Ice Cream Ireland

 Here’s a little bit of ice cream nonsense we made for your viewing pleasure. I hope you like it!

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 The ice cream man had to turn model yesterday, as I had a visit from top photographer Catherine Karnow, who has done excellent work for National Geographic, among others. She was sent by my alma mater, who are writing up something on the book for the alumna magazine. It was an interesting morning, but I hardly think I’ll be stepping out on the Milan catwalks any time soon…

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 My brother wanted me to take a couple bird’s-eye photos of cake slices to help standardise the decoration and presentation in our shops. When he brought up this slice of strawberry cake with strawberry ice cream, I couldn’t help zooming right in for a close-up since it looked so yummy. Needless to say, this slice didn’t make it back downstairs intact…

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A friend found this video on YouTube. It’s a spontaneous session in our Dingle shop last year. That’s my brother Sean in the doorway…

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I had my first opportunities to play with my new toy – the Nikon D300, which arrived promptly from Conns Cameras in Dublin. I took the photo above for Food and Wine, who will have us as part of their “Hot 100″ in next month’s issue, without hardly tinkering with the settings. Not bad for a camera straight out of the box!

The thing I noticed first off is its ability to render colour accurately and dramatically. The reviews I had read pointed to this, and it really does seem to be excellent.

There’s much more punch to the colours than I had with the D80, and it also seems to reproduce subtle variations and shades with much greater accuracy.

Of course, one of the first items on my agenda was running over to visit my little niece, Una, who (along with her brother Conor) has to put up with an uncle who keeps pointing a camera at her.

I think the photo on the right is a good example of what I was talking about above – there is good colour detail on her quite pale face, with lots of pinks and whites, while at the same time her dark blue of her eyes look as they do in real life – not under-exposed.

Chances are with my previous cameras, the face would have been over-exposed or the eyes too dark.

I should point out, as well, that all of these photos had only very minimal adjustments in Photoshop. I hope do be spending a lot less time tinkering on that particular program!

The final test was to see how it handles very low light. I had heard that the D300 is much better in low-light situations (although naturally not as good as the D3, which is meant to be astonishing).

Low light is a big issue here in Ireland, since so many of the days are positively murky, and I love using natural light if at all possible.

I took this photo of Gatsby, the ice cream cat, at twilight using 1000 iso, and the shot is perfectly usable. There is some noise, but not nearly as much as I would have expected.

All in all, I’m very impressed with the camera, and I can’t wait to play some more. I don’t think I’ll have any excuses at all if my photos don’t improve!

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Maybe it’s the lack of any kind of Spring this year here in Co. Kerry. Maybe it’s that the daffodils are dying among hail showers and North winds. Maybe it’s that it’s colder than it should be. Maybe it’s that every time the sun comes out, an astonishingly heavy shower is soon to follow. Maybe it’s simply that I’m tired from a long winter, finishing the book, and a busy Easter in the shops, but I have been feeling in dire need of an inspirational lift.

What did I do? Sun holiday? Yoga? Weekend retreat? No! I recklessly whipped out the credit card and splurged for a Nikon D300. The reviews have been so great and the people I know who have one so happy, that I couldn’t help myself. Hmmm. I’d better keep repeating that!

Sometime next week I’ll get a package worth drooling over, and hopefully you’ll see some good results here once I get the hang of it.

By the way, I ordered it from Conn’s Cameras in Dublin, who have a good reputation and fantastic prices on certain items at the moment. There has been some grumbling in the press about Irish businesses not passing on the benefits of the fall in Sterling, but Conn’s Cameras has done so in a big way on certain cameras and lenses. They have some real bargains. Hmmm. I’d better keep repeating that!

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