Pictures & Words
Babysitting!
A friend of Jen's was moving her household, so she asked us to watch her 4-year-old twins. What a riot! I miss having young ones around the house (our youngest is now 12). Speaking of the youngest, he was a great help with these two. We played on the swings, swam in the pool, ran around and visited the livestock, and played with the hose. It was a great way to spend a beautiful Sunday.
I'm loving this 85 mm lens. It does a great job with isolating the subject!
Dogs instead of frogs…
Still working with the 85 mm f/1.4. I was very happy with how many of these hit focus. The lens is fast and accurate to boot! This first batch of photos is with Mimi and a bumper.
And this is Mimi's brother, Samba. He was out for just a bit before his mother (Cammy) joined in the fun.
I love this sequence. Mom isn't going to take any of his stuff…
Samba in the foreground.
Not a prince in the bunch
I spent a little time this afternoon getting to know my new lens a little better (that's the Sigma 85 mm f/1.4 for those of you not paying attention).
I really like the character of this lens. It also focuses really well on my camera—some dog action photos coming up in a new post...
A new lens (the Sigma 85 mm f/1.4)
Well, the good news is that I had a bunch of money left over from not being able to afford the Sigma SD1. The bad news is instead of punishing the company and running out and buying a Nikon (or a new Epson printer), I decided to splurge on a new lens for my SD-15. I had put a few lenses into my Amazon shopping cart to keep an eye on the prices. The 85 mm f/1.4 regularly sells for $969 on Amazon, but it dropped a few weeks ago to $929. And then it dipped to about $890. I started to think about buying this in earnest, but while I was considering it, it kept dropping in price every few days until it hit $811. It's at that point when I decided that I had waited long enough—this lens is a very good match for my portrait shooting, and it was something that I had been waiting for Sigma to come out with for years (they just released it about a year ago). I pulled the trigger and ordered it. The next day, the price had risen another $20, and on the day it showed up it was back to the regular $969—so I timed this purchase pretty well.
The only problem? The first lens that showed up had some major autofocus issues. It was extremely fast in focusing: but it would go beyond, then back too close, and cycle like that a few times a second for a while before it would lock (if it did). Definitely a problem. I wonder if the fact that Amazon shipped it in a cardboard box with virtually no padding was an issue. Anyway, they have a great return policy and they sent me my second copy, which came today. No AF issues. The lens also seems to focus pretty accurately on my SD15 (the Sigma cameras are known to have some problems with the large aperture lenses that necessitate sending in camera and lens for calibration). The lens isn't perfectly sharp at f/1.4, but it's pretty damn good. It gets nice and sharp by f/2.0 (at least what I can tell with playing with it for a few minutes). Handles great, and the bokeh is to die for.
I'll be happy to loan it to Chunsum after his 70-200 OS f/2.8 shows up... :D
f/1.4, 1/800s, ISO 100
f/4.0, 1/320 s, ISO 100
f/1.4, 1/1600 s, ISO 100
f/1.4, 1/3200 s, ISO 100
f/1.4, 1/60 s, ISO 100
f/1.4, 1/60 s, ISO 100
f/1.4, 1/400 s, ISO 100
Grace at Fox River Valley Kennel Club show
So with Jen heading out this weekend for a girls night out, and Diane having to run to a baby shower this afternoon, I was pressed into dog show dad mode. Which isn't so bad, if it's only once or twice a year. Grace and I loaded up the wagon, and the three of us (Mr. Darcy came too) headed to Woodstock, IL. Home of OWC computing, where I get all my cool Mac stuff from.
Grace had a really good show. She got first in her class, which gives her 8 wins for the year. Only two more to go for Westminster! She also took a bull mastiff into the ring for best of winners, and she was doing stuff with GSP's but I got confused and I'm not sure if she got anything with them...
She's poised and confident as a handler—she does such a terrific job with the pooches!
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