Some bad pics with some nice new lenses

Went way out to the other end of the city today to get a Tokina Pro 100mm macro. They had a demo for sale, and after checking it out, I found it to be none the worse for light wear. So I saved a nice whack of change. Outstanding build quality, like my 12-24mm Tokina Pro.

Also decided, more or less on impulse, to get a Canon EF-S 55-250 mm IS. This lens has been available in Europe and Asia for quite a while, but I think is still not widely available in the USA. Score another one for an old cracker who settled in Canuckistan. No-one would confuse this with an L lens in its build or handling, but a nice zoom range and IS make up for its relative flimsiness. And it won't weigh down the camera bag and didn't lighten the wallet much.

Needless to say, by the time I got them home, it was raining, so I was reduced to snapping a few shots here in my home studio. Turns out the Canon will be useful for macros as well. Apologies for the lousy pics, but I blame them on the lousy weather.;)

All shots at ISO 400.

With the Tokina, 1/50 of a second at f2.8:



With the Canon, 1/6 of a second at f5.6 (IS on):



Canon, 1/13 of a second at f5.6 (IS on):



Heading out of the city for the afternoon on Friday and hope to bring home a few hundred pics. Hopefully much better than these.

I think that given the circumstances, you did very well!

I especially like the plant pics...

The detail is wonderful!

I'm looking forward to more pics!

:woohoo: :woohoo:

I haven't taken many macro shots since the late '80s. But thing get bleaker and the idea of seeing the world in a grain of sand gets more and more appealing.

Does it fully take the place of a tripod? Somewhere in between a tripod & no tripod? What?

I spent some time shooting with this lens today, but in generally bright conditions. The results were tack sharp and I think the zoom range is very practical, but I might have achieved the same results with a non-IS telephoto, which I wasn't carrying.

It did seem to do a good job with panning, as advertised, but beyond that, I'm not sure. It's definitely objectively sharper than my 70-300mm, but whether the IS really gained me much, I still don't know. I did get some nice shots today, though. I'll post some soon. I doubt if there's any real substitute for shooting from a tripod, but I was travelling without one today so I can't do a 1:1 comparison.