The One With A New Camera

Well, hello all!

A few things here to tell you about and they are all good, happy things 🙂

First of all, as the title implies, I GOT A NEW CAMERA!! Excuse the yelling but…well… I AM SO EXCITED!! Ok, enough with the yelling.

After four years with my trusty Canon Rebel XTi, I very unexpectedly upgraded to a brand new Canon 5D MarkII last weekend!  My very first, professional grade, “big girl” camera.

It wasn’t a rash decision – I’ve wanted this camera since it was released in 2008 and I saw Reverie, filmed by photographer/filmmaker Vincent Laforet.  It was made entirely with the 5D.  Since then, thanks to some generous friends, I’ve had the opportunity to use one several times.  I always cry a little when I have to give it back (seriously… maybe not on the outside, but on the inside, I’m sobbing like a little girl)

But now, now I have my very own!  As well as a shiny new 100mm 2.8 macro lens!

I could go on and on ad nauseum about how wonderful it is and how in love with it I am but, I’m pretty sure y’all will be rolling your eyes, so I will spare you the details just yet!

There’s a bit of a learning curve – it’s a full frame camera as opposed to small frames like the Rebels or the 7D so all my lenses work differently with it.  Just means more practice and getting used to its quirks.  I moved to Adobe Lightroom for my post processing at the same time, so that’s slowed me down a bit as I get the hang of a new workflow.  But so far, I’m loving it all.

I still have a few posts with photos I’ve taken over the last month waiting to be written so it won’t be all 5D all the time just yet.  They’ll share the spotlight for a while.

Photograph 1: The photo above was a test shot with the 5D and 100m macro lens.  It was shot at 8pm on my kitchen counter with no flash or lighting. It was literally “snapped”.  No prepping or setting up the shot. ISO4000 (yeah… four thousand)

Toronto Bound

I’m also off to Toronto for a week for client work and won’t be able to post much while I’m gone.  However, I’ve lined up a wonderful guest post from one of those photographers I told you about that does their own thing.  I think this person will be new to a lot of you so I’m very excited for you all to meet them (plus, they made the most to die for dessert to share with you all).

Toronto is a bit like a second home to me.  My youngest brother lives downtown and I have a bundle of friends in the city, not to mention my best friend is 90 minutes away in Niagara and is coming up to visit on my last day in town.  I’m also planning to hit Graffiti Ally (the photo above was taken on my trip last October with a borrowed 5D) on my one afternoon of downtime and take a few photos.  It’s one of my favourite places to photograph in Toronto.   And, on Thursday, I’m very excited about getting to have dinner with two of my favourite foodbloggers: Mardi from Eat Live Travel Write and Ethan from Tastes Better With Friends.  Makes up for all the work I have to do!

So, behave yourselves until I get back!