New Lens!!

I've been bursting to tell you, but I wanted the package to arrive before I did! UPS delivered it yesterday!  I wanted to run out and hug his neck, but Mr. H was here so I controlled myself!  I did quickly yank my box out of his hands though!!  I had to open it!!  There's a nice story behind this purchase. I won a $100 gift certificate to Adorama Camera from the very special, wonderful, amazing, beautiful ladies at Focusing On Life!!  Can you tell I'm excited?? 

Focusing On Life is a blog collaboration of ladies who share their inspiration, thoughts, and photographs. They had a fantastic give-a-way and I won!  Then, came the really hard part!  How do I spent it?  I had recently slipped on some leaves playing with my grandchildren and my camera and I hit the ground!  Camera and I were fine,  but I did begin to notice that the focus was off on the kit lens. It was usable, but frustrating at times. After receiving suggestions on what lens to buy from some of these wonderful girls, I decided on this one...

 

Like I said, it came yesterday. I wanted to try it out, but after being in the back of a UPS truck all day it was freezing cold!  I had to let it warm up before I could use it!  UPS should heat the back of their trucks, don't you think?  About an hour later I gently attached it to my camera and snapped the first photo. I took a picture of the first thing I saw, my wallet and a book.  Nothing fantastic as far as subject, but I was impressed with the focus, the little circle on the clip. All this time, I've thought the slight blur on many of my photos was due to shaky hands. Maybe not, maybe I just needed a better lens!!

Today, I took her with me on a photography adventure. As I  stepped out on the porch I saw the cascading icicles on the bushes! I could tell from the very first picture that there was more depth, contrast, and color than I was achieving with my old lens.

 

One thing I'm having to get used to is that it's a fixed lens. Until recently I didn't even know what that meant. Simply, it doesn't zoom, it just has one distance setting. If you want to get closer or further away you do that by using your own two feet. It was different, but I quickly got used to it!

 

I decided to drive over  to a city park and take some photos of a covered bridge.

 

 

As you can imagine local photographers love to go here for photography shoots, but today I was the only one around. That could be because it was barely above freezing. That is snow on the tops of the rocks.

 

Sometime, I'd like to go back and walk some of the trails. They were too muddy today and I'd need someone to go with me. It's too isolated and not quite safe enough for me to go hiking by myself.

 

The foot bridge was still covered in snow.

You can see my footprints.

I went down by a boat ramp and captured this bird. I have never captured a bird in flight!  This little lens is very fast!  I just heard a noise, looked around, and snapped the picture. Not perfect, but not too bad!

I also spent some time using different aperture settings to get background blur.  That will take some practice to get the softness and creaminess I want, but I see the potential. Right now, I'm most impressed with the contrast and color. It seemed with my old lens that with every shot I had to adjust the contrast, they all seemed flat. Not with this lens, all of these are straight out of the camera.

 

I love it, I really, really love it!

Carol, Claudia, Deanna

Dotti, Judy, Kim, Leigh

Linda,  Stephanie, Terri

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!! I love you girls!!