The weather in Denver has shifted to full-tilt autumn climate finally. I’m hunkered down in my office today staring out the window at the cloudy, cool day and taking some time to familiarize myself with some of the new features in Adobe Lightroom Classic. One has to stay up on this stuff if one doesn’t want to get left behind.

In particular, I’m learning how to make effective use of the new layer and masking tools Adobe has introduced. This involves a few YouTube video tutorials and of course some actual practice. Nothing too complicated and it is a good way to spend a dreary day.

I made my first trip into the mountains with my friend Jim Esten to look for bighorn sheep a few days ago. It turned out to be a good day and I got about a dozen usable stock photographs from the outing. Today’s photo is from that trip, taken with a Nikon D850 and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII.

Now that bighorn sheep are in season, I hope to make several more photography trips before the rut dies out at the end of the year. Some alone, some with friends, you never know. It’s always fun.

I picked up a new lens recently, the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II. It’s not actually a new lens, I bought it used on eBay in near mint condition, and it’s not even Nikon’s newest version of the lens. But, it is a very good lens nonetheless and I paid about 1/2 of the price of getting a new copy. I’ve calibrated it to my D850 but I still haven’t found the motivation to calibrate it on the D810. I’ll get to it eventually.

Nikon has released their newest pro level ICL body, the Z9. A 45 megapixel, state of the art camera that makes my mouth water. I get that way from time to time. I call it camera fever. Kind of like when I was younger and wanted a new motorcycle and would get motorcycle fever. I’ve outgrown motorcycle fever, but the camera fever thing lingers more and more as I grow old. But, honestly, I don’t need a new camera. I just sold off two cameras and I’m content to use the D850 and D810 for a few more years. There’s nothing wrong with either camera other than my lust for something new and improved.

My friend Jim went full-tilt GAS earlier this year and picked up a Sony A1 to accompany his A9II. It was torturous for me to spend a day in the car with him waving his “new and improved” gear around, but I survived without getting overly jealous and breaking out my credit card. It wasn’t made any easier by another friend, Matt Dirksen texting me about the release of the new Nikon Z9. “You gonna get one?” Here’s another fellow who just went full lust with the Sony mirrorless lineup. I’m being ganged up on I think.

No Matt, I’m going to stick with my old and unimproved Nikon D850 and try to muddle by on that for a while longer. (maybe)

To be honest, my thoughts are taking me more in the direction of medium format ICL bodies down the road. I haven’t decided yet.

So enjoy your week. I need to get back to my Lightroom tutorials and my lustful thoughts.