Tamron 18-200mm Lens Arrived & A UFO??

I guess staying up until 5am three nights in a row caught up with me. I did NOT miss feeding the hounds breakfast on 'their' time, around 7am ... but after that the day was a fog.

By the time I woke up, glanced at the iPhone clock, I instantly remembered my days centuries ago of working 3rd shift and sleeping through most of the day. I guess I finally knew what it was like for Sadie and Heidi during my days of working a job. Stella did not arrive until after I was a 'full-time doorman'.

As I let the hounds outside there was a very exciting surprise sitting on my door step. My Tamron 18-200mm lens had shown up a day early and my brain cells suddenly charged. It now felt like I had been up all day. I fed the hounds their late lunch as I put on my shoes and socks ... because a late afternoon walk was going to take place with the new lens mounted on my Nikon D3200.

Before I go into details of the walk I will just say how nice it was to have a lens focus and shoot, first time every time. It didn't matter what the light was, or the distance, nor the camera setting ... it worked instantly every time.

Another cool thing was being able to get shots from a distance (200mm) and when the hounds were too close to me in the past to get a shot in (18mm). It was also nice not having to switch lens for different times of the day where I would shoot different type of photos.

I could tell as soon as I took the lens out of the box how much different it was than the two Nikon lenses that came with my camera. It was heavier, moved more smoothly. It just felt like a better built lens.

The hounds were as excited about their walk today as I was about my new lens. Right from the start they were both out ahead of me and at times pretty far ahead of me. When Stella took off running fast enough that her ears were in the "wing back" mode I didn't think it could be a deer in that location nor direction ... what was it?

After a intense inspection with nothing showing up, the only thing I could think of was a rabbit ... but she had never reacted that way before to a scent of a rabbit. In the meantime Sadie is wondering if I am ever going to catch up and walk with them ... or am I going to lay back and take photos?

You can tell that the process of fall weather is in action even with the temperature at 88° during our walk after 5pm.

As I walked along the path, the hounds went back to their exploration and eating. The word eating makes you think that it must taste that good but the book I just finished said their eating was a way they identify what has been in the area. I don't seem to think that same way when I am chomping down one or two large borritos.

Stella looked up from a long distance away just to let me know she was not leaving just yet and was going to have Sadie join her for some help in identifying whatever she found. Which was probably nothing more than deer droppings.

I was almost at the point to turn left and head home when I took this shot. I mention it because for many months I have not been able to get this shot at times due to the lens not focusing.

The BEST thing was being able to catch them running the full length of their run instead of just part of it due to the Nikon lens not focusing all the time. I should have clicked my camera faster because they were both running as fast as they could.

Notice Stella's ears to gauge their speed.

The final trot up next to me.

I knew since they had ran too hard in very hot weather (88°), they would be walking slowly the last half of the walk. Neither of them veered off the path I take very much and of course since Stella was walking right in front of me most of the way ... she walked as slow as possible.

With tall grass, weeds or flowers one thing is always easy to see ... where the deer sleep. Someone had done some work to get their bed comfortable ... or was it one of those small UFO's that land on occasion?

Stella was more than interested in finding out who it was, when it was and why were they so close to her house at night. With the bedroom windows open at night you would think she or Sadie would have heard this going on.

I took this next photo just to show how close to the house the deer sleep .. unless it was just a very small UFO.

Needless to say, by the time I completed this walk today I can say I was in love with the new lens. In just the short time it took us, the lens had done everything I wanted plus it had the range to take photos when the hounds were too close or too far away.

For those not interested ... from this point forward I am only discussing Google Photos that I am backing up all my photos with online ... but ... there is some news announced in there somewhere.

I am almost finished with my Google Photos migration. I had a very productive night last night. I am down to just two groups of folders to upload with a total of 11,013 photos of Sadie and Stella. That count does not count the yesterday and today's ... but I will load those first.

Along the way I learned some of the new features Google Photos has. Each folder I uploaded has the ability for the user to choose the image they want for the "album cover". Yet there's one disadvantage that showed it's ugly self ... you cannot load more than 500 photos at a time INTO A FOLDER but can upload 1,000's at a time into the program itself.

So my plan of adding tonights 11,013 photos into Sadie's folder and Stella's folder and getting to bed a little earlier ... isn't going to work. The process turns out to be a little longer than just uploading the group of photos from the specific folder on my computer, letting Google Photos make that folder while I type in the folder name.

I have to wait for those 6,238 photos to load, then open them up and select no more than 500 photos at a time before I can add them to the folder. Luckily that selection process is easy .. click the first photo, then hold down the shift key as you move your cursor down the end of each row ... choosing the photos in that row, then clicking the last photos when the counter reaches 500. The lifesaver in this is in the upper left corner there is a selection counter working as you go so you can see when you hit 500.

