I resized and uploaded all 447 photos I took. I didn’t label them all yet, so you’ll have to figure out what’s what, until I get around to that. But, enjoy!

Update, I’ve begun moving all my photos to Flickr, so I can display them at full size. (My host doesn’t have the processing power to resize a 10.1MP photo for thumbnails.)

Here’s the new link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejandreau/

To prepare, I ordered a new “wide angle” lens for my Canon Digital Rebel XTi.  Being the thrifty shopper that I am, I decided to give the Sigma lens a chance.  It was my first non-Canon lens, so I was a bit scared, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

According to various photography websites, this lense is just about as good as Canon’s version, but at $400 less, I figured I should give it a shot.

I haven’t taken it out to shoot with it, yet, just did a test here in my living room.  Though I can say I’m impressed that it comes with a lens hood.  No Canon lens I ever bought did that.  Anyway. Here’s the four different shots I took, with my four lenses, to compare them.

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The first image was taken with the stock 18-55mm lens from Canon.
The second was taken with a 60mm Macro lens, also from Canon.
The third was taken with a 75-300mm Zoom lens, from Canon.
The fourth was taken with the new Sigma 10-20 lens.

As you can see, the 60mm Macro lens and the 75-300mm Zoom are pretty much the same.   The 18-55 and the 10-20 are pretty significantly different though.

Just to be clear, these shots were all taken from the exact same spot. The camera was mounted on a tripod, and I only touched it to change out the lenses on the body.

I’ll report back, post D.C., with out the Sigma lense fared when used in the “real world,”, but according to my living room test, I’m pretty happy. It takes shots exactly how I wanted, zoomed really far out.  It makes my living room look freakin’ huge, too. Kudos for that.  Check back in a week, and I’ll put up the photos from D.C., of which I’m sure there’ll be 90 million.

Also, I had to move the photos from the old gallery into a WordPress powered one, which was a pain.   So, while the images now have the ability to have titles and descriptions, they mostly don’t (aside from the RockBand BandMate gallery).   I’ll be doing that over the next few weeks/months, and will do it as I add more galleries.

Hope you enjoy the new design as much as I do.   I’ll probably get bored with it in a few months, anyway. So if you hate it, come back in a little bit, and there’ll most likely be something new.

So, the other night, thinking I finally knew what I was doing, Christine and I went out and tried to take some pictures of the moon.   They didn’t come out right, and apparently I had my camera’s settings all wrong.

I’m going to try again once the moon’s full, and clear.

I did, however, get some cool shots with a long shutter speed of passing traffic.   I’ll upload them eventually, when I remember to do it at home.

I love my camera, I just wish new lenses and accessories weren’t so expensive.