Archive for the 'Arts and Entertainment' Category

03/27 If you are the bride-to-be

If you are the bride-to-be then certainly you want to ensure that every single part of your wedding ceremony will be just hundred percent perfect.  Chances are high that you will not be able to make sure that everything of your wedding ceremony will be perfect unless you are considering do to hard works for this but I can tell you one thing you will be reworded for your hard work for sure.  Without a guitar wedding music guitarist your wedding ceremony cannot be perfect.  If you are the bright to be then certainly you will need to know how to book the right wedding guitarist for your wedding.  

11/12 craft handmade that makes you win

craft handmade is proving all the things right when I head out on the right foot and get myself moving. I know that there is something about getting craft handmade products that just makes it feel a little more at home. You know when your grandmother or mother used to knit you clothes? You would wear it all the time because it was comfortable and it was just your favorite thing. Well, you will know that this is a store that makes you win since it will really have those same things that you have loved for so long. So, when your grandma isnt here, you can still have craft handmade from Craft Showcase.

10/09 toddler toys that any kid will want to keep

toddler toys that are not the usual teddy bear or the stuffed animal that every kid owns and usually ends up throwing away or sitting in the back of the closet. You know that when a kid has a favorite toy, that the rest of his toys do not get played with. This is often a trouble because you spend money on toddler toys that the kid does not really want to play with. Well, it has to be something unique that you know your child will love. Consider the toddler toys at Craft Showcase because these are the things that any kid will want to keep. They will be dreaming of this store forever.

09/22 Good Wide Angle for the Price Canon 24mm 2.8

This Canon 24mm 2.8 is a great wide angle lens for the price. I simply love the 24mm range. When you use this lens with a full frame DSLR camera, it will be a true wide angle lens. When you use this lens with a cropped sensor DSLR camera, then it will behave like a 35mm lens which is ideal for moderate wide angle photography as well as street photography. In terms of sharpness, this lens is very sharp. I have tested this lens at every aperture and have found it to be very sharp at every one of them. There are some downsides on this lens. First, it is a bit hard to find nowadays. You will have to search thoroughly to find a good one. Then, the autofocus is a bit noisy. This is because there is no USM motor installed on this lens. I hope Canon will install one in the next version.

09/15 Shading in a Sony 35mm 1.4

If you are considering the purchase of a Sony 35mm 1.4 lens, then think again. This is just an old Minolta lens and is very expensive. The technical features are also nothing to write home about. Newer models offer better quality and you may be better off buying one of the newer Carl Zeiss lenses. The shading per se is not an area of concern for this lens, but chromatic aberration as well as sharpness suffers a lot when used at wide open levels. Thus the lens disappoints most when used at a setting for which most people would purchase it in the first place. It was at one point in time, the lens of choice for news photographers and others who constantly shoot in less than ideal light levels, but today you can choose to avoid this lens. Corner shading also depends on the camera that you use this lens with.

09/15 Sharpness in the Canon 50mm 1.8 Lens

In this post we shall talk about the sharpness in the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens. Considering it is a budget lens, it performs very well in all areas of optical performance, including sharpness. Both center sharpness and border sharpness are excellent on this lens. If you have just a couple of hundred dollars and you want to buy a really sharp lens, then this is the right choice for your needs, and perhaps the only lens that meets the criteria. If you want to get the maximum sharpness, then you need to stop down to f/4 or above as at wider apertures, you may notice that the sharpness is slightly lesser. This is especially true for border sharpness which can be a bit weak. The lens has almost no distortion. Ghosting and chromatic aberrations are also well controlled in the lens. Overall, the lens has really very good optical quality.

09/14 Buying a Sigma 50-150 Lens

The topic of this post shall be about buying a Sigma 50-150 lens. This lens is a very good value for money product. It is much cheaper than the Nikon or Canon 70-200 mm lenses which are the lenses which have the same focal length ranges as this lens. The Nikon as well as Canon lenses are more heavy and much more expensive than this lens. If you plan to stick to your cropped sensor camera for a really long time and you do not plan to upgrade your camera, then you can easily buy this lens. You can use this lens with cropped sensor digital cameras from not just Canon or Nikon, but also with cropped sensor digital SLR cameras from Sony, Pentax and even Sigma itself. You can get this lens from any of the online stores such as Amazon or Adorama. You need not wait for a deal to buy this lens.