There is not a way to click the edit menu, then "select all" in Google Photos within the group of photos you are working with. There is in Apple Photos.

I have all of my 60 individual folders loaded and labeled with that cover photo chosen. After Sadie and Stella's photos are loaded tonight I will be able to set the program up to work automatically. Meaning after a couple of changes to my settings, every new photo will be added automatically into Google Photos whether the photo is taken with my camera or iPhone. All the photos in Google Photos can be seen by whatever device you are using plus it does not matter if you are on a Mac or a Windows PC.

Of course a long time blog reader made a comment last night after Sunday's post about this whole process ... his comment made me second guess my decision AGAIN !! For long time blog readers you know how I love to change my mind in the midstream of the thought process.

He had a point and one I had thought of many times before deciding to do anything "in the cloud". I'll not go into the plus and minuses of what to do but I am happy using Google Photos and the more I use it the better I like it.

Yet ..... I had to try his suggestion. He had reminded me what I was going to do last year and didn't. I moved my whole photo library, about 22.4 Gb's to an external hard drive in 2 hours and 47 minutes while I was watching the Florida State vs Ole Miss football game.

Pretty nice eh? No staying up all hours of the night ... just 3 short hours all of my photos were neatly tucked into a desk drawer waiting for the next update that will not take as long.

Still ... I really like what Google Photos does. One thing I caught myself doing last night while waiting for photos to upload .. was looking at photos and seeing them just as good if not better than when I look at them on my iMac in Apple Photos. I like the format.

I also like viewing them in my Flickr account but not all of my photos are there ... the two programs are very similar. I have found that Google Photos is easier to work with than Flickr when editing photos and organizing them.

So one more night of 3rd shift work ...

If you have read this far through all of this rambling I'll let you in on a little secret change I did right before posting tonight ... I took the "RV" out of my blog title.  :)  Many hours later while reading a blog that normally has my blog on their blog roll ... it wasn't there. So I checked another blog and my blog wasn't on their blog list either. I looked at a third blog and my blog was gone on their list. So until further notice ... I have put the RVs back in my blog title.

A great day today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Find Deer

As you can see from the leaves, the wind has been from the north and still is today. Most of the time our wind is from the southwest. The best part, it was cool and a lot like yesterday.

That means a lot time outside, eating a salad, reading a book and letting the hounds roam their field.

It wasn't quite 11:15am when I decided to get a hound walk in before their lunch since breakfast was not served until 9:30am this morning. You can see how wet the field is with morning dew. Actually my feet have never been wetter than what they were on this walk.

I went through google images yesterday searching "field wild flowers". Nothing in the field showed up in the results. Yet when I changed my search terms to "field WEEDS in bloom" I found everything that I see daily on the hound walk ... yet, I cannot remember their names today but can remember statistics from the football game I watched last night. That ... is the story of my life.

Lately I have seen more worn paths from deer traffic that cross our path a lot of the times or will run parallel. I am not a deer hunter so I really have very little knowledge about deer, etc. Still about the time I took this photo I could hear a strange sound in the woods to the right of us. We are at the first turn of the walk.

It wasn't a second after I took this next photo that a deer jumps out of the woods not more than 10' in front of Sadie. She is off on the chase with Stella taking up the rear.

Deer and hounds are moving faster than I can click the camera ... auto focus is not instant.

By this time Sadie has fallen back in the chase but Stella is sprinting at full power and howling all the way.

The deer is over the small hill heading north and you can barely see Stella in the center of the photo ... barely.

I continued walking, not running, on my path. I knew that Sadie would come back for sure but today I had a feeling that I would have to walk to the far north edge of the field to look for Stella. Here is Sadie returning soon after her chase.

I thought I could still hear Stella howling so Sadie and I continued to walk through the weeds toward the northwest corner of the field. Luckily not soon into the walk, I turned around and Stella was behind us and was already heading back to our path.

They love chasing deer although it doesn't happen a lot. I think this is the 5th time this year. They are always so proud of themselves after they return from their chase.

Stella was positive there had to be more from where that one came from and she was going to make sure she was not missing more deer for the day.

Once they figured out there were no more deer around, both trotted for the house. Just another normal day in the life of a bloodhound. Both were sound to sleep right after they got home and slept through most of the afternoon.

The last bindweed in the field, there use to be a lot of these.

Stella double checks to see if there are deer near her house before returning inside for a mid-day nap.

My 18-55mm lens mechanically failed yesterday. At the time it would not focus. Later it started making a plastic grinding noise as I tried to turn the adjustment to a different length ... 18, 35 or 55mm. It was not the first time for this camera to do this. I've been thinking for a while to buy a lens that had the range of both of the ones I had ... to eliminate having to switch back and forth between lenses.

