Merlvyn and Joy get engaged

First of all, you’ll notice that I’ve given my blog template some little tweaks. I’ve had this template for more than 6 months (and I’m the sort of person that gets bored with things almost instantly), so I’ve recently been eyeing a few cleaner and more minimalistic templates to change into. The unfortunate thing is, the best template that I’ve seen so far costs a whole lot of money… so I am left with no choice but to just change my current one a little bit to better suit my tastes. Anyway, how are you finding it? Leave a comment below this post!

Photographing a surprise engagement is exactly my kind of thing: lots of crying, smiling, laughing and emotions that make great photos and great memories for a lifetime. Merlvyn and Joy got engaged on New Year’s Eve of 2013 which in Merlvyn’s words, made counting the number of days that they had been engaged super easy.  We were seated right across from their table and tasked with sneakily taking photos of them during the meal. Sorry to say my sneaky skills aren’t that good and I was so afraid that Joy was going to smell something fishy going on!

Here are some of my favourite shots from the night. Photos were taken with a mixture of 100mm f/2.8L Macro USM and 50mm f/1.8 II. See whether you can differentiate which photos are taken by me and which by the boo (the lighting is pretty obvious haha!)

First week with the 50mm f/1.4 USM

So it’s been almost a week since I acquired the Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM and although I haven’t had a lot of time to seriously play with it, I thought I’d write a bit on how I feel about it. Of course, this isn’t going to be a technical review (no pixel-peepings, spectro chromatism, aperture, sharpness tests) and if you need one, you should be going to Ken Rockwell who has the best and most comprehensive technical reviews of lenses ever.

The internet is full of comparisons for the Canon 50mm f1.8 II and this Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM, and the general opinion is that the 50mm f1.8 has downright shitty build quality – which may not be a bad thing sometimes because the plastic barrel makes the lens super light and portable – but gives superb image quality for the price. I’ve always felt that my 50mm f1.8 was a bit iffy with the focus and horrible in low light. The lens constantly hunts for focus and is slow doing it too. The 50mm f/1.4 USM however, is three times the price but has better build quality, wider aperture, manual focus override, and USM motor for quiet and quick focusing. 

A good ol’ sandwich with the boys

Last year (or rather 3 weeks ago) we brought Mike and Jovi for sandwiches at Pickle and Fig and we had a ball of a time (or rather I did) forgetting that Mike carries a pen drive around his neck. The Christmas special sandwich that we had was a miss, so I think we’d better stick to their warm panini offerings in future. That weekend was full of meeting up with friends (same week as the Christmas BBQ at the boo’s place) and I remembered feeling all buzzed seeing my friends and catching up with what was going on in their lives. There’s almost never a serious moment with these two.

On a more recent note, I am still very busy, and I am also very sad to say that I’ve sold my 100mm macro lens because I was feeling extremely broke. In Jovi’s words I was near “starving on the streets” lol. In hindsight, I probably made the right decision anyway since the lens was heavy and was always focus hunting BUT that doesn’t mean that I don’t dearly miss the sharpness, the fact that I could shoot macro if I wanted to and that red ring (sorry I’m such a snob).

I’ve recently acquired the 50mm f1.4 USM (which was on my wishlist yay) and I’m learning to use the lens properly. For some odd reason I’m not getting the sharpness that I’m expecting out of this lens. Anyhow, I’m glad I managed to take the 100mm on a macro test run, so I’ll hopefully be posting up some photos from that (when I’ve got some free time) doing a sort of field-review, and also doing a short review of the 50mm f1.4. Till then!