New lens, wide options.

After months of reading reviews and researching, I finally got my first lens besides the kit lens plus a flash gun.(Thanks to my awesome dad) With a budget of only RM3,500++, I decided to go for the Canon 55-250mm which cost only Rm1,000 and has good image quality in my opinion for its price. The other lens, which i'm in love with is the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro. At RM1,300 its image quality rivals that of Canon's 100mm L range lens which cost more than double its price. The only difference I guess is that Canon's 100mm has IS and has a bit more working range, though the price of the Tamron's 90mm definitely makes up for it. It's a great pair of lens and I love its beautiful bokeh. Anyway, I finally found time last week end to test out the lens during the hectic week. With the 55-250mm I shot photos of birds in my aviary and I am very satisfied with them. In fact, its probably one of my best animal shots I have taken so far, if I dare say.


Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro



I used the 90mm macro lens to take macro shots of course. Macro photography really opens up a whole new world. I bought this lens mainly because of two things. Its image quality is great, and second because it had a wide aperture of f/2.8 which makes it ideal for portraiture as well, not to mention that it has a focal length 90mm which makes it great for portraiture too. Oh and also of course for its macro ability, which is great, because macro shots are always fun. So if you're stuck at home or just feeling too tired to go out to shoot something, why not take a photo of something in your garden? The 90mm is a very versatile lens with great image quality, and with a price tag like that, its a definite buy for those who want great image quality but aren't willing to fork out RM3,000+++ for Canon's L range. Of course the down side of it is that it has no IS(image stabilizer), but for such an attractive price tag, I wouldn't mind using the tripod whenever I use the 90mm.




This photo of a colourful green in colour bug I took of it while it crawled all over a flower in my garden while drinking its nectar is now my desktop wall paper.


Nissin Di866 Professional

As for the flash gun, I got the Nissin Di866 which costs around RM1,300++. After reading a review on Digital Camera magazine who picked it as the overall best flashgun to get compared to the 580ex and nikon's other flashguns, I decided to research up on it more. For a reasonable price tag and with the great reviews it got I decided to get it. I have yet to taken any great portrait shots with it yet, so for now I have no photos to show with it being used.

I did test it out on my mom and maid though for their privacy I won't post it up.




Also, last Friday the moon was up and shining really bright. I took the opportunity to test out the 55-250mm image quality limits by trying my first moon shot ever. I started first by setting my camera up on the tripod and got it in position. I had to wait for at least two and a half hours outside adjusting the camera's angle as the moon's position changed due to the fact that the earth was rotating. I just stood outside my house for two hours just chilling and listening to music while I waited for it become dark enough. I guess I wasn't bored of waiting mainly because the process of taking a type of shot I never tried before was so fun in itself. Finally it was dark enough and I took the first shot of it. Little did I know that the moon ended up being over exposed although I was using partial metering due to the fact that the moon it self was so far from earth that the camera was apparently metering for the darkness as well. I thought taking a photo of the moon should be simple enough, but have I ever been more wrong. I decided to check up on the net about taking shots of the moon and got a quick guide on it. Preferably, if you have a tripod, you should set the ISO to as low as possible which is 100. And, since the camera can't meter for the moon properly, you'll have to compensate for it yourself and bracket if you must. Finally after taking quite a few shots of the moon, I decided to call it a day. Now for the next step which is post processing, is fairly complicated as well. Since the moon was so small in the photo(because it is far from earth) you have to crop it, affecting the image quality as well. This raises up a couple of problems. First, it makes the digital noise a lot worse, though it shouldn't be a problem if you used a low ISO like 100. Second, any camera shake or mild vibrations itself would be made a whole lot obvious. And that's where I fell prey to. I took the shots using a 10 second exposure setting but since I was using a slow shutter speed of 1/6 sec, the vibration of the mirror in the camera must have affected it. Thanks for the tip by Horngh Yih from Click! for bringing to light that I should have switched on the 'mirror-lock' mode which allows the mirror in the camera to flip up first before the shutter is opened, letting the vibration die off before the exposure starts on the sensor. So unfortunately motion blur could be seen in my photo of the moon, but i'm still happy with it nonetheless. But cropping was only the first half of the story, I then had to shape the tone curve into an S shape, increase the detail by a bit as well and also drag the histogram apart to give it as much detail as possible. All in all, it was a great first experience of taking a photo of the moon. Though it wasn't perfect, but it certainly felt great and this definitely won't be last time I am taking a photo of the moon, I just gotta wait for the moon to be up and bright on a clear night. Hmm... i'll be right back.

The moon