New Canon Lens

[{CLR} ObiTroy]

Really excited about it... as I said over is Skud's moon post, all I currently have available as subjects are cats and squirrels. I'll be at the Honor Flight welcome home this evening so hopefully can get some good shots of our WWII Vets.

Really like the depth of field it can provide...



Not a great picture but she yawned as I snapped it, thought it was kind of artsy.



And the bird seed thieves... took this from about maybe 40 yards away.



Impression so far: well worth the $199 it cost.

[BigTwinky]

Whats the lens? The dof looks either like a 50 1.8 or a longer zoom, but none come to mind at $199

[K PhaNTOM]

Those are absolutely gorgeous.

[mapes]

Your cat yawning pic reminds me of a pic I took of my wife in New Zealand. She was reading a book on the ferry over to Waiheke Island and I was trying to be covert and sneak up on her and take some pics. But like startling an animal on a animal planet show she charged me and tried to bite my camera. This is the result

[Skud]

Looks great, ObiTroy! What's better than a new lens at the beginning of the warm season?

[{CLR} ObiTroy]

I agree, Skud. Going to have fun with this.

Twinky, this is the lens:
Canon - 55-250mm f/4-5.6 Telephoto Zoom Lens for Select Canon Cameras - 2044B002

...it was on sale for $100 off

Ok... so my pictures from Honor Flight. This lens is obviously the wrong lens for this venue. The airport was crowded (with Patriots) waiting on our WWII Veterans to deplane. It was really hard to find a place to stand much less a place that is a good position to get pictures. It was great outside waiting on Patriot Guard Riders and Rolling Thunder to arrive to get some pictures, but inside it just didn't cut it. I should have went and put my 18-55 lens on after getting the outside shots but I had a decent spot inside and didn't want to lose it. I still love my new lens but it was so crowded inside, the lighting really sucked... I finally got frustrated and just kept panning and zooming while holding the shutter down. I took about 820 shots, 120 of which I kept which isn't a bad ratio. However, I got some good experience with it in a difficult situation.

Here's the shots.

This is my friend Dale arriving with the other bikes. I was about maybe 20 yards away here.



The flag line outside the airport to welcome the friends and families of the WWII Vets.



The crowd inside.



A couple of shots of the Vets.



Most all of the Vets are grinning ear-to-ear as they pass... this guys was very overwhelmed with the support. Big lump in my throat as he passed, bless his heart.



Mapes, shoot me the info on the little $150 lens you got, that's next on my list. :-)

[MTJ=DK=]

Nice Obitroy

Look forward to see some more Pictures from you


-MTJ

[Skud]

Nice, ObiTroy! Indoor shots can be tough (for me, I know), and then the decision between the wide lens or the long. I think the closeups, however, really captured the emotion/importance of the moment much better than the wide lens could have. Good on you for going there to support them, and good on you for the pics!

[{CLR} ObiTroy]

Thanks, Skud. Yep, indoor are tough for me as well... especially because I refuse to use a flash. There were a couple of professional photographers out there, each had two cameras strapped to them... one with big lens, one with little lens. That's the way to go if you can afford it I guess.

[BigTwinky]

Thats actually a very nice lens for the regular price, so a superb choice at $100 off.

When I was in Australia last year, my friend bought a 55-250 and I had a chance to shoot with it and was very impressed by the quality of the lens. It is a great addition to the 18-55 lens that typically comes with camera bodies.

Flash is not all bad. Actually, correction, flash, when taken off camera or bounced, is good. Using a popup flash or a hotshoe flash pointed at someone is horrible.

The reason is that it blasts the person with light, washes out the shadows. It is placed in the worse possible location, on top of the camera, on the same axis as the lens. Once you get that flash off camera, then the flash starts to create shadows in areas that help accentuate dimension, mood, contrast and so on.

You can get it off camera with either infrared (built in to most Nikons and newer Canons), wires, radio triggers. A great alternative is to bounce the flash (if you have a hotshoe flash). The head of the flash can swivel, so pointing it at a wall and then having the light bounce off the wall and onto the subject works very well. The wall also acts as a diffuser and makes the light not as harsh, much softer than straight up flash.

Another alternative is a top mount diffuser. I know many people use the Gary Fung Lightsphere, which is a dome shaped thing that spreads the light everywhere. The flash lights into the dome, the dome diffuses the light. My issue with that is that you can't control the direction of the light, and there is alot of light loss.

My alternative is a Lumiquest Omnibounce (I think thats what it is called). The flash shoots up into the lumiquest and then it gets projected forward (or up). Not ideal, but when you have to run and gun in an event, better than straight on flash.