New Lenses! Part One

George Again!

   I’ve been using just the kit EF-S 18-55mm & EF-S 55-250 kit lenses for photography/videography for quite some time and they have preformed very well (Click Here for Sample Shots). But I kinda hate these lenses for a couple reasons. First, they’re very slow lenses. What that means is that they have a small aperture and intern, you have to crank your ISO up or lower your Shutter Speed. Sometimes this can lead your video/photos into looking like film, but more often than not it makes it WAY harder to color grade certain shots. And at least with the 18-55, it’s not that sharp, it isn’t of the best quality and is a little slow to focus. So with this, I wanted a few things with the new lenses: 

1. Fast autofocus
2. At least a stop or two brighter* 
3. Be sharper

   Now I’ve looked at lenses like the Tamron 24-70 f/2.8, Tamron 17-55 f/2.8, and even the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8. But I don't exactly have $700+ to spend on a lens as of the writing of this post. Now my father used to be into photography back in the days of the Canon F1 (“F” for film) and had a whole host of primes that are now in my possession. Lets take a look at some of the lenses I got.

Canon FD 100mm f/4 Macro

   An unbelievable piece of glass. The ability to focus within a few inches of the subject is really mind boggling. Even at f/4 I get amazingly shallow depth of field. Take a look at some images:



   Nothing but super sharp, crisp images come out of this lens.

M42 135mm f/2.8 & M42 2x Teleconverter

   This lens and teleconverter setup is by far my favorite. It is almost a telephoto lens with a very large aperture for the length. That makes my subject isolated from the background and really focuses your attention onto the in-focus areas. What I also love is how small & light this lens is, almost weighing about as much as a portable hard drive. And at f/2.8, this lens is good enough for most indoor shots. So I can keep this in my camera bag without adding practically any weight. Below is an image that I used the teleconverter, and I just fell in love with:

   Look at how sharp the bird is, I'm just amazed. Even with the Teleconverter, it looks amazing.

Next week, I'll cover the rest of the lenses I got.

   That's it for now, George out!