The Art of Seeing

Taken tonite at Boston's First Night 2005 celebrations. I took this by pure reflex with no tripod and no plan. Of course it wasn't sharp, but I think it doesn't have to be.

2004 was not a good year to many hundred thousands of people around the globe. I sincerely hope 2005 will bring peace, understanding, happiness to many and solace to all those you suffered.

See you all next year!

This is another view of the bridge. Taken from a vista point looking south into the city.

Just back from a trip to San Francisco, California. It is a beautiful place with beautiful weather. What a contrast to New England! Arrived home to be greeted by 7 inches of snow.

Here's a view of the Golden Gate bridge at night. The mountain blocking the left corner is a bit unfortunate, but I should not complain having heard that it is unusual not to see the bridge covered by fog. Canon 20D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm, Tripod.

Lucky to meet this man with a dog going for a walk on that day. I met one other person the rest of my shoot at that location. Canon 20D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens.

Winter in New England can be quirky to say the least. This photo was taken on a day when a thick fog rolled in and stayed put the whole day.

Canon 20D, Canon 18-55mm EF-S, tripod.

A recreation of old times exists as a whole village in the border between Massachusetts and Connecticut called Old Sturbridge Village. Saw this carriage go by and I had barely enough time to get this shot. No thinking, no detailed composition etc.

Velvia, Canon Rebel ti, Canon 50mm 1.4, handheld.

I am trying hard not to post flower pics. But the color and the texture produce an emotion of softness here that can only be experienced by seeing.

Canon 20D, Canon 100mm Macro.

One of my all time favorite pics. Can you guess what it is? Velvia, Canon Rebel Ti, Sigma 105mm Macro.

So I didn't really buy this lens. It sort of 'came' with the Canon 20D kit I bought. I originally wasn't planning on even unwrapping it and trying it out since I already had a Tokina 19-35mm f3.5-4.5 wide angle lens. I thought that the Canon wouldn't probably be better. Besides, the Canon was EF-S so I couldn't use it on a film body.






But..I did a comparison just for fun and..




Construction wise, it looks and feels plasticky. It is also incredibly light. But I consider it an advantage after lugging heavy lenses around.

Anyway, here's the comparison first. Note that all pics were shot using the 20D. No processing was done. The images look worse because of the compression than they do in real life.

Widangle (18mm @ f3.5)



My first surprise here. The Canon is much sharper than than the Tokina. This is the better wide angle lens when wide open.

Widangle (18mm @ f8)


At f8 the differences are pretty difficult to discern.

MidRange (35mm @ f4.5)



Wide open, the Canon once again shines here. It is much better than the Tokina which appears to exibit some kind of ghosting.Pretty much unusable.

MidRange (35mm @ f8)



Now the performance is very similar with the canon slightly better.

Tele End (50mm @ f5.6)

Since the Tokina only goes upto 35mm, obviously I couldn't the compare the Canon with it. But I do have a Canon 50mm f1.4 prime. So just for fun I did a comparison. Its not really fair, but then it just serves to indicate the quality of the lens.



No contest really. The Canon prime blows the EF-S lens out of the water!! What else did you expect?

Summary

The Canon EF-S performs surprisingly well at the wide end and wide open. It is also small and since it has a 58 filter diameter, is easy to find accessories unlike my 77mm Tokina. At the tele end, the results get worse.

This is a good wide angle lens for the money but I would recommend that this lens be used only at the wide end.

Abstracts and patterns can be found everywhere.

I took this using my P&S Canon S410 while giving a tour of Boston to some friends who were visiting over thanksgiving. The camera setting was set to "Vivid" and I did no post processing out of the camera.

This picture would serve very well as a background for those motivational pictures we see so often like "C O U R A G E", "S U C C E S S" etc. Taken at sunset at Ft Myers, Florida, Rebel Ti, Velvia, Canon 100 mm Macro.