Today is 31 December 2010: Day 1,462 of the Photo A Day Project.

And the final day of the 4+ year project.

This decision has been one of the most difficult ones I’ve ever had to make, but I am making it willingly… and proudly.

You often hear about athletes and entertainers who bow out gracefully at the top of their game (except Brett Favre) – at a point in their career or life where they feel what they are doing has hit it’s best. They end their projects or work when they know it’s the best time to do so (except Brett Favre), and this is what I am doing. The past few months I’ve created some amazing photos – even some of the best I’ve done. That doesn’t mean I can’t keep doing that in the future just under the guise of different projects.

Over the years I’ve have great days of 365 photos and what I thought were terrible days. Heck, we all have those up and down days in everything we do. There were days I didn’t want to pick up my camera and shoot, but pushed myself to do so. There were other days when I created multiple images that even blew my mind, and that’s usually difficult to do.

One thing I recently realized though is that after 4 years I was finding this particular project more of a chore than an outlet of creativity. Couple that feeling with actual paying gigs, other work that needs to get done, family time, down time, etc and you get the picture. Too much going on all at once and it’s only hurting not helping.

This is not the end. I have to keep telling myself that. This is the beginning of something new. Trust me, there are some great projects in the works that are going to blow your socks off!

2010 was a great year to end the 365 project. Paid work has been a priority and it’s only going to be busier in 2011 (so hey you, yes you! Don’t forget to book your session today! Seniors, Portraits, Pets, Commissioned special projects….)

Let me know in the comments what some of yours are! I would love to know your favorites!

Varied Thrush – Lifer

In 2010 I did not do as much birding as I would have liked to do. I resolve to change that in 2011. Heck, I think 2010 was the weakest year for unique bird sightings since I started hardcore birding about 7 years ago.

Part of the lack of a high species count is due to a few different factors. One is laziness, I will admit to that. I was totally lazy this year opting to focus on more macro photography than lugging out my telelphoto gear to go to the same places I’ve been going to yearly to find birds to photograph.

Another factor is the bird feeders all coming down from their usual spot to make room for the long overdue deck to be built. Add to that the fact that every time we bought bird food it would moth up in a day and then there were moths all over the place! Very distressing to say the least.

All in all, I would have liked to see my bird count higher than 68 species. In 2011, I hope to have doubled that number.

It’s not ALL bad. I did have a few lifers: The Varied Thrush, Willet, Black-crowned Night Heron, and Townsend’s Solitaire.

When I first became interested in photography, I was handed a Pentax SLR and a 50mm normal lens and told to create some photographs. Since then, I’ve worked with, and owned, SLR gear or larger. I’ve never owned a pocket camera or point and shoot camera in my life (cell phone cameras excluded)… until now.

Okay, so the Nikon P7000 is not exactly the point and shoot that you would buy for your grandparents, but it’s compact enough for me to put in my coat pocket for whenever I run out and don’t feel like lugging around a Nikon D3 + lens(es) + flash + you get the idea.

The P7000 is referred to a “bridge” camera, because it is an in-between from a tiny compact P&S and the larger SLR cameras such as the D70, D300, etc. It still has many of the features you would find in the SLR cameras, such as manual control, shutter/aperture priority, custom metering, etc. but in a compact camera (ok, slightly larger) footprint with fixed zoom lens. It also has a lot of the gimmick marketing bells and whistles that are used by marketers to sell camera gear to consumers.

This is by no means meant to be an in-depth review of the Nikon P7000. There are plenty of places on the internet to find such reviews. Besides, they would likely do a better job at an official review than I would. I’m just writing this from a user’s perspective for those who might be interested in my initial experience with the camera. For some, that’s a good compliment to an official review since it’s more subjective.

I’ve put together a small gallery of images that I’ve captured with the new camera, and I have to say I’m happy with the result. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not going to capture the same type of image that my pro gear will; it’s more for that quick shot of family/friends while out, or someone’s pet looking cute, or a rainbow or other memorable scene. It is pretty forgiving in low light, compared to some other P&S cameras.

The only issues I’ve had, and these have mostly been brought up elsewhere on the web, are as follows:

• No Lightroom support. Well, not at first. Now that Lightroom 3.3 is available as RTM, all you need to do is upgrade to the new version, and there’s support built-in.
• RAW files are painfully slow to write to the memory card. This has been addressed with a firmware release, and it’s helped a bit… probably now about 40% faster at writing RAW files.
• There was an issue with the lens not focusing, and then having to re-initialize. This seems to have been fixed via the above mentioned firmware release.
• White balance is COMPLETELY off for most images after import. This can be easily corrected with ACR or within Lightroom, but it’s still a pain.
• Macro mode stinks. But then again, I am a macro photographer, so the bar is pretty high as far as I’m concerned.
• For some reason, Nikon released a new RAW format for this camera. Why? Also, the files are LARGER than the RAW files I am shooting with my D3! Seriously?
• There’s no reliable Windows 7 codec support for reading the new RAW files. Nikon has released a codec, but all it does is crash my Windows machine when I have it installed. Hopefully this will be addressed and corrected soon.