Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

On Tuesday I picked up a lens to test from BorrowLenses.com in San Mateo, a company offering lens, camera and other photography equipment rentals via mail. If you're lucky enough to live in the San Francisco bay area, you can also pick up a lens from them and save yourself the cost of shipping the lens or piece of equipment that you happen to be renting.  This is my first experience with BorrowLenses.com and so far I am extremely happy with their level of customer service and the relatively low cost to rent the lens compared to what this lens would cost me if I had actually purchased it myself.

The lens I picked up to test is the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM.  This is one of Canon's L series lenses, the same as my main lens.  I wanted to see if the clarity, vibrance and sharpness that I have become acustomed to seeing with my 24-105mm would still be as noticeable at 200mm.  So far, I am as impressed with this lens as I had expected.  In addition to the extended zoom capabilities, I can also open up the aperture all the way to f2.8 for the entire focal length of the lens, which is almost a stop and a half wider than the f4 24-105mm is capable of.  With Thanksgiving yesterday, I was only able to take the lens out for one day of testing, so I have not had a chance to play with the wider aperture in composing shots yet.  I'll post a follow up when I have done so.

At this point, this lens looks to be my next lens purchase... but until I've got the funds or work to justify the purchase, I will continue to pick this lens up on an as-needed basis.  There are also some wide angle, tilt-shift and other specialty lenses that I would like to try out.  BorrowLenses.com has an impressive selection of both Canon and Nikon lenses and they seem to be frequently in stock with most of them.

I'm looking forward to taking this telephoto lens out for some more testing this weekend!

New Gear

I've had packages arriving early this week with a few new camera related items and gear.  It's been a long wait to get some of these pieces because I stretched myself pretty thin getting the gallery up and running at Panama Bay Coffee.  I have sold some of my larger ticket music items on Craigslist though, plus completed a decent number of small design jobs recently.

The first items that arrived are my PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 wireless flash transmitters.  The MiniTT5 connects to the hot shoe of my camera and transmits full E-TTL II information to my Canon flash which is connected via hot shoe to the FlexTT5.  This allows me to shoot with high speed sync, something which was not possible without the E-TTL II and previous PocketWizard models.  I've read in a few other locations online that there are some issues with interference between the Canon 580EX II flash and the FlexTT5, but initially I am not going to be outside of the range that I would be experiencing problems.  I plan on making a shield in the future that I can use to shield this interference, but it's a little low on my list of priorities right now.

The other item that ordered is a new camera strap from Pepper Camera Straps.  I'll admit... this was not a highly necessary item, but I wanted a strap that had quick disconnects so when I do long exposures, I don't have a strap flapping around in the air causing camera shake.  Okay... it just makes me happy, too.  Who else have you seen with a skull & crossbones strap on their camera?

I'll be heading down to LA this weekend to test the new gear out and I'll also have a new site feature that I will be testing while I am on my way, too.  Keep an eye out for it to go live tomorrow.

-b