I recently took a self portrait for funsies;

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Look out I'm ready to shoot!

Kate Davis, sings and plays double bass. Here's a holiday track of hers, but it's the best her voice has sounded; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIp2oQfffhM

If you have about $500 to drop, buy used. A Canon 5D runs for about $500-600 these days, check it; http://www.keh.com/camera/Canon-Digital-Camera-Bodies/1/sku-DC029990897980?r=FE KEH sets the going rate for the used camera market. Their 'bargain' cameras are Ebay and Craigslist mint. Don't be turned off by a 'bargain' camera from KEH.

It is a bit on the older side, but it's a full frame DSLR, preforms well enough at high ISOs. At 100-400 it looks super crisp, which is what most people are shooting at. Canon cameras use Canon EF lenses, of which there are tons for pretty much every budget. The Canon EF 50mm 1.8 is like $120, and it's super crisp.

I'd explain this better, but I'm watching hockey. I'll have more later.

Edit: Okay, so, the Carolina Hurricanes blanked the Washington Capitals four nil. Justin Peters is legit. My attention can be focused elsewhere.

Cameras. So I suggested the Canon 5D. The good ol' Canon 5D. not the Mark II, or the Mark III, both of which are wicked cameras, but I'd suggest you get a Canon 6D over a Mark III. The Mark III has faster autofocus, but the 6D does better in low light. However the 5D Mark II will run ya about $1100-1300, a 6D is $2100, and a 5D Mark III is $3500. The 5D will slot in your budget nicely.

Yes yes it's old, almost six years, but flagship cameras age better than prosumer cameras. The Canon 5D was the best digital camera Canon made for a few years, they've moved on, the 5D Mark III is now the flagship, the 5D is still a solid camera.

The 5D will shoot well in bright conditions, and low ISOs. You'll get really clean images at 100-200 ISO, some noise at 400, but nothing that can't be overcome with the noise reduction tools found in Lightroom and Photoshop. Same goes for 800. At 1600 and 3200 you will have to do some fenagling to make the shots look good, and don't expect to make any decent size prints (8x10 or bigger) from an image that was shot at 3200 ISO using a 5D, even after noise reduction. It will look up good to about 2,000 pixels wide, so it'd be fine for a 4x6, but I'd advise against printing it on an 8x10.

But that's not a bad thing! How often will you be shooting in low light conditions? And if you are, will you be shooting with intent to make prints? It is a 12.1MP, full frame sensor. A full frame sensor is in contrast to the APS-C sensor, which is found on most of Canon's 'prosumer' DSLRs. A crop sensor is a smaller sensor, and most lenses are made for full frame cameras, that doesn't mean you can't use the same lenses on crop sensor cameras, you can, the image just gets 'cropped'. The APS-C sensor has a crop factor of 1.6. This means that if you slap a 50mm lens on it, the effective focal length is multiplied by 1.6, so it'd be 80. Put 300 on there, you'll 480, and so on. I *do* advise that you get a full frame camera, because 50mm is 50mm, and that extra 30mm you'd get on a crop sensor is *a lot*. An extra 60% to any focal length is *a lot*.

You said lenses, Canon is the best option if you want lenses. Nikon has a ton of great lenses, but overall, there seem to be more Canon lenses than Nikon, and Canon lenses usually come in a bit cheaper, too. The Canon EF 50mm 1.8 is a fantastic lens, and it will only set you back about $120. They offer a 75-300mm lens that can be had the used market for around $100-150, it's solid. It's not bad by any means, but it's not going to be as crisp as a 200mm prime. There are of course, the high echelon lenses, the 50mm 1.2, the 400mm 2.8, the 800mm 5.6, but those are expensive, very expensive! Worth it if you need that kind of fidelity, but if you're just a hobbyist and don't need the best of the best, you can still find what you need for under $500, usually a lot less.

If you have any questions or need anything else explained, feel free to ask me. Photography is one of my areas of expertise. I know a lot about it.

If you want to see a torrent of grammatical fallacies go to the furniture section on Craigslist and punch in 'dinning table'.

I'm playing Spyro Year of the Dragon. It's old, but I'd never even come close to completing it when I was little, so I'm trying to now.

The Spyro games on the PSOne are some of the best platform/adventure games of their generation. I recently burnt through the first one in one sitting when the interwebs went down. The things I do without internet.

I rooted my Kindle Fire and installed an Android distro and loaded it with emulators. I've never played a Pokemon game, so I'm going through FireRed. I'm enjoying it. Though I'm doing what I do with most RPGs, which is spend way more time grinding than I do progressing in the game. Gotta level up all the pokemans.

I don't feel like I have a 'calling', I just do things. I enjoy recording and manipulating sound, so I have a business doing audio work. I got into photography, after a couple years, turns out I excel at it to the extent people will give me money for the pictures I take, or pay me to make pictures for them. So I changed the name of my business from 'Mowinckel Recording' to 'Mowinckel Recording & Photography'. I'm very interested in colour grading, so I'm going to pursue that. If I get good enough at that that people are willing to pay me money to do it, I'll change the name of my business to 'Mowinckel Productions'. I'm also interested in video editing, and cinematography, both of which I'll likely pursue sometime down the line. I don't seek 'meaning' in what I do, I don't see a purpose to it, I just do things, some of which I'm better at than others. Allow me to quote Neil Degrasse Tyson;

“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”

Why look for a 'calling', for something that will obligate to put yourself into a box? Something that will put social pressure on you to do one thing. People will regard you as that thing and expect it out of you. Do something else and they'll ask 'Why are you doing that thing? Aren't you that other thing?' Don't limit yourself to doing one thing. Don't desire a 'calling' so much you manufacture it out of want, and pursue it because you've been looking for 'meaning' in your life, then walk down that fabricated road because you want it so badly you're willing to lie yourself about what you're 'true meaning' or whatever is. Don't look for your 'calling', don't expect to ever find it. Just do things, find things you like doing, follow them down to their bedrock, become an expert, if that still leaves you feeling hollow, look for something else. Accruing knowledge and expertise is far more rewarding than doing something that's expected you of because you wanted that 'calling' so badly you forced yourself into something. If, in the process of doing that, you find something that makes you happier than what you're doing now, do it. If you find something that makes you happier than that, then do that. Don't put yourself into a box, that's how you get a narrow view of the world.

Do things. Do lots of things. Don't do them because it's expected of you, do it because you want to. Find something of your own accord and do it.

This is my photography tutorial, it covers light boxes; http://www.doctormowinckel.com/?p=668

Here's a convoluted lighting rig and big lightbox I made; http://doctormowinckel.tumblr.com/post/27586620562/i-made-a-lighting-rig-for-pony-pictures

Nowadays I do studio photography in my apartment, so I just use this;

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Oh boy, new brushables to buy.

In August.

I haven't bought anything since October 'cause it's all been re-releases.