I love my BlackBerry

So these are before and after pictures using BlackBerry's built in software. 

I'm loving this phone :D 

Sent from my BB Z10, that totally doesn't look like an Iphone ... totally doesn't.

At the Museum Cafe

Oh, my!  It's been ages since I have had their bison burgers!  With a side of spiced pita chips.  Mmmmmm....
At the Royal Alberta Museum.
Sent from Anna's phone

Checking out the museum

The Royal Alberta Museum opened a new temporary display this weekend, Creatures of the Abyss (pdf). This is a favorite theme for us, and my older daughter and I both really enjoy the museum, so we made a point of checking it out. We like to head over on the weekends (half price admission before 11am on the weekends), hang out in the displays until the cafe opens, have a delicious lunch (very reasonable prices and generous portions - almost too generous!), wander around some more, checking out any new stuff, then hit the gift shop before we leave. A lovely way to spend a few hours. :-)

Today was a bit of a surprise, just as I drove into the parking lot. Some time ago, I'd found myself driving behind a vehicle with the back end painted. It rather perplexed me. When the vehicle turned, I could see it had paintings on the doors, but I couldn't make out what they were (one side was just a glimpse in my rear view mirror). It was a bit of a surprise to pull into the parking lot and see it again - with more paintings added, since I last saw it, including one that was unfinished. I couldn't resist getting photos.

If the owner of this vehicle happens to read this, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment explaining what it's about.

This is the view I had when driving behind the vehicle, the first time I saw it.



Click on the image to go to my flickr page and see the other views, including the writing at the top.

None of the others are giving the finger, except the one showing the top of the trunk.

Based on the photos, I get the impression the driver 1) hates cell phones, 2) hates God and 3) hates people.

But I could be wrong.

As for in the museum itself, we had a lovely visit. Here is what greeted us when we went into the new display.



Except there's a side view on entry.

The eye on this guy moved. :-D

Once again, click on the image to see more.

I have to admit, we were a bit disappointed in the display. With how much there is to explore in the deep oceans, we really expected more. There was a lot of open space around the displays, and a fair number of hands on stuff. Parts of it were preachy in an eyerolling sort of way. We think it was really aimed more at young children, and it seemed rather dumbed down to me.

We loved seeing the hagfish, though. That's one of my daughter's favorite creatures.

319:365 Peacock Ore

Peacock Ore
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: After having our tea (see earlier post), my daughter and I went to the Royal Alberta Museum. They have a fabulous minerals display.

This piece of peacock ore is my photographic challenge. The museum doesn't allow tripods or monopods, which makes things difficult enough, but what I really am wanting to do is take a clear photo that captures the colours and sparkle of this incredible sample. I had the Canon S3 today, as if fits in my purse. I used the program setting and increased the exposure to +1. ISO was on auto, and it was set to vivid colour. I also had it on macro.

I think this is one of the better shots I've managed so far.

295:365 Snake eyes

snake2064-50%
Originally uploaded by amkb

Anna: The girls and I made an unplanned trip to the museum today. My elder daughter was wanting to use her fish-eye film camera that she got with some of her birthday money. While she was finishing off her first role of film, I was busy with the macro lens. 126 photos later, and only a handful turned out. I so wish we were allowed to use tripod or monopod in the museum! No matter how I brace myself, my handshake just kills my shots.

Of the few good ones I got was this, though the white balance was on the wrong setting. One of these days, I hope to catch this bull snake while it's tasting the air. :-)

276:365 At the museum again.

Anna: The girls and I headed to the museum this afternoon - something we haven't done in a while. There were a couple of bus loads of elementary kids there, so it was louder and busier than expected. I must admit, as home schoolers, we can get pretty spoiled. We're used to having places like this all to ourselves. ;-)

One of my frustrations is that tripods and monopods aren't allowed. There are some amazing artifacts, like these intricately embroidered child sized mitts, that I'd love to get good photos of - these are silk thread embroidery on hide. Difficult enough to get a good image with shaky hands, but with my elbow deciding to get painful on me again (I even made sure to take painkillers before I left), I had difficulty supporting the camera. I tried to make up for it by fiddling around with the shutter priority. After playing around for a bit, I ended up staying with photos that were dark, but at least somewhat clear, because I just couldn't hold the camera steady enough to get lighter shots. I figure I can always lighten the photo in post processing. I can't fix something that's blurry because my hands were shaking.





