my unused minutes.

T-Mobile, if you’re listening … I’ve been a cellular subscriber of yours for years, having switched from AT&T.  Your customer service is usually top notch and the agreements you’ve set up for HotSpots is fantastic.  You just have a little work to do on making the users of your HotSpot service as happy as you do your cellular service.

Thanks to Jim, I got advice on how to do a nice matte and frame of my photographs in Photoshop Elements.  Play around with different percentages for the width and height at each stage until you find something you like.  You can start to see my application of this in my outdoor gallery.

Scott pointed me in the right direction as to my problems in getting .Text moved to a subdirectory.  Turns out there are a different set of HttpHandlers required which can be found in Single2_Web.config.  Now, both .Text and nGallery are happily coexisting at Casa dé Hambone.

As for why I was having a problem with .Text in the first place, it has to do with how ASP.NET’s inheritance of Web.config works.  In this instance, the parent’s HttpHandlers are processed before the child has a chance to clear them, and therefore the parent’s handlers try to run from the child web.  The recommended workaround is to place the assemblies containing the handlers in the Global Assembly Cache.  However, I’m not real comfortable with that solution and have chosen instead to move my blog to http://www.casadehambone.com/blog, effectively removing it from the root and eliminating the problem.