8×10Gallery.com

Archive for May, 2007

I just came across this article from Popular Photography on the two big Sigma 300mm Zooms. One is the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 EX APO DG IF HSM and the other is the Sigma f/2.8 EX DG APO HSM. The second is the Prime lens which is a fixed length. Like a lot of macro lenses, if you want to zoom, you use your feet. I hear a lot of people like these lenses because they produce a better quality and sharper image.

http://www.popphoto.com/cameralenses/4186/telephoto-shootout-sigma-vs-sigma.html

Of course my Sigma 105mm macro lens is a fixed length and I really have no problems working that one. There is a big difference however in backing up a few inches/feet to get the shot of a flower versus moving around when zoomed in at 300mm. Nature photography doesn’t always lend itself to movement (such as being in a blind or shelter trying not to disturb your subject).

Pretty interesting read on the Pros and Cons of each lens.

I’m all excited since my bag of goodies arrived today! In order to satisfy my lens lust I ordered the Sigma 1.4x Teleconverter. I haven’t given it the full run through yet, but I did take some quick test photos and it looks to work quite well. With the teleconverter attached I have a maximum aperture of f/4.0 on my Sigma 70-200mm lens. This is just a jump down from the f/2.8 that it normally has. It still gives me plenty of shutter speed to work with. In my quick tests I still had 1/1000 to 1/1250. This will be plenty for sports action and should still be enough for my Porsche Club shots.

I wanted to get a little more zoom from my lens without having to fork over the $2,500 it takes to get into the 300mm realm so I thought this was a good compromise for now. Plus, it will work with future lenses.

Since I already had something in my cart I added two more of the Power 2000 batteries. I now have two complete sets of batteries for the Opteka battery grip. They are insanely cheap ($8) and I’ve had good luck with the two that came with the grip.

And since I had new batteries in the cart I of course had to add a second battery charger. Power 2000 makes a charger as well that plugs into the wall and can be charged inside the car. I thought this was a heck of a deal so I grabbed that too.

So I’m all juiced up and ready to go. I’ll see what kind of “wildlife” shots I can get with the new combo. Not really sure my little dog counts as wildlife so I guess I will have to lie in wait for the ducks!

After my excitement for Adobe Lightroom, I went searching the Net to see what kind of price I could find on this little gem. To start off with I went straight to the source and checked the price on Adobe. Egad man! $299! I was hoping for something a little less wallet gouging!

However, it only took a quick search through the web to come up with something better. Amazon has Adobe Lightroomfor $199. That’s a little more like it. It’s still a bit more than I would like, $99 like the cost of Adobe Elements would be really neat, but it’s still a savings of $100.

I also noticed that Amazon now sells DxO Optics Pro $159 as well. I know, I laud the protection scheme they use, but DxO is still impressive software. It’s basically the same price as on the DxO site, so I don’t know if you gain anything. I think I’m more impressed with the exposure it should get by being on Amazon.

And if you add Paint Shop Pro XI to the mix for $89 you pretty much round out all the tools you would need. I’ve been using Paint Shop Pro for a few years now and have found it to be extremely powerful. Not quite the same level as what you get with Photoshop CS3, but then again, it costs $89, CS3 costs $650.

So it’s an interesting question, is it worth getting Lightroom, Paint Shop Pro and DxO for roughly $450, or would it be better to go “all in” and grab the brass ring of Adobe Photoshop CS3 for $650? For me, it’s better just to add Lightroom since I have the other two apps already. This would basically complete my workflow (until some other magical piece of software comes out that I simply must have!)

Of course, even if I had CS3 I still wouldn’t give up my DxO, I’ve just gotten so used to it now. And I would find a reason to still use Lightroom and have that as part of my bag of tricks; so basically, it’s easier just to buy them all! Although I seem to have misplaced that extra $1,000 I leave around the house for just such things…

As the guys at the Porsche Club keep saying, “What about this hobby did you think was cheap?”