I'm currently in the process of getting accepted into the HDR-Club here on DA. Check it out, they've got some great work from around DA that is all HDR.

Check them out: [link]

I really hope they accept my images.

Hello visitors and watchers. Today I'm going to try something that is new for me but, not so new to other Deviants. I'm going to do a feature journal where I post my favorite shots from other Deviants. I hope you like them too and check out some of them and comment on them if you find it necessary. Anyways... lets get to it... enjoy.







These are in no particular order, so there is no questions about which photos are better than the others... they're all great individually for different reasons.

Okay, until next time, keep on shootin' and producin' great looking photographs!

P.S. As a side note, I got my EF-S 17-85mm lens repaired from Canon because the focus ring was squeaking... now it is working better!

So check this out. I got my new EF-S 17-85mm IS USM lens today for my Digital Rebel camera and I was checking out the IS feature (Image Stabilization) and I gotta say... it works amazingly great. It actually works better than I thought it would. I took a couple of test photos to prove it... I was really surprised by the results.

IS turned OFF --->

IS turned ON --->

Click the images to go to the full 100% cropped view.

If anyone is considering getting a new Canon lens... if it doesn't have a large aperture like f/1.8 or something, then make sure it has Image Stabilizing... it truly does make a difference... believe me... I can hardly believe it myself!

By the way... my cat was not moving. He just opened his eyes to see what I was doing.

So, I've decided to send the 28mm prime lens back. I'm not really going to miss it because I have the EF 50mm f/1.8 that is equally as sharp if the shot requires the very most detail (such as portraits). So I finally decided that I wanted the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. It's supposed to be an all around great lens and I hope that it will be the one lens I use for most of my photography. I heard the sharpness isn't as great as the EF 17-40mm f/4 L lens but, that's understandable. I didn't go for the 17-40mm L because of 2 reasons: 1.) No Image Stabilization 2.) 40mm isn't much of a zoom. I wanted a lens that would out perform my 18-55mm kit lens yet, have a wider range of zoom. If I'm in a place where I need to quickly get in on the action, I can zoom to it rather than try to get closer and miss the moment while I'm getting there.... sure, I'll sacrifice quality a little bit but, I'd rather get the award-winning shot rather than a super sharp piece of crap because I couldn't get close enough. Plus, I love wide angle shots, especially for landscapes. The 17mm is even a tiny bit wider than the 18mm anyway, so that will be kinda nice. I'm really looking forward to using Image Stabilization because I read that you can shoot hand held photos 3 stops under normal and get the same results. The only real problem I can see here is it's an EF-S lens and will not be compatible on a full-frame sensor camera, so if the future brings only full-frame cameras, I'll have a lens that's incompatible.

I think Canon will continue to improve the resolution on their cropped sensor cameras because with a cropped sensor, you can actually get more detail because your 85mm lens suddenly turns into a 136mm lens so you can zoom in closer. Also, with a cropped sensor, you won't notice as much vignetting or sharpness drop off because that stuff can't get projected onto the sensor. The downside is... you have to get the EF-S 10-22mm lens in order to get extreme wide angle such as a 16mm lens on a full frame camera. On the other hand, by the time I upgrade to a full frame camera, I probably won't want that lens anymore anyway.... If I'm buying an expensive camera, I'll probably get expensive L glass to replace my 17-85mm lens anyway.

So, that's what's going on... I hope I get a good copy and won't get burned again like the defective 28mm that I got... what a pain this is. Anyways... I can't wait to start shooting with it... should get here by tomorrow or Thursday.

Okay, so tonight I thought I'd try out my new 28mm lens again for the heck of it. It was still doing the same slow focusing and high pitched squeak... however, I took the lens off and I was looking through it with my eye up really close to the back and I think my eye cavity hit the back plastic part of the lens... and I somewhat felt it move (or at least I think I did). Then I just rotated the manual focus ring a few times back and forth and wiggled it a little... then I popped it back on my camera and to my surprise... the focus was a lot quieter (no more squeak) and it seems to focus a lot faster than before... where before it was very slow moving from out of focus to in focus... now it's about as fast as my kit lens at focusing.

So, do I still return it and get my money back... or should I keep it now that it's working okay. I've never owned or even tried another USM lens... so I still don't know if this is 100% fixed or if something is just aligned right now and could go back to crappy if I bump it just right.

Also, I've been thinking that I may have made the wrong purchase.... What I really think I want now is a general purpose zoom lens that is higher optical quality than my 18-55mm kit lens and a larger zoom range.

So far my two most popular choices for this is:
EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS: The pros for this lens are; super wide angle to medium telephoto range, USM, Image Stabilization. Some cons are; fairly slow at only f/4-5.6, big, heavier and will not work on a full frame sensor so if I upgrade to a full frame in the future, this lens will not work.

EF 28-105mm f/3.5-5.6 USM: The pros are; nice zoom range, slightly faster than the 17-85mm, cheaper and compatible with all Canon EOS cameras. The cons: still slower than the 28mm f/1.8, no image stabilization, not wide enough at only 28mm on 1.6x cropped sensor

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Do any of you Deviants have any suggestions on what I should do? I hope J&R Music and Computers can accept my returned 28mm if there's nothing wrong with it now. Oh great... how do I break it again?