When not to FLASH

Lisa and I made our annual trip to D.C. for easter to see friends.  We decided with our limited time to see the sights that this year we would visit the National Museum of American History.  The renovations to the building are nice but the museum was way over crowded.  I had my backpack with all my photo gear and was hoping to get some neat shots of some of the treasures, in our nation's attic.  

I got a couple of decent shots, however, with the prevalence of cheap digital cameras it seemed everyone in the museum had the same idea.  As a result (i'll explain why in a bit) I wasn't able to get many usable images.  Although I was able to get one of the few Lincoln Life masks, taken of the president's actual face.

I think it is strikingly personal connection to such a historic figure.  the image had to be color corrected as it was yellowed by the light in the display area.  Amazingly this bust was one of the few artifacts that oodles of people weren't taking oodles of pictures of, thus the nice picture.  

So now my rant, If you are going to take a picture in a museum DON'T USE THE FLASH if what you are photographing is behind glass.  otherwise all you and anyone else trying to take a similar picture will get is the reflection of your flash and nothing else.  As seen in this next picture (notice how every fingerprint on the glass and minor imperfection is now in the image).

As an example this next picture was taken in another part of the museum through 1/2 inch thick glass (no flash) and you can see the details nicely without fingerprints or nasty flare.

Well enough ranting, I hope my frustration will help some others to actually get the picture they want..  

After the museum we went to dinner and on the way back, I had some fun with night pics and low light in the subway.  

I want to ride my Trike

On Saturday, I picked up my Sun EZ Tadpole trike.  It looks like some kind of crazy contraption, and from the looks you get as you ride the casual observer would agree.  Lisa and I took our new rides out for a quick ride (see the pic below).  The trike handles nicely and once you are used to sitting down and pedaling it is quite comfortable.  Lisa Took the great pics.

An interesting Flight

Yesterday I took off from Midway to La Gaurdia..

The flight started with a passenger causing a rucus because he was in coach and wanted to put his bag in the overhead in first class.  Ended up that I had to leave the cockpit and explain to him that Airplanes are not a democracy and that he had to do what my crew told him to do.  So we get the plane buttoned up and push back as rain starts pelting the airplane.  The rain lasted for most of the push-back and then stopped with a beautiful rainbow.  Then the lightning started.  We took off away from the storm but in their infinite wisdom ATC turned us right into it.  We were handed off to departure and the controller started trying to give us approach instructions.  We tried several times to get him to understand that we were a departure.  When he realized that he just gave us a frequency change, not the heading we were requesting to avoid the storm ahead.  I contacted the next controller with the heading request.  After 3 tries to contact this controller her only reply was yet another new frequency.  We checked on with this center controller and he gave us an immediate climb but could not give us a different heading.  We climbed quickly trying to top the storm and ended up going through the tops.  A rough ride and lots of rain/lightning.  

We get to cruise and think all the excitement is over for the flight.   About over Cleveland we got a master caution light and several messages pop up.  Including Avionics MAU 2 fail, a bad message that would require a diversion and fire trucks.  About three seconds later all the messages clear and the cockpit returns to normal.  So with no more messages we continue to LGA.  

I must say the new snacks on Delta are very good and make a decent dinner.  So the descent into New York goes good nothing but a beautiful view of the city.  

The approach was a different story.  At around 600 feet about 30 geese cross about 50 feet below us.  I know this because they were close enough to be illuminated by the landing lights.

So we pitch up go over them and report it to tower.  The FO makes a good landing and I taxi us to the gate.  

I was really done at this point.  The crown jewel of the evening was the 40 minute wait for the hotel van.  Seeing as the hotel is 5 minutes from the airport.

So much for customer service.