Through a new lens

It is never a bad idea to take a look at the world from a different perspective. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to try, but instead I am going the route of viewing the world through an actual new lens- for my camera. If you aren't into cameras, then scroll on and check out the pictures of what we have been up to lately!
My first lens was the "kit" lens that came with my camera. It is a very standard 18-55mm (so it zooms a bit, but not a ton) with an f-stop (aperture size) of 3.5 at the lowest zoom, which is a totally respectable aperture, but something lower would be more ideal in low light situation and also give you that nice portrait image with a sharp focus on a person and a beautifully blurred background.

This is the photo that set off my obsession for a new lens. This was taken with Alaina's Nikon 50mm fixed lens (so no zoom) at f1.8. Canon makes a similar lens and it is very affordable. On the other hand, Alaina has that lens, so I wanted to get something that would expand our options. I also found the 50mm to be zoomed in (if you are tracking, my current lens only goes to 55mm, so this is almost max zoom for my kit lens). I started flirting with a 35mm low aperture lens, but those are $$$. I settled on getting a 40 mm f2.8. Then I spent another 20 hours on the internet and found my "dream" lens- it offered zoom and a low f-stop at a fairly affordable price. It is not made by Canon (Oh, Canon makes a comparable lens for close to $1600- not going to happen!), but instead a Tamaron (28-75mm, f2.8). I bought it used from a reputable site, so the cost was less than half the retail value.

When I got the lens, I was in LOVE! But (big BUT) I have been using it for a while and am not totally satisfied, though am growing more and more satisfied. Here is the deal- I love the photos I get from my zippy little DSLR. Then I upgraded my lens to get even better pictures- but at the same time, I switched from using auto mode to a manual mode (controlling the aperture selection) and I don't think that I have gotten any brilliant photos. Part of this is a learning curve that I hope ends up being well worth the fairly minimal investment, as far as lenses go. It is so hard to judge, as I can't switch to my kit lens and take the same picture for a side by side comparison with the kids. I am also NOT willing to pay more that $200 for a new lens at this time, and that severely limits my options.

While I work all of this out, I am going to go through some of my most recent adventure photos to analyze what exactly I have going with my new camera.

This is a good demo of what my new lens is capable of. I cranked up the f-stop for the first photo and then dropped it down to 2.8 for the second shot. There is that blur I was looking for!

And then I can get some low light photos like this one that I love:

After some casual play with the lens, I took it on the road to the zoo- and I didn't love the results. Part of this is because you don't want to blur the background at the zoo (duh! I was just so in love with the portrait sharpness that it occurred to me too late that this was not the effect you want for the zoo).

I tried really hard to get carousel photos that were amazing, but I was really close to the kids, so it was tough to get good pictures starting at 28mm as a full zoom out. I don't think the pictures are bad- but I just don't know that they are better than the old lens set on auto, especially in an outdoors, high light setting!

The additional zoom over my kit lens was a nice boost in this case.

Fun focus option

I was really happy with the color and light of the helicopter, as that is in a garage type structure, so lower light.

Not a great picture, but this was really low light, so any picture is better than what I have gotten in the past.

Downside: The camera starts at 28mm, so it is hard to get a good angle on things when you are really close, like I was on the carousel.

So overall, I was reasonably happy with my pictures, but I can't say that I couldn't have gotten most of them with my original lens.

The next time I played with the camera, I was back at the zoo- three days later! This time, I was a chaperone for the Kindergarten field trip. I switched back to my kit lens, as I decided the benefits of the new lens aren't significant when somewhere like the zoo.

Looking at these pictures, I see that I don't love the color- which is related to the camera white balance more than the lens. Prior to this zoo trip, I took a bunch of test shots with my new lens and I was also unhappy with the white balance. For the next set of pictures, I still hadn't worked out what the problem was, so the color is also a bit blue-toned. This adventure was to a community egg hunt followed by Stephanie's first T-ball practice.

