Sunset at 50mm and Other Miscellany

Well, I finally ventured into Chicago to go to a photography store (Calumet) that I've always wanted to go check out ever since I bought my dSLR. Getting there and back in one piece was quite the adventure (miraculous, too!) but the trip was well worth it.

I ended up purchasing several items - a red leather bag by Jill-E, which is absolutely gorgeous, and has tons of space - and I also picked up the "nifty fifty" - the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II lens. I can't believe how tiny and light it is, but having no metal will do that to a lens. The focus ring is a sad thing; the older 50mm lenses had a better focus ring, but it's still serviceable (no worse than the 18-55mm kit lens' focusing ring).

But the pictures this thing can take. Wow. Far better contrast and colors than my other two lenses, and it's sharp. And fast. And of course, I had to play with it a little - as you can see from the image on the left. I found this tree on my drive home, and the colors were so beautiful that I had to stop and take a quick pic. Actually "quick" is a misnomer - I probably have twenty or thirty similar pics taken in the span of a few minutes. The only things I tinkered with were the color (the original was a very dark blue - but in playing, I moved it a little towards blue-green) and the vignette. I did adjust the "clarity" in Lightroom as well so as to bring the branches out even more.

And then there's this one. Normally I'd nuke a photo for being so blurry and having so much camera shake, but something about this photo intrigued me, in a strange artistic kind of way. So it survived deletion. Perhaps I'm the only one who would have let it survive, but somehow, it speaks to me. I don't know what it says, but it definitely speaks!

While at the store I also picked up an X-Rite i1 Display 2 to properly calibrate my monitors (instead of 'eyeing' it). For $169, it was a great price, and is working very well. The difference was immediate on both my laptops, and so it's already well worth it. And for anyone else who's looking at one - yes, it does work on Vista x64 - you just have to download the drivers from the website.

And always, for more photos and images, you can view my gallery...