Play the Links

Why so late?

Yes, I usually start wingeing in late August or September, which is completely stupid, cause even if I get through to you by the time Christmas comes around and you feel like splurging on yourself instead of those ungrateful brats who only show up when they want money or need a baby-sitter, or you discover that The Thing on the Couch has spent $700 on a new LED TV and never said a thing to you and now you want to spend the money you planned to give to him on something nice for you, you will have forgotten all about this so I decided to wait and tell you to just squirrel the cash away and hope that you get even more for the holiday and then after the first of the year when all of the merchants are trying to unload their inventory you'll have a wad of money to buy that camera.

So having waited like a smart shopper, and it's after the holiday so that all of the returns have been made and it is safe to go back out the mall don't just go online and try one of these guys:

https://www.adorama.com/c/Used

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Used-Equipment/ci/2870/N/4294247188

https://www.henrys.com/Used-Photo-Video-Gear.aspx

http://www.glazerscamera.com/

http://www.glazerscamera.com/

http://stores.ebay.com/KEH-Camera-Outlet

So what do all of these links mean? (And yes, I checked them out and they are all active, safe and phishing free)

They are the places where you should be shopping for your camera equipment, even if all you are willing to spring for is a pocket-sized point and shoot. The difference between a good used camera and a new camera can be as much as four hundred dollars and that will by a lot of oil paint! And with modern electronics, they either work or they don't.

I have two Pentax K-x cameras, both from these resources, both working perfectly. Mine has around forty-six thousand activations and the Long Sufferin's has about four thousand and the K-x is supposed to be good for fifty to a hundred thousand activations so I'll let you know when my K-x kicks.

Now a bit more about the links. Adorama is the lowest priced outlet I have found and they are usually very straight forward about the condition of their merchandise. They say right in the description if there is anything which might keep you from selecting an item. But they do sell a lot of items for parts only so read carefully.

B&H is the most expensive outlet but they are also the most comprehensive. If you want a DSLR they have it, if you want Canon Ultra Premium inkjet Photo paper they have it and if you want a lens cap for that old Argus brick sitting on the top shelf of the closet, they have it. Just be aware they charge for stocking all of that stuff so you will pay a bit more.

Henry's is a Canadian outfit, How come ya'll don't recommend 'Marcian, heah? Cause Henry's has some of the best stock and prices you will find, their merchandise is good quality and the exchange rate is very favorable right now. $100C is around $80 US so you get an immediate twenty percent discount.

If you live in these parts and are willing to travel then Glazer's in Seattle should be on your shopping list. They have excellent merchandise and great prices and you can see it and hear it and touch it before you buy it. Besides Seattle is a beautiful city, holidays should always be spent in a city and Art Wolfe has his gallery there so you just can't lose. (You don't know who Art Wolfe is, shame on you! Travels to the Edge on PBS. And check out his blog cause he is most generous with his tips even if you'd never be able to afford that Canon USMC 200-400 with the built in 1.4x extender.)

KEH is the Wily E Coyote Acme of camera stores, they got everything and it is great and it is cheap and they are fast and if you happen to break it before you get to use it they have a repair shop you can send it back to to get whatever you did wrong put right and have it back again ready to shoot those first snow of the season pictures.

I have done business with them several times and have always found them to be completely honest and reliable.

And while you are in their neck of the woods, take a look at the KEH outlet store. If you couldn't stand to buy at KEH's modest prices maybe you can find what you are looking for in the outlet store for an even more modest price.

It is Ebay so be sure to click on the Buy it Now button to get the non-auction price. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

So get on the computer, take a look at the links and I'll be back tomorrow to chat some more.

And It's Free

Museum Store Sale! During our Saturday, December 2nd, Holiday Open House and Artisan market, from 10am until 3pm, the Museum Store will have 10% off selected items. CHM members will get 20% off their purchase.* Not a member and want the discount? Sign up anytime! *Discount taken on total purchase; excludes sale and consignment items. Cannot be combined with other discounts.

