So I said I was going to talk about this new lens I got over the holidays. Other people got puppies and babies but to me, a girl falling more in love with her camera every day, this is just as important. Let’s just start by saying I only crossed over into the digital SLR world about a year ago so for the most part I really don’t know what I’m talking about. But in this year I’ve taken something like three thousand pictures and so, if nothing else, the trigger finger is well-worked.
It is hard not to go crazy once you get into this camera world. Some days I just tuck a towel under my chin, click on the link to B&H, and let the drooling commence. It doesn’t take long for me to fill my imaginary shopping cart with all sorts of things I have no idea how to use but nonetheless covet because I am nothing if not a dreamer. And I can learn, coach. I promise I can! Thankfully, I do have a couple real-life photography coaches to guide me through this maze of lens growth. My camera’s kit lens is an 18-55mm which has taken most of the photos I’ve posted on this site over the last year. I have been, as the kids say, hella happy with this lens. But there are times, I tell you, when you just can’t get close enough to something.
So I knew my next lens would be a zoom. I settled (read: I pretty much let someone choose for me) on an 18-200mm. (Note: Not even 100% sure I’m linking to the correct lens. I am Photography Genius!) This is a Nikon lens however, I think I could just as well used a lens made for Nikon (i.e. Sigma) and been just fine. The important part, as I learned, is to find what you’re comfortable with. Go and hold them and use them first. This lens, as it was explained to me and eventually I was convinced, has “very nice glass” (you can imagine the stream of jokes I came up with there—because ‘nice glass’ rhymes with what? That’s right: sea bass.) and with it being capable of what my 18-55 can do, I would have to change it less. This is good for me, because I am remarkably graceful when it comes to expensive things. Okay, not really. Unless it has bacon on it or rum in it, I’m not likely to skillfully save anything from hitting the ground and shattering.
So you see the photo above? That’s the new lens, without any zoom. But that little tree on top of that red rock there, seemingly growing from nothing and withstanding brutal Colorado winters, was cute. So I got a little closer.
And closer.
And then vertical, just for fun.
Long story short, I think I’m going to be really happy with this lens. Sure, I was happy before but it’s sort of like finding out you can have comfort and maximum hauling capability in your new truck—you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve got it. Alright, I made that up so that the two men I know who read this blog (the men I actually know in my everyday life, not you other mysterious [Daddy] bloggers and such) would maybe understand what I was trying to convey. They still won’t get it. But someone will!
Speaking of people I don’t know reading here, I guess it was the annual quarterly blog de-lurking day recently. And! And! Not only that, but January marks the second “anniversary” of this blog. Soooo… uhh, like, if you aren’t too busy and you’ve made it this far into the post, maybe you want to tell me who you are or that you’re out there. That would be fun. (Okay, that’s a little more awkward than I thought it’d be.)
I hope you say hi. That would give all those numbers I’m seeing every day a little identity of their own. Aww, how sweet. And I promise, I’m going to be celebrating, too. For tonight, my friends, I am off to beautiful places and friendly faces. I love it here, in the good ol’ CO, I really do. The skies are blue, the sun is shining… but there’s just this one thing: It won’t stop being so darn cold.
I’ll be checking in as I thaw. Thanks for reading.
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