Pho, Guinness Marmite, Sigma 30/1.4 lenses

My recent posts on blogTO, for those interested:

Pho Vietnam: Comfort In a Bowl (photo above, taken on my point-and-shoot)

Raccoon-Proof Green Bins: Fact Or Fiction? (Part 2)

I love the Internet. Some months ago, I read that BSAG (one of my favourite bloggers and who, incidentally, recently acquired a cat -- I know a bunch of you are feline fanatics :-)) was looking for Guinness Marmite. BSAG was the one who got me hooked on the peanut butter and marmite combo so I was, of course, intrigued.

So I posted an appeal to my British friends in my Livejournal, most of whom I have met through the filking community. My friend Lissa found some in her area of Britain, and we agreed to a trade: two containers of Guinness Marmite (mailed to BSAG and me) in exchange for some maple butter (which I've sent) and an LJ user icon (which I still owe).


Lissa and me.

This sort of thing would have been so much more laborious through snailmail. Anyway, I'm quite enjoying my Guinness Marmite; I haven't yet decided if I like it more than regular Marmite, so lots more taste tests are in order. Apparently Guinness made a limited edition run of this type of marmite for St. Patrick's Day. Thank you, Lissa!



And for those not already driven crazy by my camera research, you'll be relieved to hear that I'm actually starting to narrow down my lens choices. Talking to my friend Iain helped a great deal; he owns a Nikon D80 with a AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-200mm (actually much smaller than the lens pictured above) and let me try it out on Friday night.

After taking pics for about 15 minutes, I found that the weight was starting to aggravate my tendinitis a bit. No big zoom lens for me, I think.

Iain also pointed me to a friend's Flickr account as an example of someone who uses a low light lens (Canon 50mm f1.4) as her walkaround camera. I love this woman's pics, and it looks like she leans toward the same sort of photographic subjects as I do.

And that got me thinking more about what kind of photos I take. I tend to shoot pics in low-light conditions, with a focus on people and close-ups of objects (like food!). I don't actually use the zoom on my Canon PowerShot that much because it's more difficult to get a sharp image; I prefer shooting at higher res and then cropping instead. So I think I could possibly get away without a zoom lens, at least in the beginning.



Philip Greenspun also offered me some advice on Photo.net (where he's CEO and editor-in-chief, though I've been a fan of his since his Travels With Samantha):

"http://www.photo.net/equipment/building-a-digital-slr-system/ is our standard article on the subject. If your main goal is improved performance in low light, the best starter lens would be the Sigma 30/1.4 (captures photos in light 1/8th as bright as a consumer zoom). If you're willing to go up in weight and cost, the Canon 5D body does offer superior low light capabilities (the starter lens there is the Canon 50/1.4)."

I can't afford the Canon 5D, but I started checking out the Sigma 30/1.4. I know it hasn't got a wide a field as some other lenses, but I'm pretty excited about the image quality and low-light capabilities. I may get a less expensive 18-55mm to supplement the 30 and then (if needed) get a higher quality wide angle lens later on. Unfortunately it doesn't look as if Vistek or Henry's carries the Sigma 30, at least not on the Web site, but I'm going to investigate if either would order it for me.

Anyway, I think that the best course for me is to make sure I'll actually be able to USE the camera without worrying about my tendinitis, then get lots of practice using a digital SLR, THEN think about what additional lenses I need.

Thanks to everyone who has offered camera advice on Facebook, Livejournal, Photo.net, DCresource.com, and especially Ray and Iain for letting me try out their cameras. At this point I'm leaning toward the Canon Rebel XTi unless Jeff wants to get the Nikon 18-200 lens to use with the camera himself, in which case we'll go with Nikon.

The fellow I spoke with at Vistek, though, had a good point. In the end, the type of camera and lens isn't nearly as important as having a good eye when taking photos. So I'm going to try not to obsess too much longer over the choice, actually go ahead and BUY my new camera/lens, and then start improving my craft. :-)



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