Sunday, November 29, 2009

Focusing speed

I've two zoom lens: a Canon EF-S 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS kit lens and a Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS, and three prime lenses: Canon 50mm f1.8 II, Canon 100mm f2.0 and Canon 200mm f2.8L.

Interesting enough is that, both zoom lenses have IS. I found IS pretty useful when the ambient light is weak, for examples, for all indoor settings, or when the aperture is small. All my prime lenses have relatively big aperture and thus, even without IS, they work pretty good.

When we talk about focusing speed, IS couldn't help. In dimmer light, those prime lenses are really fast and accurate. And being prime, they are intrinsically faster in terms of focusing, and with the added aperture, they truely shine. Actually, IS could slow down the focusing process, since the focusing will not be done until after the stablizer works. So, in case you want faster focusing, switching off the IS mechanism will help.

I always think that prime lenses are better for creativity, but of course, the zoom are unbeatable for convenience.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Beauty of Pencil

We used to use pencil when we're in primary school. And then when we grow up, we are somehow taught to use ball pens instead. And then habbit carries on.

Recently, I'm learning a new language and I've to erase and correct quite often, and therefore, I begin to re-discover the beauty of pencil! It's just easy to use, way easier to correct than ball pen. Nowadays when correction tape are fast and clean when compared to correction fluid, but then nothing work better than faster than a eraser.

Maybe that's my elder daughter who is using pencil these days, otherwise, I might forget about pencil entirely.

It makes me think of one thing. When people are going to the space, regular ball pens no longer work with the absence of gravity. Some clever guys enhance the ball pens with some electronic parts and pumps so that the ink will continue to flow in space without gravity. Guess what, some even smarter guys proposed that we can use pencil in this case!

Simple and elegant, simply unbeatable!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L for close up work

It's not bad a lens for this purpose, this is not a macro lens, but it's serving its purpose pretty well if you're not very serious about macro imaging. This lens is truely versatile. I found push-pull zoom extremely handy and it's faster than any zoom ring can provide.





Remember, this is the first time that I tried to use this lens for close up work, and therefore, with more practice, it's going to be even better!