Unknown white Lily from the backyard
Daylily “Summer wine” Hemerocallis sp.
Archive for October, 2009
Oct
26
2009
Backyard Beetle Macro
A few more Beetle macro shots from July. Do not know the species of the first beetle which I also posted earlier. The second appears to be some variety of Longhorned Beetle – probably Xestoleptura crassipes. Both are crawling on flowers from Astrantia major.
Oct
19
2009
A few test shots with the 70-200mm f/4 L IS
Quite happy with the results from my test shooting with my new Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS!
Oct
17
2009
And the winner is…
I ultimately elected to go with the Canon EF 70-200 f/4 L IS. The Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS may be a slightly faster lens, but I can’t justify almost double the price (and weight!) for that 1 stop.
I tested this lens out today in the backyard, mostly hand held… and I was quite happy with its performance. I have other lenses that I consider to be good quality optically but this one was pretty fantastic (even if some of my shots weren’t 
).
Black Capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus). Second picture is a 100% crop of the first. This was an experiment, I realize the larger version is a bad photo.
I’m impressed!
Oct
15
2009
70-200mm Telephoto Lens Debate
I have been debating between various versions of Canon’s apparently excellent 70-200 lenses. I have the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM and frankly don’t think I could do without Image Stabilization. After using it for a period I decided that I would likely get IS in any future lens of mine that offered it. I have also been used to some fairly fast lenses in the past few years – the 50mm 1.4 most notably though the 100mm macro is also f/2.8 throughout. So this really all comes down to the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS and the Canon EF 70-200 f/4 L IS. The f/2.8 would be nice to have again with IS. The f/4 version is almost half the price (in Canada) and about half the weight ( 760g vs 1470g). While one more stop would be great do I want to 1) pay almost twice as much for it and 2) lug around a lens thats twice as heavy? Both are reported to be fantastic lenses, and everyone who asks me what I shoot immediately suggests the f/4 would be best. I also will likely add an extender (probably the Canon Extender EF 1.4X II) at some point in the future. I will lose about 1 stop doing this – so f/2.8 again looks interesting – though on both versions of the lens the effective length (on my crop sensor 30D) would be 450mm.
I just don’t know…
JUST so this isn’t entirely boring text here is a quick panorama I did at Chilliwack Lake on the weekend. Snow is starting to show on the mountains!
8 exposures stitched, Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM @ 20mm.
Oct
11
2009
Unknown Backyard Bug
Again, embarrassingly, I have no idea what this thing is. My macro lens and I thought it looked cool though.
Oct
05
2009
Backyard UFO
I might have a BSc. in Biological Sciences but I have no idea what this critter is. It did briefly land on this iris leaf, however.
EDIT: Some variety of Leafhopper is my guess.
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