Scott Ainslie - Crossroads Blues

Although we're still sticking with the blues and - for the moment - Scott Ainslie, this video kicks off another theme.

Surprisingly, this tune - Crossroads Blues - arguably Robert Johnson's most famous piece - isn't on any of Scott's albums. This tune has been covered by many folks, and over the next few days, we'll look at a couple of other performances, and, in the end, look at the pivotal moment from the movie the song inspired, Crossroads.

Now go run and tell Willie Brown that we're down at the crossroads, trying to flag a ride...

Against a Monochromatic Sky

Against a Monochromatic Sky
Originally uploaded by ellyssian

Guess who was playing with the monochrome color setting?

Actually, I was playing with a bunch of stuff - some depth-of-field, some with different aperture and shutter settings, sometimes to get the "correct" exposure, sometimes to purposefully get something else.

The real experimentations happened while I was waiting for aequitaslevitas to finish his college math course. I'm amazed I didn't attract unwanted attention: crouched down between our car and another, taking pictures of a clover and a few choice blades of grass... or taking pictures out of the window of the car, sometimes focused on the hill, other times on the mirror...

I didn't post any of those, of course. =)

I did discover that I'm best off using full auto or full manual. The Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority settings - full auto except for aperture or shutter - can't seem to get the same "correct" setting that the full Auto came up with. I could duplicate that setting in manual, and I could also play with the shutter or aperture to get different effects, but for some reason the semi-auto nature of the AP and SP settings just didn't do anything useful - i.e. beyond overexposed or underexposed so far it's not funny any more.

They do offer some utility, so I'm a bit disappointed they don't seem to be able to balance the exposure decently, but I'm more than happy that I was able to do so in the manual mode. I'd still need one of the automatic settings if I was worried about missing a shot (action, etc.), but if I have time to compose it (still subject) I can do okay.

Oh, also discovered macros are impossible. Auto or manual, I can't focus on anything closer than 3" away with the smaller of the two kit lenses. I tried my best, but if I want to do macro shots, I will need the macro lens. I knew this, and added both macro lenses to my wish list pretty much the same time I got the camera, but I still hoped to be able to get by. I can still do close-ups: zoomed and cropped and so forth, but not true 1:1 macros.