Milestone and more pictures

Well it may not mean much to most people, but my blog has surpassed 2,000 visits. CNN.com or Google.com it may not be, but a lot busier then I ever thought it would be. I guess if you post it they will come.

I’ve been playing with my new Sigma 400/5.6 a fair amount over the last couple of weeks, but I don’t really have any pictures of note yet. Its hard handholding that thing and getting a sharp image, especially when it is not full daylight out. I think I am starting to get the hang of focusing, but a 1-2 focusing screen would help out a lot, my 1-1 works, but poorly. Combined with how dim the view finder is with an f/5.6 lens focusing is difficult. I’ve shot a number of pictures on my current roll of film, but nothing that stood out on the roll I just developed. I need to get a better tripod one of these days so I can really utilize the lens properly.

I am also mastering my flash techinque, read a bit more about it under the Vivitar 285hv flash section.

Now, time for the new pictures. As ususally most are of my son (which 5 month old isn’t photogenic?)

The funny/scary thing is, he actually turns the pages and looks like he is examining each one as he goes. The way things are going maybe I can have him do our taxes next year

For the last one here my photo lust got the better of me one morning before working on installing our new bamboo floors, so I grabbed my camera and threw on my zuiko 50/1.4 and vivitar 2x teleconverter and ran outside to our rose bush. I am rather glad I did, I think it turned out nicely.

I am starting to get a really strong urge to do a photo trip. Okay mini-trip really. I’d love to spend half a day at the zoo giving my new 400/5.6 a spin along with my vivitar 300/5.6. That and I am itching for autumn for a number of reasons.  Cooler weather, home renovations being done, Ren Fest, fall folliage. I’d really love to take a trip to the Maryland Eastern Shore sometime this fall for a day to try to shoot some of the beautiful fall colors.

New lens

Last week I received in the mail my brand new lens. Its a Sigma 400mm f/5.6 APO. I had simply been browsing Ebay (which I have promised my wife I am going to stop doing, for at least a while (several months)) and came across it. As seems to be the case with me, I had never really seen any of the Sigma or Tokina 400mm f/5.6 lenses in OM mount on Ebay before and suddenly in the course of 2 weeks I see 3 Sigma 400mm f/5.6 (1 old non-apo, one black APO and a white APO) and a Tokina 400/5.6 SL. Seems to be a trend, I had never really seen any Sigma 28/1.8 lenses in OM mount anywhere, and then in the course of 2 weeks I see 4 different ones. Well, whatever.

That ended up being the reason why I jumped on getting this lens is that it seems to be mildly rare in OM mount (I hadn’t seen one in about 4 months of looking on Ebay). Its a pretty big lens, but very compact for the focal length (.72 telephoto ratio). I haven’t had much time to play with it yet as it showed up on the 3rd and I spent the entire weekend of the 4rh installing bamboo floors in my house (which look awesome).  What little time I have spent with the lens has impressed me all around, great build quality and it seems to be very sharp (I’ll know once I get a blow up or two).