Month: April 2009

Back from D.C.

We got back from Washington D.C. a little while ago, much longer of a drive than I thought it would be.

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/

Lens Testing

The wife and I are headed to D.C. this weekend, for a long weekend away to celebrate her birthday (which is tomorrow.)

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.

[singlepic id=911 w=320 h=240 float=center]
[singlepic id=908 w=320 h=240 float=center]
[singlepic id=909 w=320 h=240 float=center]
[singlepic id=910 w=320 h=240 float=center]

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.