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Merry Christmas! Fourth day of vacation. We went to Christ the King church for Christmas Mass, then to my parents' condo for Christmas. My Dad asked me to take photos of the family members. More formal portraits, grouped by generation. I think they turned out well.

The older I get, the more I realize that it is the relationships with people that are important to me; not things, not my job, not my clothes, car, home, paycheck, or any of the other things by which we measure our lives. The measurement should be the number and quality of the relationships we maintain with family and friends. God bless you Mother, Dad, Aunt Laverne, Glenda, Ron, Aunt Julianne, and Myra. It was good to see you. I wish it were more often.

Second day of vacation. Got up to a beautiful sunrise in Shelbyville, drove to Nashville to see the Parthenon (Tom's request). Afterward, we had lunch with my friend Marcel, from college, and his wife. Then we drove to Jackson, TN, and saw Mike Rowand, whom I have not seen since my wedding (he was one of the groomsmen). Despite taking my camera with me to see both Marcel and Mike, I was so excited both times to see my friends that I forgot to take their photo. Thus, today's photos are from the Parthenon.

And, some fun in the pool at the hotel.

Ben's Pack meeting was last night, with a visit from Santa Claus. This year, I didn't try to fight the flow, but just camped in front of Santa and took photos of the kids.

I was using my speedlite rather than the onboard flash. After the first few photos, I started aiming the flash toward the ceiling rather than at Santa and the kids and got what I thought was a much more natural looking photograph. Compare for yourself.

Just three images; slow week, photgraphically speaking. First, Chris picks up pierogis at De La Salle annual craft sale. Second, some kids playing on the ice at the day sail area of Metro Beach. I was just waiting for one of them to break through the ice; it was not thick enough, in my opinion, to be walking on. Finally, a photo of Becky putting the finishing touches on a gingerbread house.

The desire to take photos is there, but the opportunity is not. It is still dark when I take the kids to school, and it is dark when I leave the office. While I have a flash, there's not much point in going to Metro Beach and shooting in the dark. I could set up a backdrop at home and shoot some portraits (using the kids as unwilling subjects), but I do not have a lighting setup and don't really want to purchase one because I don't anticipate doing much portrait work (hey, it's a hobby. If it were a profession, purchasing a lighting setup might make sense, but I'm really in it for the candids of the family and possibly some fine art photos). I may try some night photography downtown this week.

I am embarrassed to say that I did not take a single photo Thanksgiving day. Chris and the kids and I were soooo busy in the morning getting the food ready (which was delicious) that I never thought to get the camera ready. It wasn't until everyone left that I realized I had not picked up the camera. Serious lapse.

On the other hand, Becky and I went to the Mount Clemens Santa Claus Parade (third year in a row). Several of the photos turned out pretty well, although many more were blurred because I wasn't using a fast enough shutter speed.

This morning, I got up before sunrise (which was at 7:33 a.m. here) and went to Metro Beach. I was surprised to see ice on the lake and the marsh was iced over, so I had to walk out to the point to get any bird photos. Very cloudy and gloomy, so difficult to get a fast enough shutterspeed to get decent photos.

Busy night! First, Rick invited me to his daugther Maria's last high school swim meet (she's a senior). L'anse Creuse happened to be competing with Stephenson, where another niece Janet (Len and Mary's daughter) goes to school, so it was the battle of the nieces (not really, since they did not swim in any of the same events). Rick tells me that Oakland University is trying to recruit Maria for their swim team.

After, I took Tom to Laser Edge to play laser tag with other boys from the troop. Can't call it a troop outing because BSA National's policy forbids scouts from engaging in any activities where one scout shoots at another. Hence the absence of uniforms. I got Tom there late because I stayed overlong at the swim meet to be able to shoot photos of Janet in action, and he missed the first game (of three). Sorry, Tom!

Note that the Laser Edge shots were, as opposed to the Hallowe'en shots from Monday night, shot with a fixed flash sync speed of 1/200. This was necessary because the Laser Edge is so dark, the shutter speed even at the largest aperture would have been 4 seconds: too long to handhold. This is why the background on the shots taken at Laser Edge are so much darker than they were at the pack meeting.

Pack 71's October Meeting--the Hallowe'en party (pardon my archaic spelling of the word, but I've always preferred it). Lots of great costumes. Three pages of pictures, for a total of 43. For my family, here is a page of just photos of Tom and Ben. Ben is a Pikachu (Pokemon). Tom is a member of the SWAT team (as in swatting bugs, which is what he is holding).

Unlike the Coolpix 5700 or the Powershot A75, which both require the operator to choose slow sync (night mode) with flash, the Rebel XT continues to set the shutter speed when in aperture priority mode with flash unless the operator chooses fixed flash sync speed of 1/200 as a custom function. The blurriness you see in the photos from the Pack meeting is from using aperture priority mode, which in most cases resulted in a shutter speed of 1/30 or 1/15 second with flash, meaning camera movement or subject movement results in some blur. In some cases, I think it adds to the effect (especially in Hallowe'en photos); in others, it is a distraction. On the other hand, fixing the sync speed at 1/200 results in a dark background, and I prefer a lighter background; makes the pictures look more natural, or at least makes the flash less obvious. Note to Canon: in the next iteration, make it possible to chose different fixed shutter speeds as a custom function.

I would have to say that I am VERY satisfied with the flash photography of the Rebel XT (this pack meeting was my first true test of the Canon EX 430 speedlight). I was never completely satisfied with flash results using the Coolpix 5700, feeling that most flash photos were overexposed (white faces without much detail). Reducing flash compensation by 1/3 on the 5700 helped some, but then resulted in slightly dark backgrounds. The E-TTL II metering system on the Rebel XT does a much better job in my opinion.