Sweet Anticipation

Well, my new lens and flash showed up, and my camera's scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I'm planning on seeing a friend of mine play at a club in the Village tomorrow night, and it would be an excellent opportunity to try out the new toys.

Here's to hoping everything goes according to plan.

Woohoo!

Current Repair Status
Status: Completed
(Unit will be delivered to you in approximately 4 business days)

Some New Toys While I Wait

Shipped off my camera last week to Canon, and they've received it and are repairing it. I don't know how long it will take before I get it back, but hopefully it will only be a few more days.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time looking for a replacement lens for the 18-55 IS that came as part of the kit. While I was in Florida I spent a lot of time walking around with that lens, and while I got some really good shots from it, I always felt like I was fighting it a bit. Specifically, it was really hard to get a shallow DOF because the lens just isn't fast enough. It was serviceable when stopped down, but I couldn't get a lot of the selective focus shots I would have liked to. I kept going back to the 50mm prime for those, but that's a bit of a pain when walking around because there's no zoom, so I found myself rather limited in the kinds of shots I could take.

The solution, of course, was to look for a replacement "every day" lens. In the end, my decision came down to three choices - two really expensive (for me) and one less so.

The two expensive choices were two of Canon's L series lenses, the EF 24-70/2.8 L and the EF 24-105/4 L IS. Both are about the same price - right around $1000 - and both are by all accounts excellent glass. The 24-70 is bigger, heavier, and faster.

The 24-105 is longer, lighter, a stop slower, and boasts Image Stabilization, which helps when hand-holding the camera. If I were to spend this much, I could only get one, and I went back and forth for days over which I preferred. Did I want a longer lens with IS, or a faster lens? The size and weight of the 24-70 didn't bother me, and in fact I kind of liked the idea of having that behemoth on my camera.

The less expensive option was the Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8 SP XR ZL Di LD Aspherical (IF). Yes, that's more than your recommended daily allowance of acronyms. The really germane information in the name is that the lense is 28-75/2.8 - a little shorter on the wide end than the Canons, and a tad longer than the 24-70 while being just as fast. I've read pretty much every word printed on the internet that I could find about this lens, and what I think I know is that the lens is extremely sharp, boasting image quality that rivals the Canon 24-70. Its auto focus is a little slower, especially in low light. It's not nearly as well-built - almost entirely plastic versus the Canon's weather-sealed, metal, L series quality construction. It's also smaller and lighter than the Canon, by a lot. Oh, and it's about 1/3rd the price, clocking in at about $350, plus it has a 6-year warranty versus the 1-year on the Canons.

In the end, as much as I really wanted one of the Canons, I decided the Tamron was really the better value for me right now. I don't need weather sealing, for instance - my camera isn't weather sealed anyway. Sure, either Canon would last me forever, but there's no reason I can't upgrade to the 24-70 some day if I so choose. Most importantly, the money saved allowed me to spend some money on another toy.

One of the things I'm becoming more interested in exploring is flash photography, and the built-in flash on the camera just wasn't going to cut it. With the money I saved on the lens, I picked up a Canon 430EXII Speedlight. Now I not only get to play with a new lens, but also start learning how to properly use a flash.

Now if they'd just send my camera back...

Broken Dreams

Ok, maybe that's a little melodramatic, but the truth is that I woke up this morning to find my camera broken. It sees all memory cards as write-protected, so it's impossible to take any pictures with it. I have a feeling it's a simple mechanical breakdown (there's a little switch to set SD cards to be write-protected that doesn't seem to be being recognized properly) and not something more insidious. Camera's still under warranty, so I'll box it up and ship it off to Canon as soon as I get home.

I was playing with the photo of the sun yesterday and thought maybe a B&W version would bring out the "sun dogs" (those two spots in the sky) a little better. I like the result.

Of Memory Cards and Time

They say one of the great things about digital photography is that you can take pictures without thinking. Just take, take, take! No film to buy, so Hell, just go nuts, right?

Well, I took 168 pictures today and ended up with four that I liked. Four.

Maybe I'll find another gem in there, but I doubt it. Oh, there are 10 or so candid shots of my stepmom and her sister and the dog that are all right as snapshots, but really, there are four. Four shots out of 168. Also, two of the four aren't very good.

Here are the first two that I like. They aren't very good photographs, but they make me think, "Yay! Beach!" so I touched them up and kept them.

The other two are photos I kind of like, so yay.

Rethinking Some Retouching

After some contemplation last night, I decided I went too far with the colors in the fog picture that I liked. Upping the blacks brought out all the purples and magentas, but it needed toning back. Here are a couple of more passes, based on how colorful I want the final to be. The first is close to the original, but I think it might just have too much gray. The second is a scaled back version of my first attempt.

Foggy Florida Sunset

It's been ridiculously foggy all day, but while outside having a cigarette, the fog broke briefly and I ran in and got my camera. I like what I got, especially the second one.

Some HDR Experiments

Last night, I tried my hand at some HDR photography with the sunset. Not really pleased with how they came out, but they're still kind of pretty.

And here are a couple of regular pictures. It's just hard not to take pictures of sunsets.

Some Quick Sunset Photos

Here are a couple of quick sunset photos. Taken with the 18-55, 30 second exposures.

More Florida Wandering

Yesterday I walked a few miles to a local camera store (which was disappointing) and took a few shots I ended up kind of liking.

The night picture was taken outside a restaurant I ate at for dinner.

Sarasota II

Went out again today and walked around a bit after having lunch. None of the pictures below are really great compositionally, but what I was really going for was practicing how to get the colors right. When shooting RAW, these came off the camera pretty bland and washed out. I may have over-processed them a bit, but I like the feeling they give - it reminds me how it felt out walking around today. These were all shot with the 18-55 kit lens.

Sarasota Trip I

We went out walking in Sarasota today and I took a ton of shots. Two of them came out well, I think. One of my father, another of my father's dog.

Out and About

Out to dinner with some friends last night and took a few pictures. here are some that I ended up liking. Since I don't yet have a bag, I left the house with only the 50mm/1.8.