![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 11th, 2011
Cameras and other technology
Oct. 11th, 2011 09:44 pmPerhaps you've noticed, perhaps not, but I've been using an iPod touch to take some of my recent 3:00 snapshots. The most recently posted one shows heavy grain, due to the dark setting, but the others have been okay. I've been considering buying (again) a small point and shoot so that I can take snapshots without hauling out the DLSR and making it look like an event. Then my friend Alex gave me the iPod, and I've been experimenting with it, and it seems to be okay for the snapshots. The pictures aren't good enough to rely on for fine art or for natural history identifications, but for snapshots they are more than adequate.
It's nice to be able to take halfway decent photos and then instantly send them to twitter as well. (FYI, add me @urbpan and scroll back, to see me in my halloween costume wig) I feel like I'm edging toward the kind of real-time grass-roots nature blogger I fantasized about being a decade ago.
in other news, the cottage is full of dogs, as we are taking care of The Jim for Alex, and are fostering Preston, and haven't strangled our other dogs yet. We're holding sanity together pretty well considering.
Today I did a mushroom walk for my work (A "quicky keeper training" class) and it went well despite 4 days of dry weather. Lots of folks showed up, and I got a flattering/embarrassing round of applause at the end. Unlike the other mushroom walks I have led in the past, this one had no introductory PowerPoint presentation. No matter what, I always walk away from a class or a nature walk with the feeling that I needed to add more. I give the students my email address, but it's rare that anyone contacts me. I guess whatever sliver of my personality is a perfectionist wants to fix my shoddy class and make it right, but I suppose I have to let it go.
This Saturday I have another (the last of the year) mushroom class scheduled, and I'm thinking I should greatly reduce or scrap the PowerPoint this time around. The information is in my head, and it comes out fine in the field, when we're actually looking at mushrooms. And people really just want to go out into the woods and talk, so who am I to make them sit and stare at a screen. Later that day the zookeeper association (that I am vice president of) is holding one of its major events. The timing is such that I will have to rush to finish the class, come home and put on my costume, then rush off to the event, confident that everything has been put into place without me. It's almost comforting, knowing that there's nothing I can do to fix anything at that stage.
It's nice to be able to take halfway decent photos and then instantly send them to twitter as well. (FYI, add me @urbpan and scroll back, to see me in my halloween costume wig) I feel like I'm edging toward the kind of real-time grass-roots nature blogger I fantasized about being a decade ago.
in other news, the cottage is full of dogs, as we are taking care of The Jim for Alex, and are fostering Preston, and haven't strangled our other dogs yet. We're holding sanity together pretty well considering.
Today I did a mushroom walk for my work (A "quicky keeper training" class) and it went well despite 4 days of dry weather. Lots of folks showed up, and I got a flattering/embarrassing round of applause at the end. Unlike the other mushroom walks I have led in the past, this one had no introductory PowerPoint presentation. No matter what, I always walk away from a class or a nature walk with the feeling that I needed to add more. I give the students my email address, but it's rare that anyone contacts me. I guess whatever sliver of my personality is a perfectionist wants to fix my shoddy class and make it right, but I suppose I have to let it go.
This Saturday I have another (the last of the year) mushroom class scheduled, and I'm thinking I should greatly reduce or scrap the PowerPoint this time around. The information is in my head, and it comes out fine in the field, when we're actually looking at mushrooms. And people really just want to go out into the woods and talk, so who am I to make them sit and stare at a screen. Later that day the zookeeper association (that I am vice president of) is holding one of its major events. The timing is such that I will have to rush to finish the class, come home and put on my costume, then rush off to the event, confident that everything has been put into place without me. It's almost comforting, knowing that there's nothing I can do to fix anything at that stage.