Dana's Page

I have two loves in my life - Barry and animals. Actually, there are three - aviation is the third. But the fates have seen to it that I can only participate in that one as a distant spectator. So I spend a lot of time concentrating on the first two! When I'm in Vegas, I'm very predictable - my days will be spent at The Secret Garden of Siegfried & Roy - my nights will be spent watching Barry. If you want to see all of my past show photos and reviews you can go to my personal site here. (For that matter, you can see my tiger/leopard/lion photos here) My Barry site has accounts of my two platinum experiences, too. (Yes, I AM lucky!) I'll continue to post new show reviews here, along with some of my best photos. Best quote that I've seen in a while: "Taking anything for granted is a no-win situation because that's when you start to feel that you're entitled to something. No one is entitled to anything - everything in life is earned, and the word gratitude should be on everyone's lips on a daily basis." -- Sylvia Browne, Spiritual Connections Barry always says he doesn't take us for granted. I don't take him for granted, either. A lot of Manilow fans have admitted that they have been given a hard time for being a Manilow fan. Those of us who attend a lot of shows have also been criticized. I've always known that my days for being able to see the show in person were numbered. I've never taken that for granted.

Camera settings

Because I've been asked by several people, below are the settings I use for the M&P shows. I'm using a Canon PowerShot S2 IS model - those are kind of obsolete now - they were replaced by the S5, and that has now been replaced by the PowerShot SX10 IS - which has been replaced by the SX20... I think the settings are basically the same - but I'm so far behind now, who knows?? (Some of the following settings can be found under Menu and some under Function - you'll probably need to refer to the user's guide.)

• Camera is set in Tv mode - shutter speed priority
• Image Stabilization (IS Mode) - mine is set to Panning
• Resolution and Compression - I play around with this one a lot. As far as viewing the photos on the computer, I seem to be happiest with a size of M1 (2048x1536) and Fine.
• Digital zoom is turned off - I stick with optical zoom because the quality is much better
• Continous shooting - I have mine in Standard mode, I didn't care for the results in High Speed mode - besides this setting, you'll also have to push the little button that's right behind the shutter until you see that the camera is in the proper mode (see user's guide)
• ISO speed - set to 400
• Exposure compensation - this one varies - if I'm sitting in the first row, I put it down to +1 1/3 - if I'm further back, I increase it to +1 2/3
• Spot AE Point - I use AF Point
• AF Mode - most of the time I have it set to Continuous
• AF-Assist Beam - I have it turned off, it makes it a little harder to get a good focus this way, but I doubt they want to see that little green light flashing at them all night
• Mute - set to on, I don't want to hear all those sounds and neither do the people around me
• Shutter speed - I usually have it set to 1/160