Cute picture- but a good demonstration of why you don't want to stop the camera all the way down- we were outside, so light wasn't a real issue, so the result of a low f-stop meant that Stephanie was out of focus- living and learning!

The new lens has a bit of a soft focus at the lowest f-stop. I don't think it is necessarily apparent unless you do side by side shots to compare, but I am a little disappointed in not being able to get a really crisp image when the aperture is wide open. However, more reading indicates that this is not atypical for any lens. That means that I should probably be in the market for a lower f-stop, but my options are limited unless I am willing to spend big bucks- which I am not. Also, I am trying to become less obsessed with a low f-stop, as it clearly is not always what I want. But if I want it, I just really, really want it.... such a sucker for that crisp portrait and blurry background!

The color tones are just a bit cool- something you can fix with white balance- if you realize you need to fix it! Now I know that this is a general issue with my camera and I am on it. It has always been an issue, I see it when I look at older photos on my digital frame. I was just never analyzing the pictures so heavily.

Okay, other than the color being a little cool, I really love this picture.

SUCCESS! Jump rope picture was at dusk, and the grass really is mostly dead (which is intentional- but that will have to be another blogpost), so I am happy that the picture has some warmer colors. This was stopped all the way down and I slowed the shutter speed to stop the jump rope. Not a fantastic picture of Stephanie, necessarily, but I was really happy to achieve the image.

Our next time out with the camera was for an Easter egg hunt at the neighbors house. Her grass is beautiful and green, I was attentive to the white balance and generally happy with the image quality.

I brought some confetti eggs (literally eggshells that have been emptied of their eggs and filled with confetti)- they loved them, and they were pretty cool. We did a few more on Easter, and I held some back to get some fun family photos- it was too rainy on Easter to bring the camera out, but I still haven't gotten to it. Is it too late? Maybe, but I might still do it anyway.

My last problem is photo composition- and this has nothing to do with my camera. It is like what Kevin says about his race gear- it isn't the bike quality that is holding him back. At some point, the person on the bike, or in this case, holding the camera is limited by their own skills. I often realize, too late, that I needed to shift angles or take a few steps back. I am hoping that once some of the camera settings become easy and natural to adjust on the fly, I will be able to work on composition. I suspect I will never be great at it, as I haven't shown a particular inherent skill in this area- but, like anything, practice can go a long way to approach natural talent, and I have plenty of practice ahead of me.

WDW Wrap Up

You must be thinking that surely I have nothing left to say about Disney. You would be wrong...

We dropped Alaina off at the Orlando airport in plenty of time to catch her flight and we started to make our way home. By the time Kevin got us through another round of Orlando traffic, I was so exhausted I couldn't keep my eyes open. We both wanted to make it home, but I was literally incapable of driving. My plan was to get to Georgia and stop for the night. Kevin had other plans, and hauled all of us home, arriving just before 3am. I don't know how he did it, but I am glad he was able to, because it was good to have a reset day before I had to go to work that night. Stephanie even went to school, just arriving late. I hadn't planned on it, but she woke me up at 9am and told me she wanted to go.

I have some final thoughts on Disney, and then I am closing out the Disney series and moving on to our normal happenings.

1. Meal Plans: I am the only adult that strongly considered getting a meal plan. Ultimately, it was a great choice not to. Alaina assured me that the cafeteria lines in the hotel were outrageous and we saved big time and money doing it our way. HOWEVER, if I ever flew there with the kids and didn't have as easy access to food from home, I would reconsider the meal plan option.

2. Disney PhotoPass: Who needs that, right? Alaina and I aren't shy with our cameras and are intent on capturing everything! Since we weren't leaving the cameras at home no matter what, we thought we should skip the PhotoPass, even though it came recommended by several people. Ultimately, this is my one and only true regret. I didn't know it would include so much, specifically all of your ride photos (if you scan your magic band when yours is on the screen) and they had photographers everywhere to get group shots. Alaina ended up purchasing a few a la carte, including some on Space Mountain. I love how bored Stephanie looks on her second ride (the one with me and Alaina). You can always buy the PhotoPass later, but since we didn't pre-purchase it, we didn't utilize it well, so we missed a lot of photo opportunities and thus decided that purchasing it after the fact wasn't worthwhile.

