Want and Wonderland. Wanterland?
Okay, so this is where I either justify a purchase or talk myself out of it.
The Nikon SB-400 AF Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras.
Reasons not to buy: It costs $120. Which is a good price for a flash, but it's still $120. I'm saving money for college in the long term, and Northeast Twenty-Ten in the short term.
Okay that's pretty much the only reason not to buy it (is there EVER any other reason?), but it's a big reason.
Reasons to buy it: I need a flash!
Right now, I've got this for a flash:
It's definitely sufficient for reasonable use of that camera, but my biggest problem with it is this: See on that picture, how it's got that nice little lens? That's just fine and all, but on my camera I've got this:
"Wow!" you say. "That's a pretty big honking lens." (Unless you're Naomi, in which case you're saying "Meh. I've had better.") Now I LOVE that lens, but the problem is when you combine it with that little itsy-bitsy built-in flash, you get results like this:
See those unsightly shadows on the bottom and to the right, respectively? That's the result of having a huge-honking lens and a flash that can't reach over it. This problem can usually be overcome by simply stepping back and zooming in (thus effectively cropping the flash out of the picture), but that's not always easy to do, and plus when I have cast members other people taking my picture they don't know to do that.
Another big perk of that flash is you can flip the reflector to face up, which means the flash will bounce off a ceiling (or a home-made diffuser lol) and hit the subject indirectly, resulting in much more natural lighting that what is normally associated with flash pictures.
The third pro to this Want is that I have a $25 gift card to Amazon, which in the long run isn't really a pro since I could probably use it on something I actually need. Sigh.
I'm really prepared for this purchase, I just don't want to drop over $100 on any one thing right now. Geez I gotta get car insurance, contacts (which, granted, I'll be reimbursed for, but it still has to come from my bank account to start with), tuition for summer and fall (which will be upon me before I know it), not to mention plane tickets and &c for my vacation. PLUS if/when I do get this flash, I'll want to go to Disney even MORE cuz I'll be able to shoot things I couldn't shoot before (like parades) and even though I have a pass, it still costs me a lot when I go.
In other news.
I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE.
I get to see it tomorrow night, a few hours before everyone else!!
(HBC is one of my favorite actresses EVAR.)
This weekend I was lucky enough to win two passes to an advance screening tomorrow night in Tampa. It's at 7:30, so it's only "advance" by a few hours, but hey, at least we wont have to wait in line! Plus... FREEE (though I imagine I'll be spending a decent portion of what I would have normally spent on gas, but STILL).
(Kilt. Tee Hee!)
I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I love the Alice in Wonderland story, and the mythos of Wonderland. And while Disney's original Alice adaptation is a visually striking movie with (naturally) beautiful animation, I'm not really a huge fan of it. It's too episodic for my taste, which isn't a problem of the movie itself, but of the story. It reads wonderfully, but in terms of film-adaptability it's too disjointed, and every adaptation of it I've seen as yet (read: two.) hasn't really done much for me.
One of the reasons I'm looking forward to this movie so much is that it has it's own plot and story. Alice returns to Wonderland as a young woman and has to save it from the Red Queen. Instead of taking Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and making a movie out of that, Tim Burton's taken all the things that make the book great and is putting them together with it's own plot.
And holy frick it's quarter after ten. How do I manage this every night?
The Nikon SB-400 AF Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras.
Reasons not to buy: It costs $120. Which is a good price for a flash, but it's still $120. I'm saving money for college in the long term, and Northeast Twenty-Ten in the short term.
Okay that's pretty much the only reason not to buy it (is there EVER any other reason?), but it's a big reason.
Reasons to buy it: I need a flash!
Right now, I've got this for a flash:
It's definitely sufficient for reasonable use of that camera, but my biggest problem with it is this: See on that picture, how it's got that nice little lens? That's just fine and all, but on my camera I've got this:
"Wow!" you say. "That's a pretty big honking lens." (Unless you're Naomi, in which case you're saying "Meh. I've had better.") Now I LOVE that lens, but the problem is when you combine it with that little itsy-bitsy built-in flash, you get results like this:
See those unsightly shadows on the bottom and to the right, respectively? That's the result of having a huge-honking lens and a flash that can't reach over it. This problem can usually be overcome by simply stepping back and zooming in (thus effectively cropping the flash out of the picture), but that's not always easy to do, and plus when I have cast members other people taking my picture they don't know to do that.
Another big perk of that flash is you can flip the reflector to face up, which means the flash will bounce off a ceiling (or a home-made diffuser lol) and hit the subject indirectly, resulting in much more natural lighting that what is normally associated with flash pictures.
The third pro to this Want is that I have a $25 gift card to Amazon, which in the long run isn't really a pro since I could probably use it on something I actually need. Sigh.
I'm really prepared for this purchase, I just don't want to drop over $100 on any one thing right now. Geez I gotta get car insurance, contacts (which, granted, I'll be reimbursed for, but it still has to come from my bank account to start with), tuition for summer and fall (which will be upon me before I know it), not to mention plane tickets and &c for my vacation. PLUS if/when I do get this flash, I'll want to go to Disney even MORE cuz I'll be able to shoot things I couldn't shoot before (like parades) and even though I have a pass, it still costs me a lot when I go.
In other news.
I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE.
I get to see it tomorrow night, a few hours before everyone else!!
(HBC is one of my favorite actresses EVAR.)
This weekend I was lucky enough to win two passes to an advance screening tomorrow night in Tampa. It's at 7:30, so it's only "advance" by a few hours, but hey, at least we wont have to wait in line! Plus... FREEE (though I imagine I'll be spending a decent portion of what I would have normally spent on gas, but STILL).
(Kilt. Tee Hee!)
I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I love the Alice in Wonderland story, and the mythos of Wonderland. And while Disney's original Alice adaptation is a visually striking movie with (naturally) beautiful animation, I'm not really a huge fan of it. It's too episodic for my taste, which isn't a problem of the movie itself, but of the story. It reads wonderfully, but in terms of film-adaptability it's too disjointed, and every adaptation of it I've seen as yet (read: two.) hasn't really done much for me.
One of the reasons I'm looking forward to this movie so much is that it has it's own plot and story. Alice returns to Wonderland as a young woman and has to save it from the Red Queen. Instead of taking Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and making a movie out of that, Tim Burton's taken all the things that make the book great and is putting them together with it's own plot.
And holy frick it's quarter after ten. How do I manage this every night?