Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Day at the Museum

Today Henry and I went to a museum. It was his first trip to a museum, and it was a real one, too! It wasn't a children's museum or a science museum, but an actual history museum. OK, they have a great playroom there. His cousins discovered it months ago and today he and I joined my parents, his aunt and his cousin there for some fun time. Meg stayed home and got a nice break. Here's some pictures of the experience.

Here's Henry in armor!



Henry spent a lot of time being carried by his grandpa and looking up at the lights and ceiling fans. If there was a museum dedicated to light fixtures and ceiling fans he'd be in heave. Maybe we should spend some more time in that department at our local Home Depot!



My father, Evan and I all tried out some helmets while we were at the museum. They were reproductions, but we still had to wear white gloves.





Here's a picture of the camera setup I made. It's supporting our old camera, which is much heavier and bigger than our new one. I'm working my way through a lot of coins. I've got most of my noteworthy halves and pennies photographed so far. Unfortunately I've found out that the best lighting is sunlight, something I don't see much of at home. I'll have to wait until next weekend to make more progress.

2 comments:

Man said...

Love the museum trip especially when he's looking at the fixture and all his grandpa is doing is looking at him.

Also the camera stand is very efficient. I will say scanning coins never brings out the detail or luster the way a camera can.

kestrelia said...

Yup, that's a favorite of mine. I have many good memories of us at museums so it is good to start the tradition anew with Henry. :)

The stand - my goals were to make something cheap (didn't want to pay $40 for a purposely made stand), small, and quick. It had to be quick in that I didn't want to spend forever setting the camera up in it because my wife uses the camera alot too. A stand should help to stabilize the camera, crucial for closeups with no flash, and create reproducable results. Now I just have to master lighting so I'm not limited to daylight shooting. Coins with a mirror finish and dark coins (pennies) are really tough.