There's a new temporary exhibit going on right now. Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins This link is to a pdf file. It was really busy - it seems to be geared more at young kids, including a "snow" slide and play area.


This is a walrus skull that was part of the exhibit. The tusks extend quite a bit beyond the bottom of the photo. That's a lot of solid bone and tusk right at the front!

249:365 Making up for lost time - a bit

Anna: I hope that everyone had a really great Christmas. :-)

We haven't been taking a lot of pictures lately, so I wanted to make up for lost time with a few extra photos while the girls and I were at the museum today. Except that my battery died part way through. The camera had been left on the last time someone handled it, but I can't remember the last time it had been handled that's less than4 days ago. *L* Ah, well.

Full size photos available for viewing here.


It's really dark, but I like this shot. This is part of an antelope sculpture near the admissions desk.














I'm still learning how to use the various settings on the D70. I do wish we were allowed to bring in at least a monopod. It does make the challenge more interesting. I think this is one of the better shots I managed to get of this Barite, Chalcopyrite (from Dreislar, Germany) that I've managed to get.









I adore fine craftsmanship, and the Aboriginal Culture area has some amazing samples, like this silk embroidery on a hide cap. I just can't imagine doing such intricate work on hides!

Beautiful work.

243:365 Double duty

Anna: We ended up at the museum again today - and left late enough that Philippe was even able to join us. A few of the photos today are here.


One of our favorite areas is The Bug Room. This is a Macleay's Spectre Stick.














We also had another pass through the temporary exhibit, Heights of Fashion; History of the Elevated Foot. This shoe with the filagree heel is one of my favorites.

Taking photos at the museum is a challenge. No tripods allowed. Most exhibits don't allow flash, which I wouldn't use at the museum anyhow. Even the areas that do allow flash don't allow external flash.

I had the macro lens on today, which is a notorious light hog to start with. I had the ISO at 500, but I don't like how grainy the photos get. I also played around with the various settings to try and compensate. A lot of the photos didn't turn out, and even the ones that did were quite dark. I played around with the curves to lighten all of them. I did a noise reduction on the stick bug, but not any of the others. I may not like the noise, but I like the faked out smoothness a noise reduction resulted in even less.

One of these days, I'll figure it out.

240:365 This one's alive...

Anna: My elder daughter and I headed to the Royal Alberta Museum today. While going through some of the dioramas of local wildlife, I completely missed that this one was slightly different.

It was alive. It was so still, I thought at first that it was another display.

There was another snake nearby, but it was hidden in a little cubbyhole.

There was also a new temporary display that allowed photos called Height of Fashion, featuring shoes, particularly high heels, though they did have a couple of flats on display. I was able to get a few acceptable shots, which I put up here.

All of the photos I took today had to have a fair amount of adjusting. The museum doesn't allow tripods or monopods. I increased my ISO to 500, but I didn't want to go any higher, as I dislike the noise levels at higher ISO's. So they all needed to be brightened quite a bit, and I did a noise reduction on a few as well.

182:365 Happy Accident

Anna: I love happy accidents like this! This was taken at one of the flower gardens at our local museum.

More of the day's photos here.









We also took in the closing show for our local museum's summer theme, Dragons: between science and fiction. The show was Fire & Water: The Dragons Awaken by Scarab Productions & the Edmonton Stilt Walkers. (When we tried to see a performance last month, it was canceled due to high winds.) It was really fantastic! You can see my flicker set of the show here.

The walker in blue's sword is hooked up to the tank on her back and splashes water.

