Jacob Lucas published a year end (or, really, year start) post recently which included some statistics on his photo catalog from 2010 so I thought it would be interesting to take a look at mine and see what’s happened this year.

During 2010, my Lightroom catalog grew to a total of 36,945 images, up 10,666 from the final tally in 2009. Of this year’s additions, I took 10,335 myself, the remainder being photos from other family members or friends (images for HDR Tennis, for example).

Of these photos, the camera breakdown is as follows:

I bought the D700 in spring and used it almost exclusively when I was shooting with a single camera. The D90 numbers represent images shot early in the year and on the small number of occasions that I was shooting with two bodies – covering a barrel racing competition and during one of my Longhorn Band shoots.

Looking at my lens use with the DSLRs, here’s the breakdown:

I included the Nikon 200-400mm just to make people think I had bought a really expensive new toy but, in actual fact, I shot 3 frames with it at a Precision Camera get together when Robert, one of their sales guys, had one and let me play with it. Super-expensive loaners aside, it looks as if I’m using my 3 Nikon professional zooms pretty evenly. The 24-70mm is my workhorse and the lens that pretty much lives on the D700 so it doesn’t surprise me that I took about twice as many pictures with it as with any other lens. I am somewhat surprised at the number I shot with the 14-24mm though and it’s pretty evident that I fell down on my macro photography this year since the Tamron 90mm saw very little action. Since buying the 24-70mm, I’ve hardly had the 35mm f/2.0 on the camera though I’ll likely hang on to it as a good standard lens for the crop sensor D90. The only lens in the collection that I’ve not used at all since February is the D90’s kit 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6. It’s a VR lens and covers a great range but I’m now horribly spoiled by the sharpness and speed of the other zooms. If anyone is interested in this lens, drop me a line and I bet we could do a deal.

This will be my last post on the blog for 2010 so I hop everyone had a great year and I wish you all health, happiness and loads of nice sharp pictures in 2011!

I’ve been fascinated by Fibonacci series and the Golden Ratio since attending a special mathematics course while in high school. The regional mathematics adviser came and gave a fabulous presentation on how Fibonacci numbers keep popping up in nature (as a side note, he could do this amazing thing where he would draw an almost perfect circle on a roller blackboard by moving the chalk left to right with one hand and rolling the board up and down with the other – very cool party trick). Aside from the lecture delivery being extremely entertaining, it was, I think, the first time I had seen mathematics tied so intimitely with nature and it probably went a long way towards convincing me to study physics at university.

Reading Trey Ratcliff’s blog today, therefore, I was delighted to see the following video. It’s beautifully done. Take a look and see if you agree. I recommend viewing full screen.