THIS SATURDAY! Come Join Us for our Holiday Open House & Artisan’s Market! Click here for a sneak peek! December 2nd 10am-3pm Market Coos History Museum is Admission Free All Day Activities for kids Live music Shop from unique vendors CHM Angel Tree Include the museum in your holiday gift giving. Help fulfill museum staff wishes for donations to pay for needed program supplies and equipment. Come into the museum and select paper ornaments from the tree, then go to our admissions counter to make your donation. Each paper ornament features a suggested donation amount to cover the needed expense. Your generous support is greatly appreciated and needed. Print Making Classes Sunday, December 3rd 1pm - 4pm Join us at the Coos History Museum for an intro to the historical art of Gyotaku with the help of the Charleston Marine Life Center sharing information on our subjects. Other classes in this series and their locations can be found on our website here. 1st Tuesday Talk John Whitty, WWII: Its Effects in Coos County December 5th    6:30pm The talk will cover the war years, both locally and around the world, and will also cover the post-war effects on Coos County. Doors open at 6pm. Museum exhibits and store open until 8:30pm. Free with paid museum admission. CHM Members get in free. First Tuesday Talks are sponsored by Al Peirce Company with additional support from The Mill Casino. South Coast Biography: Local History From Lives of the Past Wednesday evenings January 10th-March 21st 6:30pm-7:30pm CHM board member Steve Greif will again teach a local history class this winter term with a new curriculum twist. “South Coast Biography: Local History From Lives of the Past” will be held at the Coos History Museum. The fee for the Southwestern Oregon Community College community education class is $60. As this is a non-credit course, there is no textbook, assignments, or tests. Interested participants must register for the class through the community college. Call Steve Greif at the museum for more information. (541)756-6320 CHM 995.1.14124 a Public display of the list of names of Coos County's WWII fighters. The billboard was against the outside right wall of a two-story bank building, on the corner of Second and Central Streets. Toddler Yoga! Every Thursday 10:30am-11:30am Cost is $7 per adult or free if you are a CHM member.  Not a member? Family memberships are only $50 per year.  That is cheaper than the cost of a gym! Bay Watch? On the front page of our website, when the pictures scroll through, is a link to see what is going on in the bay.Click here to see what we get to see every day. One of the many benefits of getting a Friend membership or higher is being able to gain access to the 945 museums that are a part of that association. Click here if you are interested to know what NARM is and see places you can go.

Membership to the Coos History Museum has its rewards when shopping locally. Show your membership card when you shop at Tru Furniture, Truffles! and Katrina Kathleen's to receive 10% off regular prices. Shopping online this holiday season? Here are a couple of ways you can help us out! Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price to Coos County Historical Society by using the linkhttp://smile.amazon.com/ch/93-0446513 You care about our cause; and we care about YOU! That’s why we’ve teamed up with Giving Assistant to make it easier to donate. Simply sign up, select our cause, and shop at over 3,000+ online stores. You’ll save money and earn cash back on your everyday purchases, all while making a difference. Shop here: https://givingassistant.org/np#coos-county-historical-society Copyright © 2017 Coos History Museum, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Coos History Museum 1210 N Front St. Coos Bay, OR 97420 541-756-6320 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Worth the Weather

Seeing as how the Ole Trawler is a most important person and gets all of the skivvy ahead of the media folks and seeing as how Jardin is the nicest, mostest importantest chef, artist, musician, impresario and celebrity and lets me know when some really important, earth-shaking event is going to take place this isn't just a ps. it's a media tsunami!

p.s. Jardin, Mitch Rolicheck and Erika Fare will have their art reception on Sunday December 3rd, 2-4 p.m. at Black Market Gourmet

So get off the couch, turn off the TV and come Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. the football season is over anyway and over-tall men in boxer shorts running up and down a hardwood floor is not something you should stay home for, so no excuses, be there!

Annual Appeal

That Time of the Year

Each year at this time, we pause a moment to think about all of the things for which we are thankful, a pause button when Chrisley comes on, instant replay, and of course fried Snickers.

Then we have to sober up and face reality once again.

You cannot create great art without a store of great images. Where to find those images? Well if you are like Gary Ostrom and you have an Eidetic memory you can simply call up all the images stored in your brain an arrange them in the most creative and visual way possible.

And the rest of us can struggle through back issues of National Geographic hoping to find something which will fit with the landscape in our minds...

Or we could just fire up the computer and look at all of the images stored in the file where you have been keeping all of the photographs you take every day so that when you need something to work with you have a wonderful, visually stunning, handy reference right there.

What do you mean you haven't been taking pictures. All artists must be photographers or fall on the mercy of a photographer who happens to get published in some magazine where you can copy their work and get slapped with a Copyright violation lawsuit.

There just is no excuse for not making your own memory file with photographs of your own taking so that you hold the Copyright and will have to sue yourself for a violation. You can even (shudder) use your phone.

Of course if you do the images won't be so visually stunning or complexly composed cause the forty megapixels in that tiny little camera are not the same as the big fat megapixels in a proper digital camera. I know the Constitution declares all men to be created equal, cause women are superior and don't need any silly old declaration to support their right to be right and to let you know how the cow ate the cabbage although I never understood why a cow would eat a cabbage when there was plenty of good ole grass hanging around. But the right to pixel equality is not a Constitutionally guaranteed right and the only way you can get bigger pixels is to get a better camera.

