It was my birthday this month, and how did I choose to treat myself? At the risk of annoying my family, I got out my film camera to take pictures. And, taking things a step further, I visited eBay—an increasingly hazardous proposition for me of late—and bought a new lens, a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 zoom, because I got it into my head that I wanted to take some pictures at one of William’s baseball games.

The first half of the set was taken at my birthday dinner at Palermo, a local Italian restaurant that isn’t especially fancy, but offers some basic dishes prepared well and presented in a pleasant, family-friendly environment; as we were sitting down for dinner, some of William’s friends from school were leaving.

The lighting in the restaurant was a little challenging. I was using a 50mm prime lens that is reasonably fast, but it was still difficult to get sharp pictures from some angles. I left in some fairly fuzzy shots—presumably blurry due to camera shake—just so I would have some of William and Julia. Luckily, the pictures of Joe, who was in town for spring break—more on that in a post to come—turned out a bit more sharp.

The second half of the set was taken at William’s opening home game of the baseball season. This is his first year at the Majors level, so everything is moving a little faster than he’s used to from his experiences the last two years. But he’s working hard to catch up. He managed to walk and score a run in the game, and his team, the Pirates, came away with the win. He’d been thinking about asking for a transfer down to Minors for another year, but after the game, he was settled on staying where he is. I firmly believe the hits will come: when I throw wiffle balls to him in the yard, he crushes them; Julie has been taking him to the batting cages regularly to get used to the speed of the in-game pitches. Where we need to focus is on making plays in the outfield, which he hasn’t had many opportunities to do in game situations.

The light wasn’t a problem at the game, but at 300mm, the new-to-me lens is a little shorter than the 100-400mm lens I use with my digital camera. As a result, I wasn’t able to get as close to the action as I’m accustomed to. I’ll have to get used to it, though, because I have no current plans to buy more lenses for my retro film setup.

On the other hand, I do have a couple more rolls of film, and I have been eyeing a 35mm prime to use for just walking around. It would probably be healthy for me to suspend my eBay account before I do something I regret.

Gallery: Birthday Dinner / Home Opener