Money Well Spent

Water Camo, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

So I went to new Academy of Sciences Museum in Golden Gate Park yesterday. It was my first trip to the new museum. As the old Academy was my childhood museum I was a little concerned. And yes there were some things I missed. I always loved the San Francisco skyline built into the wall at the old Morrison Planetarium although they did keep a piece in the gift shop. And the alligator grotto feels more like a museum exhibit and less like gators had snuck into your steam room and were hanging out with you.

Still the new museum is a wonder. I have no idea if we saw everything because my nature sense of direction was annilited by the rooms and bridges and elevators and passages and such. It is the Winchester Mystery House of museums but I loved it all the same. I bought a membership of course and am looking forward to returning (on a weekday) to take more pictures.

But this entry isn't about the Academy of Sciences. It's about my Nikon D90 that arrived on Wednesday and got its first real workout yesterday. No-flash museum photography especially aquarium photography can be challenging. I was somewhere I had never been before using a camera I only had a couple of nights to work on. Lets just say there was much tweaking of settings and discovery that I had the camera set for a completely different set of light conditions. Despite my befuddlement the camera performed beautifully. I was most struck when I put this picture up on flickr after doing some work in Photoshop and checked the iso setting. I shot this one at 3200 a setting that my d40 simply could not produce useful images. I think I might just love this camera.