09/14 The Marvelous Olympus 40-150mm

If you have ever used the Olympus 40-150mm you will agree with me that this is the best lens you have ever used. The optics of this lens is incomparable with any lens. This high quality lens has very outstanding qualities. For instance, it controls distortion even at the widest aperture, great chromatic aberration control at any aperture, excellent vignetting control (as it is only slightly evident at the widest aperture), it is very sharp on the centre, very sharp on the borders and has great build quality. I am surprised that this lens can take excellent pictures both at short distance and at long distance. One of the most attractive things on the Olympus 40-150mm is its build quality. The plastic build material on this lens makes it light. Also, its zoom ring and focus ring are very responsive. When this lens is used together with four thirds DSLR camera, its effective focal length is changed to 80-300mm.

09/12 Color on Tamron 90mm Macro Nikon Lens

This will be a short commentary on the color rendition on Tamron 90mm Macro Nikon lens. Most people who shoot with a Nikon DSLR camera know that a Nikkor lens is worth the money because of the durability and the color rendition that it produces. When a Nikon user is looking for a third party alternative, he or she needs to be sure that the alternative will offer the same thing. This is the case with the Tamron lens. This Tamron 90mm Macro lens is simply a great lens for the money. The color rendition is spectacular. In terms of sharpness, it is on par with many Nikkor lenses out there. If you do not believe this to be true, then simply grab a copy of this lens and compare it with any Nikon lenses that you have. You will be shocked to see the results. I highly recommend this lens.

08/23 Playing with Tamron 17-50mm VC Lens

The Tamron 17-50mm VC f/2.8 SP XR Di-II lens’ barrel finish is slightly textured which is very pleasant to handle. The lens’ markings are painted onto the barrel and therefore it is not engraved. Based on these numbers I’d say that the VC on the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 Di-II VC lens provides somewhere around 3 stops of added Image Stabilization in my opinion. This Tamron 17-50mm lens has excellent optics but a couple of fatal usability problems with its VC and AF systems make this lens unfavorable among photographers. Some may argue that the extra money for VC is not worth it for a lens of this focal length and speed and I have to disagree with this statement. The VC or Vibration Compensation mechanism is engaged via a small slide switch which is located next to the autofocus to manual focus switch on the side of the lens and it can be operated easily.

08/22 I Am a Satisfied Owner of Several Tokina Lenses

I find it funny how many people seem to think that using Tokina lenses on their Canon or Nikkon cameras will cause damage. This myth is often perpetuated by the first party lens manufactures themselves because they obviously want you to buy their products instead of the cheaper alternatives. In all the time I have been using third party lenses I have never encountered any serious problems or experienced any damage to my camera bodies at all. You might get the odd occasion where lenses have to be returned because of slight defects, but this is normal. It is also why I prefer buying my lenses from a camera shop instead of ordering it online because it allows me to test it out before handing over the cash. Not everyone has the cash for the expensive brands but this does not mean that they do deserve to work with good lenses.

08/21 Build Quality of the Canon 100 Macro Lens

In this post we shall discuss the build quality of the Canon 100 Macro lens. The lens is made of high quality plastic parts and it has metallic mounts. The finish is not as great as it would be if you have a complete metal body, but the plastic helps to keep both the weight of the lens as well as its price at a reasonable level. The focusing on this lens is based on an IF mechanism which helps to keep the dimensions constant while focusing on a subject. The lens uses a USM motor for the auto foucs operation. As a result the auto focus is extremely fast and silent and it gives really accurate results as well. Canon has in fact gone one step further and has provided a focus limiter in this lens to further increase the speed of the auto focus when used in non macro mode.

08/18 The Tamron 18-270 Canon is Definitely an Upgrade

I passed on the 18-250mm offering from Tamron because it lacked image stabilization, but with the Tamron 18-270 Canon they have won me over completely. Not only have they thrown in a little extra range, but the lens also features image stabilization, or as they call it “vibration compensation.” If you have ever tried to take photos in low light conditions without the use of a tripod, you will know how difficult it is to get images that are not blurred. I tried out this new feature and found it to be comparable to all the rivaling products on the market. This lens also comes at a very competitive price, so if you are on a tight budget, you will get a lot of bang for your buck. Rather than focusing on specialization, Tamron has opted for a more generalized approach, which is perfectly suited for anyone who wants a lot of features all packed into one lens.

08/16 Overview of the Nikon 20mm F2.8

The Nikon 20mm f2.8 lens is actually quite an old lens. It was brought out in 1989 and as such the later technological advances have not been included in this lens. As a result the optical quality of this lens is very poor. The lens is a prime lens and is expected to have better optical quality and image quality when compared to zoom lenses. However this lens is a disappointment and does not deliver as expected. Most reviewers do not rate this lens very high on any of the optical parameters that you usually evaluate before buying a lens. Regardless of which aperture you use the lens at, this lens performs badly. In fact the errors are so visible that you cannot even think about removing them using the processing software. The only positive is its good sharpness. You are better off considering other options for your Nikon camera.