The Nothing

Having the best wife in the world, she sent out after work on Friday to rent me a lens I believe I want.

She picked up the Canon EF 24-105mm F4L. It has USM ultrasonic focusing and IS image stabilization. I had a chance yesterday to fire off a few rounds while in Oceanside, Oregon, helping with the beach cleanup.

Now, cleaning beaches and pictures usually don’t go hand in hand. Throw in snow and heavy rainfall and I didn’t get much chance to take the pictures I wanted. While the EF 24-105mm F4L does have some weatherizing behind it, my Canon 20D does not.

The picture of the young red tree (attached) was a tough one.  It was bright and early in the late morning.  The sky was overcast, and you can just barely make out some of the snow that was still around in downtown Tillamook.  I really wanted to blow up the sapling and darken the rest of it.  Ideally I would have had some neutral density filters on hand, but I don’t even own one, let alone some that would have worked with the large 77mm face of the 24-105mm.  I dialed down the aperture as tight as I could (f22), used the on-camera flash (didn’t have my receiver for the skyports!) .  I under exposed as much as possible and underexposed even more in post processing.  I think I pulled off what I was looking for fairly well. I need to go back in the middle of the night to try again.

Sunday I had the chance again to have fun with the 24-105mm and through a bunch of shots and circumstances.  Talk about fun!

I ended up coming across the Flying 15 Motorcycle Club at the end of their annual spring opening ride (yes, they rode in the snow!).  I took some outdoor shots of their bikes.  Went indoors and shot some 1600iso pics of the members and the bands.  Back outside for some action shots while competing for loudest pipes and best burnouts.  I’m still going through the pictures, but so far I’m impressed.

I will have to admit one frustration over the weekend - Soft Focus.  Now, I’m not sure whether to blame myself, the rental 24-105mm, or my 20d.  It could really be any of those, and I’m going to have to take a bit closer look at what I’m doing and how my other pictures appear.