  

3. Weekends: We were not able to skip going to the parks on the weekend, but if I definitely would if I had that kind of time. Show up on a Sunday, spend a fun hotel/pool day and then kick off Disney on a Monday.

4. Hotel Pool: We didn't have enough time to spend much time at the hotel, which was fine by me. If we ever take a more leisurely trip, I think I would like to plan a day off of parks at the pool to reset.

5. Shirts: I wanted to get Stephanie a distinctly Disney Star Wars shirt. This didn't, oddly enough, exist at Disney. The shirts could have been from anywhere but cost a Disney premium. I ended up making her a shirt when we got home, but I wish I had known to do it before and had a few with me to give her while we were there. This is the only picture I have of her in it, from my phone. She likes it a lot more than her expression would indicate...

I think that is about it! A lot of life has happened since Disney, but I have really wanted to finish this adventure before I posted anything else. And it is done! Hooray!

WDW Day 5: Animal Kingdom

Monday was our bonus day at Disney. Alaina's flight was around 5:00 on Monday, and I had to be back at work Tuesday night, so initially we had planned on not doing parks on Monday. However, adding an additional park day ticket at this point was only about $15 a ticket, so even a partial day was a good deal. It also allowed us to get two full Magic Kingdom days in, in lieu of doing four parks in four days. Kevin and I had argued that the bonus day should be Magic Kingdom but Alaina insisted she thought a partial day at Animal Kingdom would be enough. She convinced us, and it was a good decision. You could surely happily spend a full day at Animal Kingdom, but I felt like we got to see and do a nice amount with the time we had. I think the thing we missed most by having less time there were the shows- they had lots of trained birds, and put on some pretty cool shows with them (We saw pieces of several). There is also the highly rated Lion King show that we missed.

At this point in the trip, Gwen had been running on little to no naps for too many consecutive days, and she was a bit of a handful. I had to leave a Dumbo-type ride with both girls when Gwen had a fit because they wouldn't let her ride in her own seat. Stephanie handled it like a champ, simply noting that the ride was just like Dumbo and Aladdin's Magic Carpet.

We also met our first ride that Stephanie was too small for, the Primeval Whirl. Kevin and Alaina went on it first, and when they described it as a combination of teacups and a rollercoaster, I happily handed over my parent switch pass and they went a second time. There was also a walking safari/zoo experience which I didn't feel that into- as I was starting to be done with all the walking. However, we went, and it was totally worth it. They had incredibly large bats that were so impressive- and they were from tropical climates and not nocturnal, so they were out and stretching and moving. The walk ended in an aviary, and there was an impressive number of birds. There was also an impressive amount of bird poop. Once both kids had been pooped on, we skedaddled out of there.

We, of course, did not miss the safari. We went right to it, as the animals are most active in the morning, and it didn't disappoint. Alaina enjoyed it so much, she went a second time while we took the kids to see Bug's Life.

My favorite ride was Dinosaur. I think it won me over because they really achieved the effect of the ride even when standing in line- and that was something that sold me on so many of the Disney rides.

Kevin and Alaina loved the Primeval Whirl (Aren't they lucky I let them go twice!), and Stephanie was 100% Expedition Everest.

By the end of the day, around 3:00, Gwen was toast. She took off running during a bird show, barefoot and crying. I mention this because it tells you something about Disney. I grabbed her up, knowing that her feet were going to be just filthy, as I have seen them after walking through a grocery store or even church barefoot. But her feet were totally clean! I had heard they hose everything down at the end of the day, and they must really scrub that place!

It was shortly after this that Stephanie had her first and only Disney meltdown. She misunderstood something Kevin told her and lost it a bit. BUT Alaina saved the day with a Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwich, and we headed out.