We went to a park near S&S's house a few times during our visit. The first day we went, Stephen went down the biggest slide there (a 12' high tube with a few spin-arounds in it) about fifty times. It seemed like he came down it a different way every time, too.

December 24, 2011

It's already been over a week since I posted. Where did that time go? My brother was here for three and a half days. Other than that, I've just been hanging out watching tennis. Henry is horrible at napping. Nap time is when I usually have some time to work on my site.

Henry is six months old today. This is the milestone I've been waiting for. And right on schedule, he's been a lot of fun for the past week and a half. He smiles and laughs at absolutely everything. If you hold his hands, he can stand on his own power for a long time, maybe five minutes. He doesn't seem to have any interest in crawling though. Fine by me.

We just got a call that we can't take Henry to the doctor this Friday because our doctor is out on an emergency. Fortunately we already know that he's a big, healthy boy.

August 26, 2011

I picked up some Macro Extension Tubes a couple weeks back and I'm now getting around to testing them out. The only problem I've had since switching over to a camera with interchangeable lenses is the lack of macro. Most mid-level point and shoot cameras have a decent macro mode, but when you make the switch to interchangeable lenses, you have to spring for an extra Macro lens if you want to do extreme close-ups.

...Or so I thought. There are several ways around that fact, and until recently I knew very little about them. One option is to buy extension tubes for your camera. This is literally just a tube that goes between your camera and your lens. It doesn't have any glass/optics in the tube; it's just a spacer. Adding some more space between your camera's lens and the camera's sensor changes the dynamic of your lens. It turns nearly any lens into a macro lens. For me, getting to use the lenses I already have is a fantastic arrangement because I have two very nice Canon prime lenses. The great thing about extension tubes is that they are literally just a plastic tube so they don't cost much at all.

Here is the first picture I took when I finally got them out. It's the edge of some soft toy that's meant for babies to chew on. It's indoors and without a tripod. Having a macro lens again is going to be fun.

August 21, 2011