Comrades in Arms

Camping in Limon, CO

Stormy Skies

We traveled from Laramie, WY to Limon, CO today under mostly fair skies. However, after we arrived and set up camp, the sky to the west of us started to look threatening. Damsel took the photo above as the sun was showing through the stormy looking clouds towards the end of daylight. Luckily, the storms subsided as the evening went on and we are currently not expecting anything serious.

By far, the favorite part of our trip today was the opportunity to visit with DrJim, a long time friend, fellow blogger, Second Amendment enthusiast and Ham Radio buddy in Fort Collins, CO. Jim showed us his house, dog “Pebbles” and his numerous projects. We had a nice, albeit short visit before heading back out. Fort Collins looks like a very nice place to live. Damsel took the photo below just before we departed.

W7GD and KQ0EA

Click on either image to enlarge.

Tombstone Freedom Days June 28 & 29, 2019

I got a dispatch from the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL) announcing the third annual Tombstone Freedom Days. I am posting some of it here:

tombstone-freedom.jpg

The Third Annual Freedom Days celebration in Tombstone will be held on Friday and Saturday, June 28 & 29. A schedule of events for this two day celebration can be found at https://www.tombstonefreedomdays.com/.

This year’s events include a Celebrity Town Hall panel discussion at 7 PM, on Saturday, June 29 featuring:

  • Mark Walters of Armed American Radio
  • Baseball Legend Curt Schilling
  • Actress Morgan Brittany
  • Second Amendment journalist Dr. AWR Hawkins
  • Also on the agenda is Patrick Henry, co-author of the Bill of Rights, as portrayed by Lance Hurely.

Panel discussion tickets are now available for only $12 and can be purchased in advanced by calling (520) 226-5024. Seating is limited. Doors open at 6 PM. All proceeds benefit the Tombstone Lions Club.

Don’t delay, get your tickets today!

While at the celebration, stop by the AzCDL booth and visit with our volunteers.

Unfortunately, we’re tied up with a medical procedure that Friday and won’t be available to travel to Tombstone for the event.

New Glass for the Canon T6i and SL1 Cameras

Canon SL1 and EF-S 18-135 mm LensEarlier this month, Tam wrote about trying different glass to replace a zoom lens with not-so-great performance. That post gave us the idea that we too might benefit from lens upgrades for our two Canons – Damsel’s is an EOS Rebel T6i and mine (shown at right) is an EOS Rebel SL1 – both DSLR cameras.

Since the stock lens that came with both cameras was a zoom with a focal length range of 18 mm -55 mm, we decided in getting a better lens with the same starting focal length and stretching the maximum focal length out to 135 mm.

I took the above image of the SL1 with the EF-S 18-135 Lens attached with my little Kodak FZ152 Pocket Camera. Click on the image to enlarge.

Although we haven’t put the new optics through extensive evaluation, we see that the performance is pretty good. I went out this morning to get a few pictures to see how the performance was in general. The following two images of the RV and a hummingbird demonstrate the extreme wide and narrow focal length performance. Click on either image to enlarge.

18 mm zoom 135 mm zoom

As we put the new lenses into use we should get a feel for how the new optics performance will be. Just from today, I can generally see that the Image Stabilizer does an effective job of keeping the camera steady and I can’t readily detect a lot of chromatic aberration at maximum zoom.

We hope everyone had good St. Valentines and Presidents Days.