LOVELY LENSES

OH OH OH! Such a good Christmas for photography! I had succumbed to the dreaded lens lust with my Amazon wish list, so I had a wide array of lenses on there for every occasion. I was lucky enough to receive 2 awesome lenses for my pure photographic indulgences. My wonderful mother in law gave me this beautiful Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 Macro EX DC SLD ELD so I can take some real Macro Zoe shots, instead of just cropping.

Yes- all those letters really are necessary. First, I can focus on fun stuff at 7" and also use it as a normal 18-50mm lens with a fast aperture. ELD & SLD mean special low-dispersion glass- which sounds great, whatever that optically means. EX is their top build quality and I think that DC denotes that it has a digital crop factor for compressed (not full frame) sensors. All that to say, it's a really swell lens! Expect some fun macro shots soon :)

My other treasured gift from Christmas, Part 4 was a super-fast prime lens for everyday and low-light shooting. This sweet piece of equipment is a Nikon 35mm f/2.0 AF lens. I had owned the Nikon 50mm f/1.8, which is an awesome, fast, cheap prime lens, but I'd just found out that it was too much zoom in small places (my house and all the wine bars). I'd asked for this lens to replace that one and give me some wider-angle shots.

OH- I'm in lens heaven. Now I just need more time to go out and shot. Or I need a really awesome vacation to take all my fun gear out on.

And not to forget my other favorite gift of Christmas- a new Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW messenger bag to carry my beloved camera gear. I really needed something that would work well on our trip, but still allowed me easy, quick access to grab my camera every 4 minutes without taking the bag on and off. It's so fun so far, I just need to go out and use my camera on some fun photography field trips and maybe another Photomarathon.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm all ready to take some more awesome photos!