Happy 2012!

It seems with each passing year, we pay less attention to the actual new year itself. 12 years ago, I rang in the new year with my cousins in Malaysia, where there was a huge event on the grounds of the old international airport (relegated to handling a few domestic flights after the opening of KLIA) – while wondering what Y2K chaos might ensure for computer systems. 11 years ago, I was with friends and family in New York City’s Times Square as we welcomed 2001; the size of that affair needs no further description. This year, I went to bed at around 9:30pm (because Olivia still refuses to go to bed on her own), and while I did wake up a couple of hours later, I didn’t even stop to really think that it was the new year until later. I think I was actually playing Starcraft 2 when the new year rolled in!

Still, 2011 was a busy year with lots of change for us – where we live, where I work and the type of work I’m doing, one of our cars (after 10 years with Dopey) , to name a few – and with the kids starting 2011 at 2 years 8 months and 10 months old, the pace of change within the year as they develop is nothing less than astonishing. I haven’t really thought about and don’t really know what to expect or strive for in 2012, which is too bad because I usually do set some goals at the start of the year. But with Valerie and the kids heading to Taiwan for a while shortly, I’ll have some time to think about this. For now, I’ll just share a couple of interesting stats…

Blog Stats

First, on the blog.  After intending to do so for quite some time, I finally started this blog – mainly for the purpose of keeping a sort of history that I can look back on later.  I wasn’t convinced I’d actually stick with it, but somehow, I have so far!

• I wrote 9 pages and 64 posts in 2011. Let’s see if I can keep it up in 2012!
• Most frequently topics – Photography (28), Personal (17), Travel (10), Technology (10), Gaming (6), Customer Service (4 – though several were meta-posts)
• Apparently, 14o0 people visited and viewed about 4000 pages, which is surprisingly many considering that the blog is mostly to share with people I know, and I don’t know anywhere close to that number of people.
• Quite a few people wound up on the one page about memorable games, unfortunately for them since there’s little real content there!
• A surprising number of people wound up here searching for D90 vs. D7000. I wrote that post for Herman (who promptly ignored the advice), but I guess it had some general interest.

I’m still kind of surprised I managed to post that much considering how long I procrastinated before ever posting at all.  I also expected very few people to actually read things posted here, as there is completely no theme to anything I post about – as I’m sure random unfortunate searchers discovered.

Photo Stats

The second interesting stat (maybe) is on pictures. I took 2,517 photos in 2011, which is down a good bit from the 3,406 photos in 2010, though I’m increasingly selective about what I actually keep. In order of use:

• Hasselblad – 28 pictures (not taken by me; I’ll say more about this in the next post)
• Nikon D90 – 36 pictures (using Wen’s camera)
• Canon PowerShot S90 – 67 pictures
• Nikon D3 – 708 pictures
• Nikon D7000 – 1678 pictures

Interestingly, despite carrying the S90 everywhere, I barely use it, though I’m still glad I had it when we ran into Kim Clijsters! This is mostly because pictures I take are still overwhelming with the kids and family, and if we’re heading out somewhere scenic, I’ll almost always bring a DSLR.  What about lens use (on the Nikon bodies)? According to Lightroom, here’s what I actually used:

• Nikon 85mm f/1.8 – 26 pictures; good, but mostly supplanted by the 105mm f/2.8 macro
• Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 – 69 pictures
• Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 – 73 pictures, though this lens was replaced with the 70-200 f/2.8 partway through the year
• Nikon 50mm f/1.4 – 87 pictures
• Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 – 96 pictures
• Nikon 35mm f/1.8 – 139 pictures
• Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 – 143 pictures
• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 – 156 pictures; an awesome lens I should say a few words about sometime
• Nikon 105mm f/2.8 170 pictures
• Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 – 357 pictures
• Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 – 1,011 pictures

Once again, the 24-70 was my most used lens by a large margin, though at just over 40% of all shots, it obviously doesn’t cover the full range. I also often take something lighter when travelling on my own.  Also, in case you’re adding up the numbers, omitted are 75 shots with manual lenses that have no EXIF data (primarily the 35mm f/2.0 AI and 50mm f/1.2 AI, which I talked about in a post on manual focus), and a few shots playing around with lenses I don’t own – 1 with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8, 3 with the Nikon 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye, 6 with the Nikon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, 10 with Wen’s Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.  The only non-inherited lens I didn’t use in 2011 is the ultra-cheap 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6, because the 24-70mm beats this lens in every possible way (except size).

What about flash use? 731 pictures (on Nikon cameras) were with flash, 1691 without.  At some point, I may try and produce a histogram of actual focal lengths used, since Lightroom isn’t great for summarizing into ranges, and because I need to adjust for DX vs. FX since a fair amount of shooting was with the full-frame D3.

Let’s see what 2012 brings! Rumor says that the D4 gets announced on Thursday/Friday, with the full-frame D800 coming soon thereafter; getting a full-frame camera early in the year will definitely skew the stats for the coming year, so it will be interesting to see if the new cameras are appealing/affordable :).