another dry month with a wet finish

  -- coming soon!

We've had less than 30% of our April normal, and a week to make up for it. A totally dry week ends today: tomorrow should have a bit after dark, but Thursday will bring close to an inch. Wow! We'd need 3½" to catch up, and that is not expected to happen. 

This hurts more because I now have my tool prepared for halting the blackberry invasion. I looked up how to swap the brush blade onto our string trimmer and how to actually start the beast. Tomorrow is a travel / medical day, so we'll be back with a few short hours to work before darkness arrives and the rain begins. Friday should be less wet but showers continue for several more days. 

Guess I just need to embrace the dampness and get cracking! :^)

One piece of good news though: the riding mower is functioning again! I replaced a few parts, zip-tied the front end into a reasonable approximation of its original orientation, and finally found the culprit: the fuse wiring had come loose from part of its harness and was dangling uselessly. Now to purge the ancient gas and oil from it, and forget the last two summers were such a challenge..

this just might work!

The a99 has arrived, and first tests are promising. While the size will take getting used to again, the interface fits me pretty well and the screen is plenty good enough. The multi-tip-flip screen can do much more than I'm used to as well.

The kit as it stands now is pretty convenient too! 

1. When bulk isn't called for and wide-normal shooting is all I expect to do, the 24-105 and DT 55-200 (in crop mode, 80-300 but ~10Mpix) covers the ground nicely. 
2. When 24Mpix is valuable for all shots, I can carry the 100-300Apo for telephoto imaging and pay the 250g penalty (or take the slightly lighter 70-210/3.5-4.5). 
3. And when close is best the 50/2.8 macro can do 1:1 just fine and capture more light than the zooms. At some point I'll pick up a 20/2.8 for seriously wide sky or mountain vistas (4-26: done! A 20/2.8rs is on its way). Possibly I'll spring for an 85/2.8 at some point.. 

Most of the a99 reviews tout its impressive HD video abilities; at some point I will explore that and do some comparative shots with the eM1. I sure wish I wasn't constrained to 16x9 video with my 3:2 and 4:3 sensors, but at my price point I take what's available!

urge and purge merge

 Well, the 'great' purge lasted nearly three months. I then worked myself into a corner with a few curious decisions:

1. My tech sense becomes overwhelmed  between the eM1 mk.1 and mk.2, strange but true. Newer isn't better, for me. I have no explanation for it.
2. My Minolta-af zooms didn't depart soon enough.
3. Unstabilized camera bodies are an issue for me and my collection of primes.

I decided that too much money is still locked up in camera gear. I've tried twice to embrace the em1.ii but just can't deal with it, so I looked for a camera to take its place.

 

I wandered over to the big-sensor area to check on early Z and L-mount types.  Body prices aren't bad net of what I was selling .. but oh those lens prices. No savings in those deals. 

Oh wait, my Maxxum lenses are still here! Bummer that no one but Sony adapts them to modern mirrorless bodies.. except Sony. And how are prices on an a7xx and ea4 adapter? Tempting - but my last attempt (a7ii+ea4) was a decisive failure.

Hmm.. so what about a body that needs no adapter?

And so an a99 Sony is on its way. The penultimate 36x24 A-mount body with SLT hybrid features, bonuses like the multi-tilt screen, no-crop video scaled to HD, an in-body AF range limit (like the eM1.ii) and decent battery life. The 24Mpx sensor specs don't match today's stacked/BSI models but DR and color depth scores are great at DxÖ.

Yes, it will do nicely!

But..

I realized my native μ43 and Pentax primes now had no IS-within body to perch upon!! The G100 has many nice features but stabilization is not among them. Not ideal.

Welcome back my friend, to a kit that never ends!

 

Yes, an eM1.1 (a silver one!) has returned to the fold! I'll return the G100, whose price matches the eM1 ±$5. Too bad, but the eM1 will be fine as the Little Camera. Money back, another possible 36×24 companion and my favorite μ43 body. Done, and DONE.

---

So the kit is changed.
Again.

What point in claiming any justification for these changes? 

None that I see. All explanations are weak. 

OK 🤔 here I go anyway: the larger sensor will be nice, occasionally; it will be interesting to compare a99 +24-105 to my old D600 +28-105 shots. The eM1 is a proven commodity in my hands and it doesn't bring me the same feature overdose as its 2nd edition. That's all the excuses, and it's enough.

Here's the latest list. 

Why a DT lens? Well, it's half the weight of either the 100-300 or the 70-210, and owner ratings are excellent. On days that 105mm should be enough, a 10Mpx raw will suffice in an unexpected situation. Definitely beats no shot if the 105mm image is too small. 

Oops I'm justifying again!!

welcome to March!

 

The cold, somewhat messy March lion has arrived!

After a five-day rally to make February into an above-average month (105%), March cones in chilly. The 7-day forecast is for about 1½" of wet snowflakes; we have a solid trace on our deck and in our grass as I type, and a snowy mix is falling.

