When Wide is a Good Thing
I admit….I am a total photography newbie. But I have been having fun playing with my Canon DSLR since I received it at Christmas. And honestly have been pretty happy with the results considering….shhhh…. I really did not know what I was doing.
But something just came in the mail that rocked my world. Especially considering it has not been on my camera for more than two hours.
Any guesses?
Well remember how I always make excuses for poor pictures in smallish spaces like closets and laundry rooms?
They looked something like this-
Standing in the exact same place I now have this-
That’s right a wide angle lens (a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 to be exact)!
This was purchased with our Italy trip in mind knowing that I would need a whole lot of practice before I would be ready to capture sites like Tuscany and the Florence skyline. I thought it also might come in handy in shooting stuff for the blog, but I had no idea what a difference it would make. Bad news (for me at least) all of my current room pics are now unsatisfactory and I need to retake them. That may require some straightening up around the house.
We chose this lens because of this incredibly helpful article on Fly Through Our Window, Amazon reviews, the Tamron 17-50mm Flickr group and pricing Canon wide angle at a local store. We were really close to buying it on Amazon, when Derek found a couple used ones on Ebay. After a couple of days of auction stalking he was the proud winner for a lower cost.
Something else that has helped my wannabe photographer skills is this (free) 12 week online course that I found via the blog Twenty-Six to Life. I have not joined an actual group going through the tutorial, but I printed them all out and learning so much going through it at my own pace. It is very straightforward and walks you through concepts one at a time with practice on your camera. Because of this I can now shoot in the manual mode. Big accomplishment for me. It is the perfect companion to a book such as Understanding Exposure.
I am not making any promises, but I hope all of this learning makes a difference in my photos. Now off to do some vacuuming to get the rooms ready to be seen in wide angle…..