150:365 The Show that Wasn't... and mystery pic solution.

Anna: My younger daughter and I went to the museum to take in Fire & Water: The Dragons Awaken. This was to be a production with Scarab Productions and the Edmonton Stilt Walkers.

Unfortunately, high winds knocked one of the towers down during set up - this one stayed up only because they'd tied a concrete garbage can to one of the legs. Those banners had been tied down a few moments ago. The museum didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt and canceled the show. They've got one last performance scheduled in September. Weather willing, we'll be taking that one in instead. :-)








There were three weddings being photographed on the grounds while we were there. One of them had several classic cars. You can see those and more photos here.








Now here's the solution to the mystery photo. Gawdess and TTJ got it right.


This is a Jones Soda mint tin. Not that they're actually mints. The candies are carbonated and start fizzing on the tongue. They come in a variety flavours, much like the drinks (though I've yet to see Turkey and Gravy flavour...). Like the drinks, the inside of the mint lid has some pithy saying printed. My kids really like them. :-)

120:365 Experimenting

Anna: Our building managers had a parking ban on our level for cleaning, so we had to have our car out. With no nearby parking that's more than half an hour (though the cars parked in our access lane never seem to be ticketed), or wasn't on a residential only street, we decided to head to the museum for the day. It's a good place to practice low-light photography - and the parking is free. ;-)

When we got there, however, we discovered that tripods and monopods aren't allowed in any of the galleries without special permission from the marketing director. This was a surprise, as we've used both a number of times. We just happened to get someone at the admissions desk that remembered they weren't allowed - she even double checked the book, just to be sure.

This made things a bit more challenging. Especially for someone with shaky hands, like me!

One of the main problems with using the S3 is that, in situations like the museum, the camera wants to focus on the glass instead of what's behind it. It does have manual focus, but it's very limited. It's one of the main reasons I wanted to try out the D70, now that Philippe has stepped up to the D80. How I would do this without my monopod, I wasn't sure. Most of my photos didn't turn out. I'm just too shaky for longer exposures. I did manage a few that worked. The following pictures were resized to 35%, but are otherwise unaltered.

This silver cigarette case seems to have worked out. I could probably improve it with PSP X2, but not by much.











I actually got two shots of this that worked, though the other came out looking misty because of the reflection on the glass. From this angle, I only had the one spot light's glare to deal with. I love the intense blue of the glass inside, though it's a little hard to see it here.









The minerals collection in this museum is really impressive - and extremely difficult to photograph even with a tripod. This is pretty much the only one I took that was clear.

I had the camera on aperture priority. I can't say I'm happy with it. I might play around with the multi-program setting, instead.

Either way, I have a lot to learn about this camera.

98:365 At the Aviation Museum - updated

Anna: Today, we decided to check out the local aviation museum. We didn't have time to check out the outdoor displays, but got plenty of photos - I took over 240 myself, but then, I was taking pictures of the signs and plaques, too. Otherwise, I'd never remember what they all were! *L* I'm just posting a couple of pictures for now and will add more to my flicker account later.


(Philippe) Most of the shots I took today were hand-held, 1/8 to 1/3 second, no flash.. The flash *did* light things up, but gave it that ugly, bright look so I gave up on it and did it the hard way.. Much happier with the results :D


Philippe: Doesn't this just *look* intimidating?




























Philippe: They had a few engines in various states of assembly so we could see the workings.












Philippe: They were restoring this bomber while we were touring.














Philippe: The most practical arrangements sometime look really good :D

























Philippe: This thing looks light enough to pick up.



























Anna: I've now uploaded more shots at my flicker account, here.



This was taken from under the tail of a DeHavilland Vampire MK 35. The first prototype flew in 1943, and entered RCAF service in 1946. The shell is all metal, with a section of sandwiched balsa wood in the cockpit, making it a highly maneuverable, well armed fighter.