So I'll say once again, there is no reason for any artist not to have a memory file filled with pictures from a real, top-quality, megapixel camera. Now that often means a DSLR but there are some very good fixed lens and super zoom cameras around and they can do in a pinch. But there's the deal, technology marches on. For the same price as a very good new super zoom or fixed lens camera you can get a Tom Swift and his Electric eye shutter, Wily E Coyote Acme certified, Captain Marvel Ovaltine super spy decoder ring DSLR a few generations old and have a machine which will always be able to make better pictures than you will.

The likely suspects are, the Pentax Kx, the Nikon D90 and the Canon Xsi, all twelve megapixel cameras using memory cards, rechargable batteries and built in electronic flash units so you never have to shoot in the dark. In fact the cameras have such ISO flexibility that in most cases you won't have to use a flash to shoot in the dark.

Yes, I know you don't know what an ISO is and that won't be a problem cause the camera will and it will set the ISO for you so don't let a few letters intimidated you unless they are IRS on an audit letter.

So why a DSLR and why fat pixels and why so many and why so much and why all this fuss and feathers?

A Pixel is the basic unit of digital photography and in many cases the more you have the better they will produce and image, but, com'on you knew there was a but coming, some pixels are not the same as others. The pixels in your phone, while they are handy and better than not having a camera are not so great for making an image, cause they are eensy-yeensy wittle thangs and they just don't have the puch of a big fat DSLR pixel.

How many do you need?

The basic answer is as many as you can get, but in the real world, the manufacturers will offer you so many pixels you won't have room for them on your computer. Some of the new Canons and Nikons have fifty megapixel sensors! That takes up more room than an SUV trying to find a parking space at Fred Meyer!

And if you shoot RAW that means even more space. (No you probably won't shoot RAW cause that's for photo geeks, but you might so I told you anyway.)

No for most things, even if you want to print your photos instead of using them as a memory file, twelve megapixels will do just fine.

Why twelve? That's enough to do highly detailed 11x14 prints or use a templates for textiles, mugs, mouse pads, sweatshirts and reuseable bags and you will want to do that cause all of those things will promote your art and you can never have too much promotion.

So why not just use a point and shoot camera which will fit in a pocket and not have enough controls to launch the next space shuttle of to shoot “Mad” Mike Hughes off to prove the world is flat? Because you can do so much more with a DSLR and still have the money to buy your canvases.

Technology is wonderful and moves at the speed of light. What was yesterdays whiz-bang, super cool, nerdalicious product is today's boat anchor. Which is bad for fishes but really good for you. The amazing, ground-breaking camera of a year or two ago is worth...less than a lawn mower today.

Yes, you can be just like the photo-journalists they show in the movies, with a long lens and a battery packed body banging against your photographer's vest and you won't have to lie to the Thing On the Couch or the Long Sufferin! You can even get a Nikon D90 or D3100 for less than two hundred and fifty bucks! Kids that's the High-Priced Spread we're talking about.

Now owning a Nikon does not make you a photographer, it makes you a Nikon owner but you weren't packing for a trip to Afghanistan anyway.

So let's think about this, for less than the price of a brand name super-zoom you can go Full-Monty and have a DSLR, a Nikon, Canon, Sony or Pentax DSLR.

And then you will be equipped to make the most of those opportunities and save all of the good moments for later when you are staring at a blank canvas and wondering why you ever wanted to be an artist!

Dance the Night Away

Happy holidays.

The Folk Society is please to announce that our last Contra Dance of 2017 will be a very special public event.

We have a wonderful band slated to play music at the Coos Bay Senior Center from 7-10PM on Saturday evening, December 2.  They are the six-member Cultural Ecology Band, and they play lively, intriguing, toe-tapping dance tunes.  

The caller for this dance hales from Portland.  He is a very skilled and personable young man named Silas Minyard.  He will teach all the dancers everything they need to know to have a lovely evening of social dancing.

Here is our PSA for this event.

Thanks for all your help throughout the year.  

Have a wonderful holiday season.

Paul Poresky, for the South Coast Folk Society

From: South Coast Folk Society

Subject: South Coast Community Contra Dance!

When: Saturday Evening, DECEMBER 2, 2017

Time: 7:00PM to 10:00PM

Where: Coos Bay Senior Center, 4^th and Ingersoll, Coos Bay, OR

Featuring: Music by CULTURAL ECOLOGY, and Dance Calling by SILAS MINYARD

Folk Society to Host a Contra Dance December 2, Public Welcome

Saturday, December 2, is the date for the next exciting Contra Dance in Coos Bay.  All are welcome to this public event which features live music by the south coast band Cultural Ecology, and great calling by Silas Minyard of Portland. The Contra Dance will be held at the Coos Bay Senior Center, located at 4^th and Ingersoll, starting at 7PM in the evening.  Contra dancing is a light-hearted form of social dancing that is easy to learn and fun for all ages.  Singles, couples and families can all enjoy contra dancing, and new dancers are always welcome.

