Well, This weekend brings a couple big races that I'm excited to watch.
The sports cars return for the second huge event in a row with the 12 Hours of Sebring. The track there is mostly made of really old concrete from a disused airbase so it's quite punishing for the cars and drivers. I've heard it said that cars are in worse shape after the 12 Hours than after the 24 at Daytona.
And this weekend marks the return of Formula 1 for the 2016 season with the Australian Grand Prix. For the first time in thirty years, there's an American team on the grid and I'm really excited to see how they do. I hope, against hope, that they're not terrible. Or, at least, not all the time. Last year, Honda and McLaren, who have both had impressive glory days in the sport and should have known better, proved how incredibly hard it is to get enough of your program right to not look like a basket case. The image of their star driver sitting out on course in a borrowed lawn chair with his multi-million dollar pile of crap race car smoking nearby certainly is the one memorable image from that effort. I hope Haas F1 has a somewhat better outing this weekend.
And then there's photography.
It's always fun to get a new lens. Especially if you've been lusting after it for a LONG time and it's BIG and SEXY. Please meet my new friend, the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 Di LD IF Macro lens in Pentax mount.
As you all know by now, I've been taking photos of Emily's soccer games for years.
This lens, with it's f2.8 maximum aperture, will allow me to have a shallower depth of field. For sports shots, it means the players are in focus (hopefully) but the background is progressively blurrier. Makes for less distracting backgrounds and better pictures.
F2.8 is two full stops bigger than the lens I was using. The heck does that mean? Well, It lets in more light so, in dark football stadiums, I can either shoot with a faster shutter speed to freeze the action a bit better OR I can use a lower ISO setting and get photos that are less full of yucky digital "grain".
But wait, there's MORE! Also pictured above is my Pentax F 1.7X AF adapter which multiplies the focal length of the lens by 1.7. With this little beast, the 70-210mm lens becomes a 119-340mm lens (at f4.5).
Alright, nerd lesson over. Here's a shot from the first game with this bad boy:
This lens, with it's f2.8 maximum aperture, will allow me to have a shallower depth of field. For sports shots, it means the players are in focus (hopefully) but the background is progressively blurrier. Makes for less distracting backgrounds and better pictures.
F2.8 is two full stops bigger than the lens I was using. The heck does that mean? Well, It lets in more light so, in dark football stadiums, I can either shoot with a faster shutter speed to freeze the action a bit better OR I can use a lower ISO setting and get photos that are less full of yucky digital "grain".
But wait, there's MORE! Also pictured above is my Pentax F 1.7X AF adapter which multiplies the focal length of the lens by 1.7. With this little beast, the 70-210mm lens becomes a 119-340mm lens (at f4.5).
Alright, nerd lesson over. Here's a shot from the first game with this bad boy:
And that's what's making me happy. What's making YOU happy?
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