2007.05.06
Testing out the new lens
|
|
|
||
As I mentioned earlier, I acquired a new camera lens last week. Today I finally got around to giving it its first test drive.
The first part of the test drive involved a long walk from my condo, over to Scotsman’s hill, through Ramsay and Inglewood, then along the Bow river past Fort Calgary and over to Eau Claire and Prince’s Island park. All in all, I spent about 3.5 hours enjoying the sunshine and taking the occasional photo.
Since the focus of the trip (besides getting outdoors for a walk) was to test out the lens, I took a number of pictures that were complete garbage as I tried the lens out at different focal lengths and apertures. All in all, maybe 20% of the photos were worth keeping, but that’s not half bad considering what I was up to.
The second test was after sunset, as I shot three subjects from the balcony of my condo at night:
- St. Mary’s Cathedral
- The Saddledome
- The first tower of the Arriva condo complex, currently under construction.
Of course, the night photographs were long exposures at long focal lengths, just for fun. I used the obligatory tripod and shutter cord to avoid blurring the photos beyond recognition, though I didn’t bother with the mirror lock-up function of the camera since these are just test shots. I took 3-5 pictures each of the three subjects, and kept only the best one.
|
|
|
||
Overall, I’m quite pleased with the performance of the lens as an all-around zoom lens. In daylight I can still manage to get clean shots even at 200mm focal lengths, though this amount of magnification is overkill for the type of photography I generally do. Based on the EXIF data from my use today, I doubt I’ll go beyond 150mm all that often.
As a lens I plan on taking with me whenever I travel and on hiking trips, I’m sure it will perform very well and I’ll continue to enjoy shooting with it.
Subscriptions