the 10-22 is a very very good lens, the barrel distortion is very minimal on a 1.6 crop camera like a 400D. I was going to buy this lens after trying it but opted for a 17-40mm F4 L lens as I plan on buying a ful frame camera (5D or 1D) ina few months and the ef-s lenses only work on 1.6 crop cameras like teh 400D, 30D etc.

like somebody else mentioned, the thrifty fifty (50mm f1.8 prime) is a bargain at 150 bucks and is about as sharp as it gets with blowing serious cash, has nice bokeh too.

Thats my 2 cents

Dang! That is some awesome photography!

Thanks for the advice Hien.. Much appreciated. I will be doing some duty free shopping in the next couple of weeks so I will check out the 2.8 lenses.

Have you dabbled in spotlighting yet?

I saw this affect on one of the photography forums... Pitch black room and pointed a torch at the subject.. Totally cool!

yeh dan,

non camera mounted light is awesome to play with but i havent got around there yet as i want a master/slave setup and two external flashes. flash photography is a whole new ball game but mainly used in portrait photography to light models from the side.

at the moment, i've been playing with atmosphere, trying to promote noise & grain (in the right setting) to have an overall effect that blends in with the environment.

Here's one that might interest you:



also been shooting a few landscapes here and there:





Photography is really great when you start learning every facet and exploring different environmental conditions & limitations, and then reflecting that in your camera settings.

it is a bit easier to take a pic of a candle since the candle's flame doesnt move (that much). A singer moves his body, his feet, and plays the guitar with his hands so u have to be careful not to blur his motion too much. A little motion blur is good in some areas but not in this case.

so in effect, i had to keep the shutter speed faster than -about- 1/30 to 1/50. usually it is easy, but because there was extremely low light and I didn't want to use the flash (and i wanted the background to expose as well), the aperture size of the lens as well as ISO really came into play.

Usually ISO greater than anything over 800 is grainy, but in this case, it actually works FOR the picture as it creates the right atmosphere so i didnt have any concerns using ISO 1600.

with candles, u basically spot meter the candle and compensate the ev to about -2 ev. then adjust to suit. u also have the luxury of using a tripod or table at home, so ISO doesnt come into play and u can keep the grain away. there's enough light there for most lenses to handle with ease.

I'm the kinda guy who can't RTFM.

So what I did was take tons of photos in every single mode I can find. Took just a couple of days to learn how to use it.

That is VERY Cool!!

I love long exposure shooting!

Awesome shots. That is the kind of photography I want to get into....scenery shots.

looks like we may be having photography meet ups haha..

i want to learn portrait my self.. but at same time i love long exposure shots and city kinda shots..
also love those abandoned buildings and the likes

Learning all the different styles and techniques is really fun, its a life long quest!

Pan, blur, freeze, long exposure, light painting, HDR, shutter dragging, panorama, rule of thirds, aperture stencils, flash photography, macro I love them all.

Im in for that!

KV where are you!