The South Coast Folk Society is your host for the evening. They are pleased to announce that Cultural Ecology, a popular local band which plays lively dance tunes and waltzes, will be on stage from 7-10pm for your dancing pleasure. The six musicians in this band are Stacy Rose on hammer dulcimer and penny whistle, Gail Elber on bazouki and mandolin, Tom Purvis on flute, Alayne Olmstead on Violin, Sharon Rogers on accordion, and Marty Giles playing percussion.

The Folk Society has arranged for a popular guest caller from Portland, Silas Minyard, to guide dancers throughout the evening.  He will teach all the steps and patterns you need to know.  Silas is a very personable caller with an exciting repertoire of dances.  His dances are appropriate for all ages and skill levels.  He will give a lesson at 7PM, and first timers who show up for this lesson will receive a ticket for free admission to their next dance.  Wear your dancing shoes, casual clothes, and a big smile.

This event is alcohol and fragrance free.  Refreshments are available.  Doors open at 6:45PM.  Admission: General $7, Seniors over 60 $6, Members $5, Students with ID are free, and Supervised Children under 6 are also free. For more information call 541-404-8267 or visit www.southcoastfolksociety.com.

   

Current Events

Museum Store Sale! During our Holiday Open House and Artisan market, on December 2nd, from 10am until 3pm, the Museum Store will have 10% off selected items. CHM members will get 20% their purchase.* Not a member and want the discount? Sign up anytime! *Restrictions apply.

Come Join Us for our Holiday Open House & Artisan’s Market! Click here for a sneak peek! December 2nd 10am-3pm Market Coos History Museum is Admission Free All Day Here are a few of our vendors. Check next week for more! Monique Guzman - Fine wrapped jewelry and more Art of Life - Oregon artisans, pewter, glass and more Hilltop Honey - Natural bath and beauty products Print Making Classes Sunday, December 3rd 1pm - 4pm Join us at the Coos History Museum for an intro to the historical art of Gyotaku with the help of the Charleston Marine Life Center sharing information on our subjects. Other classes in this series and their locations can be found on our website here. Weaving Classes January 20th Cedar/Sweet Grass coaster and place mats - $90 February 24th Tule Mat - $80 Classes will be taught be Stephanie Craig, who owns Kalapuya Weaving. 1st Tuesday Talk John Whitty, WWII: Its Effects in Coos County December 5 6:30pm - 7:30pm The talk will cover the war years, both locally and around the world, and will also cover the post-war effects on Coos County. Doors open at 6pm. Museum exhibits and store open until 8:30pm. Free with paid museum admission. CHM Members get in free. First Tuesday Talks are sponsored by Al Peirce Company with additional support from The Mill Casino. South Coast Biography: Local History From Lives of the Past Wednesday evenings January 10th-March 21st 6:30pm-7:30pm CHM board member Steve Greif will again teach a local history class this winter term with a new curriculum twist. “South Coast Biography: Local History From Lives of the Past” will be held at the Coos History Museum. The fee for the Southwestern Oregon Community College community education class is $60. As this is a non-credit course, there is no textbook, assignments, or tests. Interested participants must register for the class through the community college. Call Steve Greif at the museum for more information. (541)756-6320 CHM 966.121 n1 Heinz food display at Ollivent & Weaver grocery store. Circa 1920's Toddler Yoga! Every Thursday 10:30am-11:30am Cost is $7 per adult or free if you are a CHM member.  Not a member? Family memberships are only $50 per year.  That is cheaper than the cost of a gym! Bay Watch? On the front page of our website, when the pictures scroll through, is a link to see what is going on in the bay.Click here to see what we get to see every day. One of the many benefits of getting a Friend membership or higher is being able to gain access to the 945 museums that are a part of that association. Click here if you are interested to know what NARM is and see places you can go.

Membership to the Coos History Museum has its rewards when shopping locally. Show your membership card when you shop at Tru Furniture, Truffles! and Katrina Kathleen's to receive 10% off regular prices. Shopping online this holiday season? Here are a couple of ways you can help us out! Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price to Coos County Historical Society by using the linkhttp://smile.amazon.com/ch/93-0446513 You care about our cause; and we care about YOU! That’s why we’ve teamed up with Giving Assistant to make it easier to donate. Simply sign up, select our cause, and shop at over 3,000+ online stores. You’ll save money and earn cash back on your everyday purchases, all while making a difference. Shop here: https://givingassistant.org/np#coos-county-historical-society Copyright © 2017 Coos History Museum, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Coos History Museum 1210 N Front St. Coos Bay, OR 97420 541-756-6320 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.