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Since having our daughter Sarah, we have done things that we normally don't do or haven't ever done... like visit the San Francisco Zoo.

Yesterday was gorgeous in the city, so we trekked up to the Zoo. I've been to a few Zoos in my life, but none where I could feel like I was close to the animals in a nice habitat. I do plan to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park this spring, so we'll see how it compares.

This was also a good chance to play with Nikon 18-200 DX lens with Vibration Reduction that I borrowed from Mike Fullerton. I have to say, this lens impressed me.

But back to the animals. The zoo has an incredible collection of Lions, Tigers, Bears, Gorillas, Giraffes and a fantastic petting zoo for kids. I highly recommend a visit on a nice day.

See some sample shots bellow or the entire Gallery.

Two weeks ago I took my camera on a trip. When I tried to use it I got the “blinking green light of death”. Why is it that every form of electronics has a way of saying “I’m dead” and this usually involved a blinking green light?

Anyway, it turns out that a few first generation Nikon D70 cameras may malfunction. My Camera was of course out of warranty. However, the good folks at Nikon repaired the problem for free.

Now that’s a company that cares about it’s customers. Because as bad as this problem was (I shudder to think of what would have happened had I been in a foreign country with nothing to do but take lots of pictures) at least I’ll never think twice about buying another camera from Nikon.

Anyway, last week I sent my camera to Nikon, and 5 days later it’s back in my possession all fixed and cleaned. Thanks Nikon!

My parents just sent me this picture from our window in manhattan... the last time I remember seeing that much snow I was 8 years old. It was a blast.

Adobe has some really great PDFs on digital photography and “processing” photos with Photoshop CS.

I especially liked the downloadable action for converting color to black & white.