The Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro!!!

Hey! Long time. There is a neat photoshop trick to get around the detail problem that I talked about in the last post. More on that later though.

Today's subject is my new lens :D. The 100mm macro from Canon. I have a 18-55 kit lens and a 50mm f1.8. I wanted to get some telephoto range and also wanted a macro lens.

I looked at the 100mm macro, the 75-300mm USM and the 75-300 USM IS. Frankly speaking the zoom lenses are extremely disappointing. For $500+ the lens has a very bad zoom rotation. These lenses NEED image stabalization by the way. The difference is about $350! But if you are planning to do any wildlife / lowlight photography you just can do it with these lenses. Even the IS only gives marginally better results.

The image stablized 70-300 + the 100mm macro were way over my budget because I needed a bag as well. So I decided to get just the 100mm and a "KATA" sack. If you are looking to buy a camera sack which can also hold your laptop, I strongly suggest these bags. Lowpro is insanely over-priced.

Managing Detail

Having extremely light and dark objects in frame is always challenging. Especially when they are white and dark green and when these are the colours of a flower and it's leaves...

You want the detail in both the flower and the leaves. But here's what happens if you don't pay attention.

Shooting a 1/400, f/2.8 this is what I got.

The leaves are perfect but the flower got overexposed. This is exactly what happens when you leave the camera at evaluative metering.



Since I had the RAW, I toned it down a bit. This is what it looks like @ -1 EV

The flower is perfectly exposed here.



The flower being the subject this is an acceptable picture. But really, the leaves could use a little more light. Fill in flash won't work because it's the background that's under exposed and not the foreground. Anyone got any ideas around this?

Guitar Wednesday

So I am taking a week of from office. Which means I have loads of time to play WoW and take pictures. Pune is lovely these days. Nicely overcast. It creates a serene but romantic mood. There's nothing like taking portraits of my guitar :D

Here are two extremely moody pictures. And completely opposite of each other too...

1/200, f/4 @ ISO 400 (-1 EV)

This is the perfect mood I wanted to capture. All that's missing is a hot glass of chai and a plate of pakodas...



Here's the other one. Poster material. Of course this is processed later.

Bokeh

As I mentioned earlier, on the subject of Bokeh, I have read a lot about the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. There are some pretty good examples of bad bokeh out there too. The problem arises when you have bright lights in the background. But with a normal background I quite like the bokeh produced.

Here are some examples,

1/30, f/2.8 @ ISO 200.
This two shiny pentagons are the effect of a shiny chocolate wrapper on the table. At f/2.8 they actually look like pentagons because of the 5 blade diaphragm of the lens.




1/60, f/1.8 @ ISO 200
This image shows the difference between the wide open aperture and the previous sample. The shiny spots are now blurred ovals rather than pentagons.



Problem with these pictures is, along with distracting backgrounds, the subject itself is glass which means you are not at it as much as looking through it.

On the other hand, here's an example of a better subject over a not very distracting background.

1/125, f3.2 @ ISO 200



Well, that's all for now. I am eagerly waiting for the weekend office outing. Will present some great portrait opportunities I guess.

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

I insisted on getting the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II with my 450D. Although a very controvertial lens, it's main feature is it's price. At $80, it's a small risk. Some people had complaints about the bokeh. I did see some decent examples of "bad bokeh" that people had posted. After the first day of shooting with this lens though I am very positive. Maybe I just got lucky and got a really good piece.

Here are a few examples.

1/60, f2.2 @ 400 ISO
If you look at the image it's rendered beautifully with only Crazy Sid in focus.













1/60, f2.2 @ 200 ISO
Perfect portrait lens. Nice realistic colours. This is exactly what I was thinking about when I decided to buy the lens.













1/60, f2.2 @ 400 ISO
Decent picture here too. The only thing I'd want is a little more depth of field. I guess I have to practice shooting with Aperture Priority.













All in all I am absolutely thrilled to have my DSLR and a fast normal lens. Will post back with more examples soon.

Digital Rebel, I am

I have been using a Panasonic DMC-FZ30 for the past 3 years. It's a great camera if you want to go for versatility. With a 12X optical zoom (35-420mm equiv), you can do a lot with it. I have done portraits, family functions, wildlife and some street photography on it. It's biggest problem, as with all prosumer cameras, is that it tries to pack 8MP onto a minature sensor. So you have a 35-420mm f/2.8-3.7 lens, which by itself is not bad at all. But your camera is useless at 200 or 400 ISO. You can't imagine using this camera indoors... or even outdoors after sunset.

So I started saving for a DSLR. I had always heard great things about Nikon and was almost sure that I'd end up buying a Nikon D40x, when I found the Canon 450D review. There was no doubt I had to go for this one. Two months into this decision a collegue went to the states and brought back with him my Canon Digital Rebel XSi (A.K.A. 450D) today!!

I wanted a nice fast normal lens and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 caught my attention in one of the EBay bundle deals. I started reading about it and found out that this is one of the most controvertial lenses ever. My own review (after the first day of shooting) follows, but all in all I am absolutely happy with my decision to buy it.