on Saturday things changed in my photography - i was hired :) u know kind of...
A friend of mine asked me if I could take pictures of his "open door day". Surly I agreed and my first thoughts were about my gear. I decided to get myself a 55-250mm lens for taking shots of people without disturbing them. I had great experience in this "technique" at family parties with our old 80-200mm lens from the analogue EOS 500.
Stefan - the client - is a very good friend of mine so I told him not to take money for the job - so he(!) bought the new lens as kind of a present! That's also a good kind of saying thank u :) - THX Buddy!!
So I had the kit lens EF-S 18-55mm lens which was kind of good and bad to have it with me, the EF 50mm 1.8, the EF-S 55-250mm lens and the Nissin Di622 flash attachable to the EOS 450D. Of course I used the flash the hole day because of shooting indoors. Gladly the walls and the ceiling were all white so I could bounce the flash into the "sky".
EF 50mm 1.8:
This lens is really great! I used it for all the food shots and a also for the guests but learned that all under aperture 2.8 is very difficult because the DoF (depth-of-field) is to 'depthy'. But using it at 2.8 let the magic happen.
EF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6:
This was the best for close ups although i think, this lens is $#!%. I think it is not sharp and it is not very good for using it with an external flash. But it was the best tele-lens-option for this situation.
EF-S 55-250mm 4.0-5.6:
Is this lens good? i can't simply tell you because the lens was not the best choice for the event. I think in is because there was too little space for moving around to get the best view. Normally when I use this kind of lens to photograph people I'm outdoors having enough space to move around. Space is really important!
Nissin Di622 flash:
What should I tell you? after 3 hours of using the flash it simply broke down!! It stopped flashing from time to time and by about 12 o'clock it wasn't working anymore(the event should end at 6p.m.)! You might say new batteries? but the same - no flash! Try a manual/pilot flash? no result! What I did? I checked out a few shops and than i got a Canon 430 ex II.
Canon 430 ex II:
I think this one works way better than the Nissin - of course it is 100,- € more expensive! In my opinion it meassures the light way better but with one little minus point - it has now reflector card built! I will go for a bouncing box around the flash or maybe a 7in1 set from amazon
Any conclusion? Yes I don't know why I always have a problem with the White Balance? I tried "flash" and "auto" but not the result I expected - maybe I should get a gray card... Anything else? Yes, the pictures later in the evening were a little to dark. I only used the flash in "auto" mode with a few tries of overpowering it half a stop but this was than to bright. The EOS 450D isn't really made for shooting at ISO 1600 because the pictures are too noisy! Maybe i should get one this babies here Tamron SP AF 28-75mm 2.8
Some shots from saturday...
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| Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens |
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| Canon EF 50mm 1.8 lens |
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| Canon EF 50mm 1.8 lens |
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| my buddy Stefan |
So finally you can take a look at all the pictures at nikl.bausi2k.com
cheers
cvg
p.s.: you can checkout Stefan's' work at www.nikl.at
