Dust and Rust

Chaos, Belmont Park
Panasonic DMC-GF1, 20mm f/1.7

I just got back from vacation in San Diego. This shot is from the Belmont Park amusement park on the Mission Beach boardwalk. I took the GF1 and the 20mm and left the D200 and G9 behind. Overall, I’m very happy with the camera… and blown away by the lens. In spite of the lcd washout, and a few cases where some zoom would have been nice (at the Zoo), I had a lot of fun with the camera.

This shot was taken with a circular polarizer which accounts for the blue skies. I used Lightroom 2.7 and a calibration profile I found in this DPReview Posting (Direct link to daylight profile). It definitely gave the image a little more punch over the default Adobe profile.

Below is a full resolution crop of the same image located just below the “S” near the center. The 20mm lens is really delivering on detail…

100% Crop
Panasonic DMC-GF1, 20mm f/1.7

I’ll be posting some more images from the trip when I get some time.

I decided to skip the subway and brave the cold this morning. For some reason the fountain in Bryant Park has been running, which I have never seen before in the winter. It’s created a frozen waterfall that myself and a bunch of other photo bugs were enjoying.

New York Skyscrapers

One of many NYC Bridges reproduced at the show

I took the kids to the NYBG Train show a few weeks ago. The scenic layouts recreate many New York City landmarks using all of the stuff most of us put in recycle bags after cleaning up the yard. The show is open for another week, so stop by if you get the chance… kids will love it, and so will the grown up kids

I had to make my yearly visit to the Aerodrome a little earlier than usual. I usually go to the last show of the season when the foliage is nearing peak color, but had to settle on late September.  The weather was perfect, and we had a great day. Unfortunately, the Biplane rides were canceled due to ongoing maintenance… but they should be flying again by now. Notably absent from the show was the Flying Farmer (Stanley Segalla), who retired last year. I was very happy to see the Sopwith Camel out on the field for an engine run-up. It has been out of the show for a few years, and it should be returning to the air next season to battle the Black Baron. Congratulations to the Aerodrome folks for keeping the show going… I hope to attend at least one show a year for the next 50 seasons

Sopwith Camel

Bryant Park Rainbow

Welcome to the 100th Post at DustAndRust! In my first post on this blog back in the fall of 2005, I wrote :

I think the lack of any effort I have put into finding a direction has been well worth it . Having the blog as an outlet for my hobby has really given me a lot of satisfaction over the past four years, and I still look forward to capturing the next image that I think is worthy to share. I’d like to thank everyone who has come to look at my humble efforts, with a special “thank you” to everyone that has left a comment.

It’s been very interesting to watch the blog grow in the wilds of the inter-tubes. In the first month of the blogs life, I had 86 unique visitors, and just under 1000 page views. A good portion of those page views was probably due to me tweaking the layout. In March of this year, I had 9558 unique visitors, and over 40,000 page views. The biggest source of traffic has been Google Image Search, which drives almost exactly 50% of the visitors here.

I don’t have any major plans to change anything I’m doing here. As I’ve mentioned before, I will be offering B&W prints for sale in the near future… but for the most part the blog remains the same.

I’m looking forward to the next 100 posts. I hope I can get them here faster than the first 100.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sean