I’m pretty sure that it is, but at this point I’m not sure that I will. It looks like it will cost 70 bucks to get it repaired, vs getting one off of ebay for around 100 bucks. It happened during a shoot, and when it happened, I just placed it back in the bag and pulled out my other camera. I have other lenses that I can use (as well as a duplicate of that lens) so I’m not in a rush to look into repairing it right now.
I’ve used that lens alot over the past five years, so it has paid for itself many times over. Also, I pack a backup system because even the best equipment fails eventually.
It does suck, but it comes down to a cost of doing business.
Well, I guess the lens isn’t as expensive as I thought it might be. I was just taking a look at ebay for that lens, and the $100 ones are the ones that are the “inferior” models, according to this.
As you can tell in the photo, the one that bit the dust is the Mark II.
However, the one I took the photo with is the “inferior” version.
I’ve used both side-by-side for years, and I can honestly say that the only difference that I can tell between the two is that one creates a pentagon shaped lens flare, and the other creates a heptagon shaped lens flare. Of course, I like lens flare in photos as much as I like the lens flare filter in photochop. Which is to say that I don’t like it at all.
I have bigger problems to deal with than to care if the bokeh in the background is seven sided, or five sided.
In any case, I will let the measurbators get picky over those types of things if I will save me 100 bucks on a lens.
Just wondering. I have no USM lenses, and saw that you said it was $100, so I took a look. I may pick one up, since you say that its your usual one. Thanks for the info. Again.
USM is love. It makes my 50mm sound like a cement truck. I bought this lens off of eBay some time ago for about 150. Through a miraculous coincidence, I found someone giving away the lens hood on fredmiranda.com for free. Though I don’t have a flower on my lens, I do have a flower petals. To get a good feel of the eBay value on the lens, log in and do an advanced search for completed items.
For the longest time I used a calibration print from either a kodak or fuji machine. Most labs print up a card that has color swatches and a grey section so that they can calibrate the machine after it warms up in the morning. I used to fish these out of the trash and stick them in my camera bag. There was an awesome one from a kodak machine that was 8x10. Had a 5x7 area of grey a 3x5 area of white-to-black gradient, and a bunch of data about the machine in the last bit of space. (…like how many prints the machine has output over its lifetime as well as paper and chemistry levels, etc)
Now, I have a super awesome combination grey-card/light meter that I use most of the time, and I happen to have some pictures of it in action on a shoot that I was on this weekend.
I was going to post this earlier, but I didn’t have time. Anyway, here is an explanation of what is going on in those photos.
So, I’m out in a field, I’m going to photograph people in direct sunlight. The problem is that the highlights and the shadows are going to be more than a 3 stop difference, so if I shoot with ambient light, I get to choose a photo with either no detail in the shadows, or blown out highlights. If I let the camera choose, it will give me the racoon eyes look because the faces will be exposed correctly, and the shadows will be dark. Not only that, but the grass will overexpose and look washed out.
So, the solution is to hit the subject with enough flash so that I can underexpose the grass by a stop, and all the shadowed parts of the image are made at least two stops brighter.
Here is how I did it. First, I put the camera on P-mode, and I added a speedlight on ETTL. I fired off 5 test images with the following settings:
*P-mode *ETTL
*P-mode -1 EV *ETTL
*P-mode -1 EV *ETTL +1 EV
*P-mode *ETTL +1 EV
*P-mode *ETTL +2 EV
Then I reviewed the images, and choose the one with the no clipping on the histogram and the best picture quality. Transfer the exposure settings to manual mode, and dial in the power settings on the flash to match the picture that I liked, and that’s it. FYI, the settings I used were P-mode -1 Flash +1.
If anyone has any questions about what I just said or wants further explaination on using a histogram as a light meter / grey card, let me know.
I don’t want to make it a habit of posting pics of my kid, but I was proud of this.
Long story short, I was a terrible husband for my wife’s first Mother’s Day, didn’t really get her anything, so while she took a nap, I had a little photoshoot with my daughter. Came out well, I think.
All of those are shot with a Canon IXUS 900 (also known as SD900)
I actually photoshopped the cat one extensively.
I shot that pic through a screen door so it made everything grey and dull… so I fixed it up. I don’t know how I got it without any blur… it was becoming dark already and I didn’t use the flash but it still got it pretty clear. Heres the original image:
To get a good feel of the eBay value on the lens, log in and do an advanced search for completed items.
