What a Life!

Aren’t those flowers pretty?

Every year they bloom on tall shoots from these bushes which I’ve thought were downright ugly every since we first looked at the house.

This would be the snake I almost stepped on when trying to take the picture of the ugly bushes. Hope no one saw the little yuck! dance I did in the middle of the front yard. The picture of the ugly bushes ended up being taken from the driveway so I could see where I was stepping.

One thing that I miss about my old Canon S3 IS is the zoom. That picture of the snake is cropped, and he doesn’t look very sharp to me. Loss of resolution, perhaps? Or the camera focused sharply on something other than the snake? I don’t know.

I thought that with 10.1 MP of resolution with the Rebel XTi that I could safely crop. But now I’m thinking that instead of an 4×4 being half the resolution of an 8×8, it’s actually a quarter. [4×4=16 and 8×8=64; 16 is 1/4 of 64]

Pictures like that make me really miss that 12X zoom. I could zoom with the camera, get really close while being far away, and still get a crisp, clear shot. Don’t get me wrong – I love my 35/2 lens, but so many of the pictures outside – even when they aren’t cropped – seem to have a soft focus. You don’t know how many outdoor pictures I have that aren’t up on Flickr because they just seem out of focus.

I asked the talented Alissa what lens she has. She takes great outdoor photos, which is where mine seem so lacking. She has the Sigma 17-70/2.8 which she loves. The 35/2 would still be the lens I kept on my camera, but when I go outside…or to the park…or to the farm, I could use the Sigma. That’s where I so miss being able to zoom. [I still don’t miss it at all inside.]

I could ask for the new lens for Christmas, but that’s the time of year I would use it the least. That’s the thing about photography. I can spend $20 on yarn here and there and nobody notices. But one photography purchase a year is a huge ordeal. I don’t know if I want a zoom lens that bad.

What I’d really like would be Lolly’s new set-up – a Canon 40D with the L-series 24-70mm/f 2.8. Wouldn’t that be sweet? [No links to the camera or the lens because they’re so out of my range that I don’t even want to know how much they cost.]

Someday when I’m rich and fabulous, maybe I can have one of those. Until then I’ll take pictures of the one and only plant with flowers on it in our yard with the camera and lens that I have…and try not to step on a snake!