Studio@jumpers-inn.de

Recently I purchased a zoom lens to get one step closer in completing the basic equipment. I decided to go for a Canon EF-S 55-250 lens which I hope to have a good value for money. Took it out on a short stroll in the near vicinity. The light was really not good at that day, very cloudy and late in the afternoon. Under these conditions the new lens proved to be quite good – at least for my current aspirations!

Berries

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Macro test.

Meta data

Camera / Type	Canon EOS 550D
Aperture	F 5.6
Focal Length	154 mm
Shutter speed	1/60 sec
Date / Time	25/07/2010 19:04

Lessons learned:

• Zoom lenses need quite a bit more light than I was used to from the kit lens
• Shooting ducks is harder than one might think
• A zoom lens is almost a must when shooting nature

This weekend I’ve been on photo tour in Mannheim with my girlfriend as well as Steffi and Tilo. We started the tour in the late afternoon in the Luisenpark and then moved on to the watertower to shoot it in the “blue hour”. It was a lot of fun and there’s also a few images to show for it:

Another butterfly

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Shot at the butterfly house in Luisenpark.

Meta data

Camera / Type	Canon EOS 550D
Aperture	F 5.6
Focal Length	55 mm
Shutter speed	1/100 sec
Date / Time	18/07/2010 17:33

Next time we’ll probably be on tour in Frankfurt

Put the new camera through it’s first test shots. Spent the weekend at my parents’ and their garden is a really great source for macro shots of flowers and insects. Found this poppy which was nicely backlit by the sun. This one has a little post processing but only some minor colour adjustments.

I obviously have a lot of learning still ahead of me…

New camera, the Canon EOS 550d (Image from www.amazon.de)

After having thought about buying a new camera for ages now, I finally made a decision and bought a Canon DSLR, namely the EOS 550d. Being the newest kid in the Canon sub-professional DSLR-family it sports tons of features and a APS-C sensor with 18 megapixels that is said to be quite good. For all of the glory technical details of this camera I’d like to refer you to one of the numerous dedicated websites that review these things.

So, why did I buy such a rather expensive camera? I think mainly it’s because I like good photographs. I’d also like to be able to create good photographs myself. “You don’t need a pricey camera to make good pictures!” I hear you say? Right so, but even though I only took a couple of shots with this new baby, I can tell it’s a whole different feeling than using my old compact camera! I feel like having good equipment motivates me much more to look out for better shots and to educate myself on how to execute them properly. Now that I have such a capable camera I want to put it to good use.

Of course if I manage to get rather good at photography, with this equipment I won’t have to worry about technical barriers. If I can’t take the picture the way I want to it will be solely my fault, not the cameras!

So, what will be the main things I’ll use this for? Currently I don’t think I’ll delve into potrait shots, but rather photographing nature. But as this is also a blog about Blender…you probably guessed it: reference images and textures!

I’m sure it won’t be long until you can see the first results here.