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/

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.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how to take photographs at night, mainly of the moon.

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.

I’ve spent a few hours over the last week uploading some photos I’ve taken (seen here).   Photos are from my trip to India for work (Bangalore, and mangalore), London (for Christine’s college graduation) and Las Vegas (for our honeymoon)

Most of the photos are available at 10.1MP (so dial up users be warned), but some are available at lower resolutions.   They all have smaller views and larger views, so you should be able to see them all.

If you want, you can purchase a print from the site, and pay with Paypal, too.   Assuming, of course, that you like the photos.

Happy Friday. Happy Friday indeed.

I finally got around to implementing a photo album application that allows me to sell copies of prints.   Sure, I don’t take the best pictures, but some of them come out really great.

I started uploading a select handful of photos from India, and London yesterday.   The Photos tab above (or this link) will take you there to check out some of the pics.

Any questions about how it works, let me know.   It’s not finalized yet, I’ve still got some tweaking to do with the application, but it’s workable.