It seems that our groundhog lied. Break out the pitchforks and torches!!

Update. The early forecast was for perhaps 2" total snowfall, at best an inch each night and gone the next afternoon. Reality was more exuberant: over 9" on the ground at maximum, and today (3/8) still ,shows three inches on deck and driveway! 

Exuberant indeed. 

late-month rally

 With five days to go, February was 39% of normal for precipitation. That's asking a lot of five days.

And then it began to rain.

As of this morning we're at 60% - and forecasts add about 2½" more (thanks to having a 29th  day this year!). If this pans out we'll have (a) two really wet days, and (b) 105% of normal!

Let's find out..

Update, 28 Feb. Now just 0.8" short of average (87%) -- and the cold front is making its appearance at the coast! We never used to have such detail, but the somewhat recent addition of a radar near Aberdeen really improved the up-wind view.

The next seven days are quite damp, showing that the first few days of March 

will come in like a lion - and not just for us!!

California takes a turn

February has been less damp than recent months, as the rapidly weakening el Niño sends moisture south of us for a while. We're around 30% of normal halfway through the month.

Our coming week has perhaps an inch of rain, but several recent forecasts have been too enthusiastic about amounts. We even flirted with a snow forecast this week, but in the end the cold vs. moist boundary ended up closer to Olympia. Oh look; our forecast now has a 900-foot snow level tonight..

Next fall looks like we're back to La Niña - but many climate folks are now wondering if enough global change has been wrought to break our conditioned expectations. It's always been clear how things settle out in Niña and Niño years.. but last year's California weather was not typical at all. Lake Manly (aka Badwater / Death Valley) formed after Hurricane Hilary and it's been replenished by recent storms; Tulare Lake reformed and hasn't vanished either. Perhaps we need to watch a few more cycles before throwing out all our experience; we'll find out!

kit

Looking ahead not back

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Update 3-5: shifting from 12-35 to 14-140A, with wx seals and nice range. This removes three lenses from my pile: 12-35, 45-150 and my damaged 14-140 with its chipped front element, which I cannot use with full confidence. 

I'm also swapping a G100 Lumix in place of the gf7; its USB charging, two dials and viewfinder are solid positives over the GF7. No ibIS, but better 20Mpx sensor, excellent viewfinder, and audio inputs - and oh ya, 4k too.

µ43 primes: 10-17-23-30macro-45mm. The 17 and 45 are Oly f/1.8, and so the Zonlai 50 is now expendable. The 10 and 23 are manual focus, but AF rules otherwise.

Zooms: 14-140 plus 35-100. That brings me a range of 28-280mm/e with weather seals and 28-200 with decent speed (the 14-140 is a pinch faster than 12-60 at 35mm). That's plenty good enough for me. 

The elder 4thirds ZD 70-300 is available for longer reach. Its bulk won't make it a take-everywhere option but that's OK.

bodies: eM1 mk.II and G100 are versatile in different ways; hopefully they will not interfere with each other. 

Back to normal

 Version 1: temperature is now above 45° and snow is down to tiny patches. A half inch of rain has fallen today so it may all be gone by sunrise. The melt plus rain was nearly 2"!

Version 2: with a week to go, January should end up at least an inch above normal (OK, 2½" above as of the 27th!). That means our water deficit since October will be a surplus.. for a little while, at least. 

a first glance at winter

Our moisture has come from the south so far this rainy season, so ski resorts and winter-focused events have not fared well. Many storms near California will do that, and el Niño often leaves its mark to our south, pushing warmer air our way to limit snowpack. It does not make us immune to winter weather though!

Today's Wx-Underground forecasts have turned toward snow about a week from now, which is surprising. Many models have made this shift, however; shown here is the well-regarded European model's view on Friday morning 1/12. This is pretty much the classic pattern for white weather down low, with cold air just onshore and marine moisture willing to be pulled in just to its south!

This could change in six hours with the next model runs, and in the course of a week's modeling the timing and location will likely revise a few more times. Still, it's notable. 

We'll be watching..

7Jan update: the forecast has twisted several times as to depth of cold air and accumulation, but the 12-13th remains white at our 750' elevation. Values have varied from 3½ to 12 inches from run to run!

7-16 recap?

Curiously enough, winter weather began abruptly on Tuesday the 9th, with over 6" on the ground on Tuesday morning. It was a strong suspicion but nothing more on Monday night as we drove back from Anacortes in downpours.

That settled down to 4" by Friday 1/12, when we topped off the crunchy old snow with 4" of fresh true powder. The arctic front dropped us to 16° at night through Monday the 15th. Today the cold air was overrun by a front coming from the SW; only a pinch of fz/rain has fallen so far, and the forecast has us above freezing by sunrise. It will take a day or two for the snow to vamish, but the wild times will return to normal in 36 hours or so.

7-17 - It was a good try, but it took until 10am to reach freezing, and 2pm to reach 35. 

Time to start shoveling the driveway!