Miss Peggy has been gone for a while. I miss her but...you don't think that I would buy a rocking chair and rock my life away, do you?

Email: brqyvn@gmail.com

Hi Pentaxian friends.

For those that have been following my blog for a long time, you know about Miss Peggy. For those that are new here, here is an introduction to Miss Peggy. Miss Peggy is a Jeep and we went on many adventures together. She has brought me to places so remote that getting there would have been impossible without her. I captured images from remote locations, from the desert to high mountains, from beaches to deep forests. She was my best photographic accessory for a long time. We both are a little older now and she needed to slow it down.

A young couple now owns her, and with young children, she will be having a new life, going along the beaches, with the top off. I see a lot of enjoyable moments with her new family. The children will have fun and so will the parents. She will not have to climb so much anymore. The new activities are going to be less stressful on her. Here are some of the last pictures of Miss Peggy that you will see on this blog.

I'm not a spring chicken myself, but  you don't think I would buy a rocking chair and rock my life away...do you?  It's just a step to another adventure. Yes, I will rock my life away, but to the sound of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the likes. I had to get another toy to replace Miss Peggy. Here it is or rather here they are:

Introducing "Spartacus", my new buddy. Together, we are ready for new photographic adventures and new  adventures period. I think he is beautiful, and full of energy with his 1300 cc of raw power and customized accessories. He was born from Honda in 2008, and his code name is VTX 1300C. Look at him, he's ready to go. He's been around for 9000 miles but is ready for a lot more.

That's not all, with the change, lots of change, I was able to get this next item. It was originally purchased by an elder couple to go to the lake with the grand kids, but the grand kids are now in their teens and don't care much about camping with the grandparents.  This was just good timing, right place at the right time, as I got this 23 foot Prowler Travel Trailer for a dime on the dollar of the actual value. I also shared the cost with my stepson, so that he too can use it at times.

The inside is like new. In fact, the gas stove was never used. It will come handy to spend economical weekends at places like Yosemite and other National Parks. Perfect for long weekends of photography, etc. My own children and their kids (my grandchildren) will be able to use it when they come visit here in California. We named the trailer "Freedom". It's a she. Here she is:

"Freedom" and "Spartacus" actually were purchased for less than what my cameras, including lenses and accessories, were purchased for. Crazy, isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by.

Yvon Bourque

Five day vacation in San Diego with the K-7 and the kit lenses only.

The church facade.

Look what I saw in one of the many gardens!

View from the inside court.

One young child after the Sunday Service.

You can see that the Church has been resurfaced many times.

Gate to one of the gardens.

A long porch leading to yet, another garden.

You can click on the images above to enlarge. Pictures above are all from Mission San Diego.

Visitors to this page also liked: See "Recommended Reading" on the right column. We honor reciprocal links. Email: brqyvn@aol.com

Hi pentaxian friends,

I'm sorry that I was not able to post anything for the last seven days. My wife and I went to San Diego for a mini-vacation. I had my laptop but the Hotel we stayed at, which was paid in advance, had problems with the Internet installation and I couldn't get to my blogsite. Life is tough without Internet. How did we ever do anything without it?

Anyway, we're back and here is my first post in a week. I decided that I would only bring the minimum, in terms of photographic equipment, to San Diego. So I brought the K-7, the 18-55mm kit lens and the 50-200mm kit lens. I also brought a Rode Stereo Microphone for attempting to shoot videos with the K-7 and a mini tripod.

I surprised myself and I was able to survive almost a week without my expensive DA and DA* lenses. In fact I often have problems, with front or back focusing, with some of my more expensive lenses. I had no such problem with any of the two lenses. They were spot on every time. The K-7 has the ability to correct distortion such as barrel and pincushion, and also fixes the chromatic aberration. Why the need for very expensive lenses all the times?

The bottom line is that I was able to take pictures as good as I would have with my expensive lenses. I guess that if I were to crop all the above pictures to 100%, there would be a difference. Does cropping to 100% something that needs to be done with every picture? I don't think so, except if you are in the business of testing lenses and equipment.

The image quality of any particular lens is often confused with out-of-focus images. Most of my pictures were taken at f/8 and all were taken at ISO 100. That kept the depth-of-field moderately wide and helped in the accurate focusing. ISO 100 produced the minimum noise, although some images have a little noise due to cropping on some of the images. When I needed bokeh, I used the 50-200mm lens at 200mm.


Imagine if I were a professional photographer...my images could have been fantastic, all with the use of the cheapest Pentax lenses. Go figure!

Tomorrow, I will post the pictures I took, with the same lenses, but at Pacific Beach, near San Diego. Then, I will post some video with stereo sound and music. The K-7 really can do it all.


Thank you for reading.

Yvon Bourque