new toys

I finally purchased the two Canon primes -- 85mm and 50mm / f1.8. All I can say is wow, what a difference. It's hard to imagine going back to the kit lens again. Thanks for the recommendations, Richard!

Online Shops

Shopping on internet for the next lens can be challenging not knowing who to trust. This article by Bob Atkins explains very well where NOT to shop.

http://www.lensplay.com/lenses/lens_buying.html

Some of the shops that I use.

Amazon is good but not always the cheapest. If you are a Prime member, it may be worth while -- the minor difference in price can be justified by free two day shipping. Also, Amazon has one of the best return policies in the market. Watch for the changing price on Amazon. They lower and raise price (I couldn't figure out the pattern but it seems weekends are most expensive and week days are better.)

B&H has most constantly good price if you use discount code. This code was easily available on forums but I don't know about now.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/

Some of the other sites:

BuyDig -- fairly good with minimum "up sale" calls.
http://www.buydig.com/shop/home.aspx

Adorama -- decent. I shopped couple of times with good experience.
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl

Onecall
http://www.onecall.com/default.aspx?BCPID=1307

J&R
http://www.jr.com/

If all else fails, I try PriceGrabber and read the rating on merchant information.
http://www.pricegrabber.com/

Hope this helps.

Tokina AT-X 280 AF PRO 28-80mm F/2.8

Tokina has been one of my old time favorite lenses as far as third party lenses are concerned. This one is no exception. Since this lens has been discontinued for some time now, it wasn’t easy finding a new one. I do not trust used lens from Ebay -- it is hit or miss in my opinion.

This is my second copy. I sold my first copy about a year ago and been looking for another one for some time now. I am not one of those pixel peeping person. I try to test all my equipment in real life situation. I look for Image Quality, Easy of Use, and Built. Tokina exceeds in the built category by far -- all the other third party lenses are left in dust :)

Size: about same as Canon 24-70mm (left to right: Tokina 28-80 F/2.8, Canon 24-70 F/2.8, Canon 24-105 F/4).

Rear element: Canon 24-70mm has much larger rear element (costs twice as much as well).

Fron element: About same. You can also see the difference between Canon UV filter (left) and B+W UV filter (right).

Now, some snapshots from my backyard… (minimum post processing)

Tech Data: http://www.thkphoto.com/products/tokina/afl-04b.html

Conclusion: Worth every penny!!!

Joshua Tree National Park

Since the active on this site has slowed down, I've decided to post more :)

I was shooting at Joshua Tree National Park over the weekend -- early morning and long exposure shot.

Indian Tiger

I was in India recently and took some tiger shots (from a moving bus through a small window opening). I wish I could have gone a real safari but this will do :)

doors

coffee and milk

Came across this today, a fantastic photo collage of milk droplets interacting with coffee. Taken with a Nikon D70.

Use of diffusers?

Ah, it's been like 3 month since anyone has posted. I guess people aren't taking that many pictures? Anyways, I have some questions. What's the point of diffusers and different diffuser colors?

aftermath

Here in China, we're in the middle of the 15-day Spring Festival holiday, which means food and fireworks galore. The entire country sounds like a warzone at night, with the heaviest barrage occuring in the first evening (Chinese New Year's Eve). Here are a few shots which show what the streets looked like the morning after.

Intense

We had a concert last night with Matthew Smith of Indelible Grace. Tried to take some photos, but most didn't come out well..except for this picture. Something about the intensity of this boy.

Manufacturing process of a Canon EF 500mm f/4 L IS USM Lens

Ever wonder how Canon makes those Big White Lenses? Take a look at this.

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/l_plant/f_index.html

I am sure that Canon does not make all of the glasses themselves. But, for those "L" lenses, it appears that they are making it from scratch. Total video time for all three clips are 15 min.

Sports Illustrated's digital workflow

This is an old article but worth reading. It shows how the PROS do their business.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6453-6821

I am more of landscape guy, but also looking into sports photography -- possibly :)

Here's an article in today's NYTimes on photo management software. Seems Adobe introduced Photoshop Lightshop this week ($200), while Vista has a photo suite already built in. But the writer also makes a strong case for Elements. Perhaps he's been reading this blog.

RAW or JPEG

This is my quick 5min version of duplicating the test done on http://www.phototestcenter.com/html/raw_v_jpeg.html

No other modification was done here:

Shot Setting: ISO 1600, F/4.0, 1/15 sec.

Original Image:

JPEG 100% crop:

JPEG converted from RAW 100% crop:

In real life situation, it is more than just details. RAW allows you to have much more flexibility.

picasa?

And now for another segway. What type of post-processing software have you guys found useful? I'm currently using Picasa (is this even considered post-processing?), which seems great for beginners like me, but I wonder what some of our other more prosumer-ish contributors use? I really like that "dark-edge" look which I see on a lot of Tim's photos -- that seems to be more advanced than what Picasa can do.

Does anyone use the software which comes bundled with the Canon DSLRs? I haven't loaded it on my computer yet, but I wonder if it's worthwhile to do so.

Inside Canon Irvine, U.S.A.

I went to Canon Irvine today to pick up the camera from service. When I got home, I found some test images on the memory card. (Normally, they don't take the CF card but they were testing my lens with my camera and the images were left on the card that I brought home.)

I always wanted to see what is behind the door :)

I'm a relative beginner at DSLRing, with equally basic equipment (Canon 350D w/kit lens). Reading these entries has inspired me to both shoot more and purchase more. Unfortunately I'm on a limited budget and usually carry around limited space, so I'd like to purchase one good all-around lens which doesn't need to excel at any particular one thing, but is adequate for a wide variety of purposes (though mostly scenery and family shots). Budgeting maybe around $600 max, but wouldn't mind a cheaper one. Any recommendations? Does such a lens even exist?

These are some photos I've taken with the kit lens, which I've found to be serviceable but not very flexible. They are also examples of what I enjoy shooting.

Tamron 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 Macro LD Di Sample Shots

In addition to the post below, here are some sample shots taken with the new Tamron 70-300mm. It is taken @ f/8, ISO 200

Some more shots of the lens (it does have the metal mount),

Image quality test will follow next week.

Tamron AF70-300mm F/4-5.6 Macro

Accompanying the 17-50mm lens was this lens, which hopefully will be the last of my lens purchases for a while. I wanted something for standard and wide angle, which the 17-50mm covers; and this 70-300mm provides me with zoom and macro. It's a relatively cheap lens, at around $170, but it had decent reviews. Below is the unboxing:

As with the other Tamron lens, in the box were:

• lens
• manual
• lens hood

This lens is surprisingly light and the build feels light as well. But it's all about how it performs. We shall see.

I went to Laguna Beach today with some friends to take pictures. I ended up shooting over 370 shots, which was easy to do with continuous shooting enabled. When I have some time in the coming week I'll post a few pics.

Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8

My lenses finally arrived this past Saturday from BuyDig. I only got the XTi body so I needed to get a standard lens. At this stage I'm not ready to go all out on lenses so I compromised and got this one, which, though still not very cheap, had decent reviews. Below is the unboxing.

In the box were:

• lens
• manual
• lens hood

I took these shots with a lens that arrived earlier (the "new lens" I refer to at the end of the first post), the Canon EF 50mm F/1.8, which many say gives the most bang for your buck, priced around $70. It has a very shallow depth of field, which gives these pics their look. These were taken in low light because the sun was going down. During sunset my room turns orange/pink, which these pics hint at.