Absurd Singularity

Butt-freezing weather here recently isn't particular conducive for photography which bites cause I've been wanting to put one of my mostly unused lenses through its paces, the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro. Supposedly one of the sharpest lenses ever and not just for macro work.

Ah well, also picked up the Canon BG-E3 grip for my XT and it's quite nice. Adds a bit of weight to the usually light XT body but makes up for it by making the XT taller so people with big hands/long fingers have something more to grab on to plus the lower left corner of it digs (not painfully) right into the lower palm of your left hand so you have a more comfortable and stable platform when using a big lens.

The grip also comes with a battery adapter so you now have the option of using it with regular AA batteries. Not something I'll be using regularly but I can see it coming handy in a pinch.

My lens collection is finally complete with the arrival of my Tokina AT-X 124 AF PRO DX AF 12-24mm f/4! Well, at least for now. Later on I may decide to upgrade to better versions of the lenses that I have now or even dabble in primes but the first stage has been achieved with 3 zooms covering the 12-200mm range with no gaps. Well, actually 19.2-320mm range on the 1.6x crop XT that I have. Although I may still pick up a Sigma 1.4x teleconverter to get a little more range out of my Sigma 70-200.

Anyway, the Tokina turned out to be a smaller lens than I was expecting although my sense of size may be skewed after handling the behemoth Sigma 24-70 most of the time. But it has a very solid build and feels pretty good in use. The autofocus actually works pretty quickly and the sound is a lot less intrusive than on the Sigma 24-70. However, on the fifth shot I took with it it caused an "Err 99" on my XT. Not sure what the heck happened there but hasn't happened again since. Also has the thickest front lens cap I've ever seen. Guess they really want to protect that slightly more bulbous front lens element.

Unfortunately the weather here has been absolute crap yesterday and today so haven't really been able to put it through its paces. Took a few shots from the cafeteria at work though. The following 3 shots are unedited 'cept for conversion to JPG and shrinking down to the current size.

ISO 800, 1/60s, f/5.6, 12mm

Here you can see pretty well the distortion that you can expect from a wide angle lens. This warped effect is more noticeable when taking pictures of objects that are relatively close to you.

ISO 800, 1/250s, f/11, 12mm

This is the view northwards from the 16th floor at work. Distortion not as evident in this shot. Sorry about the light reflection off the window that I took the shot through.

ISO 800, 1/50s, f/5, 12mm

This is a shot of the gigantic flag that covers the entire expanse of windows on the side of the building facing the World Trade Center. Apparently there's a bunch of boarded up glass panes that they haven't gotten around to fixing behind the flag. It also rises above the southern-facing entrance that currently is hidden from view at ground level behind a temporary wall which you can make out at the bottom of the pic. Obviously there's a bit of distortion going on in this shot as well but sometimes, distortion is not necessarily a bad thing. =)

Anyway, hope to get some semblance of a sunny day soon so I can get a better feel as to the image quality of this particular lens. Will post those when I get the chance.

Just another quick, unedited shot taken with the new lens. As far as I can tell it's living up to its reputation of being quite a sharp lens.

ISO 100, 1/200s, f/10, 12mm

So during this time of year on the weekends, the exit off of Route 24 West that leads to the Short Hills Mall is annoyingly congested due to crappy planning (it criss-crosses with a road running parallel to the exit that funnels people out of the mall and onto Route 24). So there's usually a line of cars running back almost to the prior exit waiting to get to the mall which I got myself stuck in this past weekend which really sucked cause I wasn't even going to the mall. I wasn't in a particular rush so I wasn't too pissed but as I sat there I couldn't help thinking that they really should put anti-vehicle weaponry on cars. Just for those rude muthaf*ckas who ignore the line waiting to use the exit, drive right up to the exit itself and expect to just merge in. Are you *bleep*ing kidding me?! If you tried to pull that crap in a normal line you'd be lucky if you got off with just a glare and a sarcastic remark. And you'd still have to go to the back of the line. So what makes people think that they don't have to follow procedure when in a car? Sure you can't drive backwards to get to the back of the line but US highways are pretty convenient. Drive down to the next exit, do 2 U-ys and go to the back of the line. Sure it'll take more time but that's what your punk ass gets for ignoring it in the first place.

So anyway, back to the idea of weaponry. I guess something that would cause bodily harm to the individual in the car would be too extreme so machine guns, rocket launchers and the like are out. Maybe something that would slash tires or scratch the hell out of their paintjob? Or I guess even more benign would just be paintball guns or something that would just cause a minor inconvenience.

Anyhoo, I guess if people actually stopped being so self-absorbed I wouldn't have to talk about this but apparently Christmas shopping is more important.

Was gonna post this before but forgot about it. Anyways, looks like it's time to visit DC again...

Just a few pottery pieces that Erin came home with this semester...

Finally got the chance to appropriate a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens to run some comparison tests with my Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 and to finally check out first-hand the power of IS (Image Stabilization). And man, I wasn't disappointed.

First off, a quick physical comparison. Both lens are definitely not lightweights with the Sigma coming in at 7.2" long and 2.8 lbs and the Canon eclipsing that at 7.8" long and 3.24 lbs, almost half a pound heavier! Doesn't feel too different when you're holding just the lens in your hand but stick that on to your camera body along with a flash unit and you start feeling it after awhile. So using either of these lenses will definitely give you a nice upper body workout.

On to the pics...

For lunch today I bought a bottle of Tropicana Pure Premium HomeStyle Lemonade which was pretty good. While looking at the label I noticed that it said "Made with Not From Concentrate". What's the reasoning behind such convoluted grammar? Is "Not From Concentrate" an actual product or brand? Wouldn't it make more sense to label it "Not Made From Concentrate"? I'm guessing there's something inbetween juice from concentrate and real juice that they're using here cause otherwise they'd be advertising that this was made "From Real Juice!" like you'll see on some other drinks. Of course then in fine print it says "only 5% real juice" or so some such nonsense but that's a topic for another day.

Sorry about the crap-ass picture. Cell phone cams are obviously not made for macro work. ;-p

This is part 2 (part 1 here) of my tests that I ran with the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens. For this entry I'll just be looking at the effectiveness of the image stabilization that apparently is worth $600 more according to Canon. But is it really? All shots taken handheld at ISO 800 indoors on a Canon Digital Rebel XT with BG-E3 grip attached and a Sigma EF-500 Super flash w/Sto-fen Omnibounce set at about a 45 degree angle. No post-processing done except for conversion to JPEG and shrinking down to 800x533.

First a few pics of the lens mounted:

Yup it's one heck of a setup

Long and tall

And just two more similar shots with the Sigma 70-200 mounted just for comparisons sake.

All black ensemble

Equally Tall, not as Long

Figured I'd get one last post in before we officially call it a year. Spent the last week and a half driving miles upon miles and hitting the pavement looking for furniture for our new home. No one warned me that furniture shopping was such a huge pain in the ass. Since we're basically leaving almost all our 5-year-old Ikea relics behind, we've got a TON of stuff to look for. And my wallet's taking an even bigger beating (as if the mortgage wasn't bad enough). *sigh* There's certainly a ton of furniture out there to choose from, too bad 70% is crap/not to our tastes and 20% is awesome but way overpriced. So that leaves us with about 10% to work with. It's tough. But we're getting there. Hopefully have a few more pieces squared away before this New Year's sale is over. ;-p

Anyway, HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!