Month: October 2018

As of today, it’s peak fall color time in the Twin Cities. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) updates a map every day with the level of fall colors everywhere in the state. As you can see in today’s map, everywhere in Minnesota is either at peak or past peak. This means this will probably be my only time visiting the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum at peak, and I’ll maybe only have one more post with fall colors at their peak. In the map to the right, the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, which is located on the border of Chanhassen and Chaska, would be southwest of Minneapolis. It’s located less than four miles from my house, and I get in for free because I’m a student at the University of Minnesota (they run the arboretum).

I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota, after school today to get some photos of the Harrison Sculpture Garden. The last photo shows four steel rectangles that somehow move perpetually.

There is a significant amount of snow here in the Twin Cities today, with snow continuing to accumulate in winter-like amounts. While I never wanted the summer to end this year, I was a little surprised to find I actually found the snow beautiful and peaceful this morning, rather than it being a harbinger of the most unbearable season.

This photo was taken on my deck with a Motorola Moto G6 smartphone.

I made my way to Center City, Minnesota, today to check out Wild River State Park, located along the St. Croix River. I was there with my mom and our puggles, Pugsley and Missy. Unfortunately, there weren’t many good photo opportunities, as the park is mostly just a paved walking path in the woods (reportedly three miles long). Still, though, the woods were beautiful, and there were at least some opportunities to get up close to the St. Croix River.

For my first “real” photos taken with the Canon EOS R, I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota. Since I’m a student at the University of Minnesota and it is part of that university, all I need to do is show my student ID and I get in for free. I’ll try to make it there at least once more before winter. It’s probably the best place for photography in my hometown.

These are my first photos taken with the Canon EOS R and 24-105mm f/4L IS lens. I took these photos on Tuesday, October 9, 2018, and, as I edit this post one day later, they are still the only two photos I’ve taken with this camera. I had a test in Abnormal Psychology today (October 10, my 30th birthday!) at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (where I’m an undergraduate English major), and so because of this test, my birthday, my workload for tomorrow, and my schedule on Friday, it might not be until this weekend that I’m able to get some more photos with this camera.

Note that these photos were taken in poor lighting and at a high ISO, but the image quality looks fantastic!

I got my Canon EOS R with 24-105mm f/4L IS lens kit from Adorama today. The cameras were supposed to ship today, but Adorama sent the cameras a day early, so I got it today, the earliest anyone who wasn’t chosen to receive a pre-production model (journalists) could get it. I had pre-preordered this camera within minutes of it becoming available on September 12, 2018.

In an earlier post, I said I would be getting the Nikon Z6. I decided not to go through with this for two reasons: (1) I was several days late for the pre-order and would likely be waiting until the end of November or much longer to receive it; and (2) after seeing Canon release their own offering for mirrorless, I decided now was the time to switch to Canon (like most pros already have). Because both companies were coming out with new mounts, I thought I might as well switch now before I got invested in Nikon again.

Here are some photos I took of the unboxing. See my next post for my first photos taken with the Canon EOS R.