These are the under-cockpit guns of a Mosquito FB MK VI, a high performance night fighter. There's another set of 4 guns sticking right out of the nose. The Mosquito was used by the 418 (City of Edmonton) Squadron RCAF. They were a night intruder squadron, first flying the Douglas Boston light bomber before being re-equipped with the Mosquito. The squadron was activated in Dedben, England in 1941 and adopted by the City of Edmonton in 1944.

91:365 At the museum - playing with a new lens

Anna: Philippe got himself a new macro lens today - I'll leave him to explain what he got - so we went to the museum again to test it out. I didn't take very many pictures myself this time, but I did get a few interesting ones.



Can you figure out what this is?

















Here's the whole thing. It's the result of a lightning strike following a copper wire into damp soil. The lightning boiled away the water and melted the soil into glass, leaving a bit of copper wire still visible at the end. Freaky!












I finally got a decent shot of my favorite egg in the birds gallery - taken from the rear of the display, so I wouldn't be blocking the spotlights. I just love the patterns on this egg!













Philippe was having problems with blogger, trying to upload his pictures, so I found a way to upload them differently. You can view the whole set here. He'll add his comments when he gets a chance to, later. :-)

Philippe: I got a 90mm 1:1 Tamron macro lens because they were absolutely *out* of the cheaper nikkor 60mm micro. This lens rocks :D

The lens is a bit of a pig, so I have to use either a tripod, high ISO or a flash... The cat did not appreciate my choice here ;)















*NO* clue what this bug is, but I liked the focus point.. Manual is almost mandatory with this lens as auto hunts for a while.















Synthetic Bismuth; again, with the manual focus set a little within the structure. I think I'll be kissing this lens goodnight for a while.






























Gypsum.. Pretty... monosyllabic...















This was one of my first tests of the lens.. "Don't... move.. the pencil....." :P

87:365 A day at the museum

Anna: Lots of pictures today. The girls and I headed to a museum - I ended up taking some 180 photos alone, plus a couple of videos. (More photos available here.) I still need to go through them and toss the ones that didn't turn out. This museum has really excellent grounds, and we spent quite a bit of time getting pictures. It was a great way to avoid the three bus loads of school kids that were there at the same time. :-/ I have to admit, when I saw those three buses, I just about turned around and went home! *L* It worked out all right, though.



This is a Jeongja, a Korean pavilion built in the old way, using joining techniques and no nails. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I got lots of photos of it.














This is a detail of one of the faces on a Ksan totem pole.














There are a lot of statues on the grounds, and this is one of my favorites. There's just something about the upward turned face that I really like.


















As we were waking into the building, in between the inner and outer doors, I spotted a sign on the wall I'd never noticed before. It turns out the stone on these walls are Tyndall Limestone from Southern Manitoba. The walls were filled with fossils of all kinds. The kids say this one looks like some types of bacteria.

Now I know what those fossils I'd been finding on Gimli Beach were. :-D







Before going to the front desk, the girls and I went to the cafe for lunch. We'd placed our order and were sitting at our table waiting for it, commenting on the changes since the last time we'd been there, when my younger daughter suddenly exclaims, "there's a whale on that lamp!"

Someone had taped a toy Sperm Whale onto the electrical cord of one lamp.

Why?

To make visitors wonder, perhaps? ;-D










The museum is setting up for a new theme of dragons next month. In the entry was a 1:4 model of a Korean turtle ship. The plexiglass covering the spikes is definitely needed - those things are real metal, and real sharp!













One of my favorite displays is the eggs. It's amazing how different they can be! I wasn't able to get shots of my very favorite, but I like this "painted" looking grackle egg, too.

Because of the lighting, I had to take these shots from the rear of the display, so they were upside down.









I couldn't resist adding this one of the girls. I thought it was just neat. :-D













There are several displays of these "floating" artifacts. One was all arrow heads, another spear heads, but I can't remember what type these ones were. Possibly fishing harpoons.














And finally, a guest photo from my younger daughter, a macro shot of one of the skulls they have on display for people to touch.