Monthly Archives: May 2018

 

Rob Sheppard has a great new Youtube channel that is very educational and just plain fun to watch you can see it at    www.bit.ly/2nttSXd

 

Have a great Memoril Day Weekend, and blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

I met a lot of great rocket photographers while I was doing duty for Nikon at the Kennedy Space Center.  The king of them all was Scott Andrews from Nikon, and he introduced me to Bill and many other great space and rocket shooters,  this was puiblished in Space magazine and I thought you might find it cringe worthy!!!!!  We all baby our gear, these guys don’t!!!!

 

 

In case you were wondering the memory cards survived and yielded great images up until the lens melted!!!

 

Blessings and Happy Memorial Day Weekend,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

I am celebrating 7 great years as a Fujifilm X Series shooter.  Before that I was a 40 year Nikon shooter.  I still love Nikon and my friends that work there, or did, and lots and lots of clients.  The short history of the change; I had shoulder surgery and was left with long two year recovery.  During that two years I found that I couldn’t carry the big full frame cameras and lenses anymore, comfortably.  I picked up a Fuji X-10 because it was a high quality, compact pocket camera and fell in love.  It was the perfect fit for a guy that couldn’t even consider carrying a camera bag.  I soon had the X-E1 and the race was off.  I currently use the X-H1, X-T2 and a X-Pro2 and a ton of lenses though they are not all on my person at any particular time.

 

I wouldn’t shoot anything else and here is why:

 

 

Fujifilm cameras have color like no other camera I’ve ever used or experienced.  Often called ” Fuji Color”, it is just something special, I can’t go back now!!!!

 

 

The lenses are among the very best glass I’ve ever used.  Most manufacturers will have a handful of truly spectacular, legendarily sharp lenses, virtually all of Fuji’s are!

 

 

My best friend shoots with them!  Jack and I both really love the gear and being X-Photographers!  ….and we’re not really this serious!  So does my other best friend, Jim Haverstock!

 

 

Even the 18-135 is superbly sharp, being a 28-200 supr zoomthat is really amazing!

 

 

I can now carry more gear in a smaller sapce and with about half the weight.  But in a Think Tank rolling bag!

 

 

The fast portrait lenses make even a hack like me a decent portrait guy!  60mm Macro f 2.4, 50mm f 2, 56mm f 1.2.

 

 

The system features two of the very best telephoto zoom lenses available today, the 50-140 f 2.8 and the 100-400 f 4.5-5.6.

 

 

The system has two spectacular Macro lenses the 60mm Macro  f 2.4 and the new 80mm Macro f 2,8.  Wish they had a 120mm, but hey, “You can’t always get what you want….”

 

 

The ACROS film simulation is incredible for Monochrome lovers!

 

 

The Fujifilm bodies play very nice with adapted lenses, (The Nikon 200mm Macro IF-ED.

 

 

Finally…it’s just so much fun to shoot with!!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

I’ve spent another several hours watching coverage of the Texas school shooting. lots of reporters and “experts” wringing their hands and asking why, and no one will say it.  This is the truth no one wants to admit.

 

I will:

 

1.  There is evil in the world and it drives people to do unspeakable acts of cruelty.  No sane person would do these kinds of things if they had a connection to a loving family, a knowlege that God loves them and friends that can encourage them.  When this happens, pure evil has taken over. We have walked away from faith in America and we are reaping the reward.  It was faith that gave us,  “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” tell me what’s wrong with that??!!  Would  anyone trying to live by that shoot someone?

 

2.  Anyone that plays hours of violent video games is suceptable to this kind of behavior.  Not every person that plays war games turns up becoming a murderer, but some do!  As a society we have to examine the dangers of this kind of mind altering recreation. We can’t devalue life.  Oh wait we have, millions of unborn lives murdered by abortion!

 

3.  We have to use more aggresive measures to protect our children while in school.  Metal detectors, protective guards and vigilent administrators and teachers that watch the behavior of possible problem kids.  The Parkland shooter has bee identified as a danger numersous times, but yet, he still commited his crimes.  Why and where did the system break down. We have to find out and fix it!!!!

 

4. Sadly gun control is not the answer, guns don’t kill people, people do. If we take away one method they, (the evil in society), will find another method. Carefully used, guns can help stop or reduce the deaths by mass shootings.  Yesterday an Indiana school guard shot a student before he had the chance to harm anyone.  You didn’t hear anything about that on the main stream media.  It doesn’t fit their naratve.

 

I am going to get a lot of hate responses on this one, but the truth hurts, those that agree, please chime in and add your part of the solution too!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim