611 Productions

I recently went on a spending kick for some new camera equipment and here is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens I just received last week.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

The box it came in weighed next to nothing, I wasn’t even sure if the lens was in it at first.  The lens was there and it weights next to nothing and was smaller then I thought.  I don’t mind, it just makes it easier to fit into my bag.  The lens does feel a little cheap and it is all plastic, but for the price that you pay it is what you would expect.  I got this lens primarily to do portraits and some macro shots.  The 50mm works good in both situations and the fast f/1.8 is very nice in lower light and really makes it easy to pinpoint your focus and blow your backgrounds out of focus.  The first shot I took was messing around with an ashtray sitting on the night stand with just a lamp providing the light(I am not the smoker by the way).  It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but I liked how it came out and knew I was going to be a fan of this lens.

ashtray

I ended up grabbing the girlfriend and doing a quick photo shoot to see how this lens works.  I also had a chance to use my 430EX II flash for the photos as well.  Here is how some of  the shots turned out!

Ashley test shot 1

Ashley test shot 2

These were shot in raw at f/1.8 with a 1/200 shutter, bouncing the flash off the ceiling and silver reflector down bottom and an orange hair light in the back.    I really like how this set up worked, I am constantly switching things up and finding new ways to light different shots, you can say I am a little obsessed with lighting.  Back to the lens though, the lens stood up very well, it took me a few shots to get use to and I had to check the focus quite a bit at first, but it produced some crisp, sharp shots.  Overall this lens is a keeper in my book and it will have a permanent place in my bag, I can’t wait to get this outside for a shoot, more to come!

I recently purchased the Canon 430EX II and I thought I would give you a look at what comes in the box!

When I took the flash out of the box the first thing I noticed was the build quality of the flash, this thing is solid. It has a good weight to it, metal base, multiple angle settings including left or right 90 degrees, easy to use controls, and a locking mechanism to attach to the camera, not the screw on type. After attaching the flash to my camera and turning everything on, it was amazing to see how fast the flash was ready and how it synced up with the settings on my camera. I haven’t had the chance to mess around with the flash’s manual settings or as a slave, but just using it in auto and letting it adjust to the cameras settings gave me excellent results. The flash can recognize what mm your lens is set at and the distance an object is away and adjust itself accordingly. I tested the flash in a variety of different settings: direct flash, bounce off the ceiling, and using a bounce card, and will be posting my test shots in the next day or two. I must say that my first impressions of the Canon 430EX II are great, I have not seen all of the pros and cons of the flash yet, but I will let you know how it goes after more regular use.