York Wander

On Saturday I decided to enjoy the fantastic weather (while we had it!) and wander out into York to get my York card (free admission to certain attractions, discounts, library etc) and also a Minster pass (again free entry).

I took quite a few pictures on my little outing and will link to these when I've got them all processed (even going to try doing some HDR images). When I got into town I was drawn to York Camera Mart to see if there were any lenses I could dream about being able to afford. Big mistake! They had a 2nd hand 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens in the window for only £99!

The big problem with owning a 5D is that I can't use the cheaper EF-S lenses that fit the crop-sensor cameras from Canon, e.g. my old 350D or the 550D, 50D, etc. I need to get the full-frame lenses that fit EF mounts. In simple terms - I have to get lenses with a red dot on them instead of the white dot!

This lens had the red dot! It goes without saying that I bought it; shouldn't have but took the opportunity of getting a cheap lense to fill in the range that I have (now have 50mm prime, 80-200mm zoom, and this 28-105mm). Felt a bit bad about spending more money and really need to get control of my money.

Anyway, it took me a while to get use to using this lens - in particular I've not done much in the way of scenary shots since getting the 5D but now at 28mm I'm able to get a wide-angle picture and the image above seemed to come out quite well. I feel a little less bad about spending the money given the results but I really need to stop getting more now!

Why I bought a Canon 5D mk II

Okay, there isn't much justification for buying a new camera but pictures like the one above are a start! This was actually captured on my camera with a 70-700 f4 lens I borrowed from my friend Jo (who is a fantastic source of photographic information ... as well as lenses and other kit). The original is on my deviantART page (where you can download the full resolution version) and the full set of images from the afternoon out are on my website.

I need to do alot more photography to really make the purchase of the camera worth it and hopefully have a chance with an event this week, photoshoots at the weekend and then there are also holidays and days out where I can keep practicing. I even started taking pictures of things around the house to get different shots and effects! Might need to start getting a little more organised and disiplined about what I shoot otherwise I'm just going to have loads of images to process (which is the most time-consuming bit).

New pictures finally uploaded

I spent a few fun hours getting dressed up in all the new outfits (actually I did miss out a few new items like the new shoes I got, will have to take pics of those at a later date) I bought over the weekend and I've finally managed to upload them all to Flickr - the hotel internet was unbelievably sloooooowwwww!

So, have a look at my Flickr Pics and let me know what you think!