I didn't want to buy another camera just to hold and use the different size lens. ZippyPinHead had talked about a 16-300mm lens he had bought and really liked it. I haven't found many times I need a 300mm but they did have a model that was a 18-200mm and that range would cover what I have now between two lenses.

I ordered it late last night and received a tracking number this morning after it had shipped. It should arrive soon after the Labor Day Weekend.

Today was once again too nice to stay inside. While I sat in the shade next to the house, the hounds ... even Heidi soaked in some sun.

Of course Sadie spent all her time roaming the field, she doesn't have the patience just to lay there.

Stella ended her time with some dirt eating. I wonder if that is good for dental hygiene ... doubt it. I guess her nose dirt will have to wear off, since she doesn't let me touch it with a wet cloth.

By 4:30pm it was time for the 2nd walk of the day. Both hounds were excited as usual. No deer this time ... just walking.

It was suggested to use Google Photos to store all the photos I take with my iPhone by the people that sold me the phone. I aways download them to my hard drive which still has a lot of space left on the hard drive. I am going to read more about Google Photos before the next football game tonight at 7pm.

I have used Flickr, which is free for unlimited amount of photos. I can go back to that but it takes so much data I have to wait until after midnight to take advantage of my Exede free data between the hours of midnight and 5am.

I see that Flickr and Google Photos have an iPhone app plus their desktop version. From the short reviews I just read, people favored Flicker. Since I like to play around with computer stuff I think I'll try Google Photos.

Although my computer automatically backs up the iMac hard drive every hour on an external hard drive I still like the thought of having photos and documents saved online somewhere.

Another great day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

Hounds Enjoy The Day

I thought I was hearing some light thunder last night and by the time the hounds and I were outside for their last trip of the night (1am), there was a light rain.

Woke up to a lot of fog this morning with Sadie and Stella making their normal morning trip. It wasn't long before they returned and went back to sleep until their lunch was served. The temps are to be lower today and when it's in the low 80's that is perfect weather here in 'the tropics'.

I need to mow the backyard because it grows faster than the front yard. I'll get back to mowing them at the same time after this afternoon. The grass was still really wet at 12:30pm, with a morning of sunshine. All of us headed outside after lunch.

Stella is thinking about a nap.

Sadie is thinking and enjoying the sunshine, but a nap is not one of her options. She is trying to figure out where to go.

Stella was down and out within minutes ... a heavy sleeper.

In the meantime, Heidi had walked out front like she usually does and then walked completely around the house looking for that perfect spot to lay down and enjoy the sunshine.

I am not sure why, but Sadie loves the taste of the fine grade dirt that is pushed up through the grass by the moles.

After a short time eating dirt, Sadie decided the sun was just too hot and moved to a shady spot under the tree. That area that I cleared out in April 2015 is the best part of the whole yard.

Never to remain in one spot for too long, or sit anywhere for too long, Sadie was off to explore the field.

Stella woke up only to scratch that itch she had, but she also wanted to go back inside to continue her nap.

Sadie also thought the idea of air conditioning was a good idea and came running for the house when she saw me turn to head to the door.

With the skies turning a little overcast and the decrease in temperature we headed out on our walk today around 5:30pm. Stella was good in that she didn't wander off and I didn't let her hang way back. A few times this week she has pushed her boundary out a little further than I like.

Hard to believe that Stella wasn't that far away when I caught this photo.

At first I thought bought of them had tracked some deer because they took off and got out in front of me maybe 50' and you can see the path's worn down by deer traffic.

Sadie decided to wait on me to catch up and Stella started veering toward me when she saw I was getting close. Both of them stayed pretty close together today.

What I like about this next photo is the bright crimson colored leaves as a 3rd color.

Pretty close to home I called Stella's name ... she didn't hesitate in running toward me. She usually ignores me and stays back, but not today.

They both walked it in toward the end of the walk ... as you can see a lot more purple in the field.

I'll be watching the Washington Redskins play in Tampa Bay tonight. I usually don't watch a lot of pre-season ball but the QB for Washington played at IU the past 4 years and is starting tonight. I'll probably move to something else after he is pulled from the game, which he doesn't know how long that will be.

With that game tonight and college football starting tomorrow night on TV, it is possible in today's method of programming that live football games may be on tv every night from now December when college football ends their regular season. For a football addict like myself ... that's great news.  :)

Question of the day ... camera lens.

Is it worth buying a lens that has the range of 18mm-200mm to be used all the time instead of switching lenses back and forth between my 18mm-55mm and my 50mm-200mm ???

Tamron has a "on sale" price for their 18mm-200mm lens this labor day weekend at Best Buy. (sold out the day they arrived)

We ended the day with steamed broccoli and carrots, with some brown rice and a nice slice of baked salmon here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.