Holy Sh*t! The Holy Grail of dit cameras!

The new Nikon D3

OMG, I NEED to have one of these now, yesterday, Ahhh!
I know I have been waiting around for a LOOOOOONG time for this one. Listening to all those Canon users brag on their MkII's and MkIII's, even watching longtime faithful Nikon users turn to the dark side because Nikon was so slow to really kick some ass on every level with pro dit cameras. But no more!
Late last week Nikon announced the release of the new D3 DSLR camera. This thing is awesome! Read Ken Rockwell's review, it's by far the most info-rich one I've found thus far.
For starters, it's a full-frame camera, did you hear that? No more dinky DX-sized sensor. I can finally use my favorite all time lens again to its full potential (35mm F 2, I used to shoot EVERYTHING with that) without it being cropped down to a field of view closer to a 50mm (thanks, or no-thanks I guess, to that DX sensor).
Here's where it really starts to sting for Canon users, you get full frame, at 9 frames-per-second! Yes! Right now on my D2X I can shoot 8 FPS, but its in "high speed crop mode" which is cropping down the frame size even more (as well as the resoution). The D3 has something similar, where it crops down from full frame to DX size and shoots, get this, 11 FPS!!! Are you kidding me?
Better yet, the low light performance is heads and tails over everything else now (easily their biggest downfall to Canon — banding no more!) You can shoot up into the 3200 and 6400 ISO range with little noise at all. When I went up to Seattle to see Tom Boyd speak at the Aperture in Action lecture series there was a Canon rep there that was touting the new MkIII, bragging on its low noise at high ISO's and joking about Nikon, undoubtedly knowing the D3 release was only a couple weeks behind!
You gotta read the review, it's packed full of info and goodness (dual CF card slots??? YES!)
It won't be out until November, which means they'll be backordered until probably the new year, which means if I beg and plead (did I REALLY need that HD vidcam this year?) They are listing at $5,000, which is amazing seeing as how that is what the current D2X model is selling for as well. I might be able to talk the boss into one by late spring.... Maybe? HOPEFULLY!!!
drooling,
-DKM

Tapas night @ Akari

Every Tuesday night is tapas night at Cafe Akari in downtown Long Beach, a sweet little spot owned by the same folks that own my wife Vinessa's restaurant, the Beach House cafe. For those of you who don't know, tapas is a serving style that features small portions with the thought that you'll get a number of different plates to try more things, and this week Ness was the guest chef.



It was quite the happenin' place to be, with the small room overflowing with people who were raving about Ness's offerings for the evening, including our good friend Melisa, who sat with me and the kids for dinner. All nepotism aside (sort of...) she rocked it, serving up a wide variety of NW food items, from fish and organic mushrooms to local berries and veggies.



Wyse made the rounds and as always was quite popular with the ladies (and the guys...)



Kenz was looking pretty cute too that night, as we took a walk down the beach approach as the sun was going down.

-DKM

Check this out! — Friday Night Sights blog

Hey everybody, check out this new blog that I'm contributing to Friday Night Sights It's a football blog written by local players before and after the games each week. I'm supplying pix from our game of the week. It's a way to get younger folks onto our site I believe, but's its pretty cool.

Also check out a new installment of my True to the Game photo coumn. Props to Crindalyn for redesigning the index page for it and adding an archive for older installments.

-DKM

Youth is served

Each year I make the hour-plus trek to the Wahkiakum County Fair, in Skamakowa, out the Greys River Valley. It is a pretty small-time affair, but very charming in a real old-fashioned kind of way. This year I decided to go on kids day with the idea of photographing what it was like to be a kid at the fair.

I have to give the organizers of this a lot of credit for "keeping it real." They had scheduled some cool stuff like a spelling bee, pie eating conest (ABOVE) and lawnmower races (BELOW)



Getting up to this fair is one of the few things we cover outside the county line. I really love getting up into the valley and doing stories out there. Even though it's only 40-some miles from the beach, it is really very different. The community's even more close knit than down here, and the people are always welcoming when we make it out there.

Next week is our fair, also out of town, up in Menlo. It can be equally charming as well. I just need to come up with another new way to look at it for this year...



-DKM

Dj David

On Saturday night me, Ness and the kids headed across the river to check out Ness's friend David Blanchard as he spun records at the Astoria Coffeehouse
It was pretty amazing that the baby slept the whole time while David was playing some crazy 80s dance music (you, know, the good stuff, not Madonna...) He had 80s movies projected behind him too in B&W like Footloose and Empire Strikes Back.


The venue is pretty cool, I had only been there during the day before, but it converts to a night club of sorts pretty easily, with a bunch of people milling about outside and in the giant entryway. They have some kind of music going on every Saturday & Sunday night


Kenz, during one of the few moments she wasn't blowing people's minds with her dance moves.

-DKM

Meeting Jake

In honor of Jake the Alligator Man's 75th birthday, we got an exclusive sit down with the man, er, reptile, er, whatever he is.
Read the whole interview in the Chinook Observer.

-DKM

Radio Radio

For those of you out there interested, I'm going to be interviewed on the After Deadline show onKMUN Coast Community radio this Friday, Aug. 10, at 9:30 a.m. My boss Matt Winters and I will be talking about the role of the Internet in modern journalism, ie: blogs, video, multimedia, etc. I think it lasts about a half hour. It streams live on their web site, or if you miss it and want to hear it, the Daily Astorian archives them all HERE.

-DKM