My New Splurge

I spoiled myself last week. I splurged on a new lens for my camera. I've been wanting to do it for quite some time, but just haven't gotten around to it. Have I mentioned how much I love my camera? I do. Love it. Having said that, these days the iphone gets used way more. Way. More. Though the quality of the pictures doesn't compare to that of my Nikon, it's certainly pretty good. And I have my camera, phone with me all the time. All. The. Time. It's funny actually, because 90% of the time I identify the iphone as my 'camera'. "Did someone see my little camera?" "Mason, please pass me my little camera" "Hey... is that my little 'camera' ringing?" I joke. Sort of. I knew I wanted to have the 'iphone' for 2 reasons. The first naturally being, the making and receiving phone calls.  The 2nd reason, for the camera. [Not to mention all those camera apps you can find]

It didn't take me long to figure out that receiving and sending email was a delight... [Once it got set up properly that is]

I'm also now a member of the texting world... I realize that's not new just to the iphone, but it's certainly new to me. I didn't do it on my last phone, so I've come leaps and bounds.

But by far, the thing I love most about my phone is the pictures. The taking. The editing. The sending. The sharing. Love it. Absolutely love it. So, it's maybe no surprise that I have 6 different camera apps and 7 different editing apps on my phone. [For the time being that is... There's a new editing app out, that I'm suitably impressed with, PicTapGo. It might be on my phone in the very near future]

I have one game app. Angry Birds. And I've never played it. It's the one app that I have, so that in an emergency situation, I can hand the phone over to my kids. And I can count on one hand how many times I've done that. That's right. One hand. Yes, I'm that Mum. It's my camera iphone, and no one else's... Yup, that's the way I role people, and guess what, my kids seem to be okay with that.

Any way, I digress... This was supposed to be a post about my fancy-schmancy new lens. Back to that. I took a photo class 2 years ago. Learning how to use my fancy new camera. Getting out of auto and into manual mode, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah...  One thing that stood out most from that class, was them saying to get a lens that would be able to get the smallest f-stop possible. My other lens, a 18 - 55 mm had a depth of field range from 3.5-5.6. I wanted a smaller depth of field.

I found a 50 mm lens on sale in a recent flyer. It has a depth of field of 1.8. I have been coveting it for quite some time, so when I saw it was $40 off, I couldn't resist. [I  know there is also a 50 mm that offers a depth of field of 1.4, that's initially what I kind of had my eye on, but this lens was too good a price to pass up]

I've been using this new lens over the past week. I have 14 days to take it back if I'm not satisfied, so of course, I needed to try it out.

I have to say, this little lens, has found a new home. It takes some getting used to, because in the past I've always been able to zoom in and out a little bit. This is just one fixed setting, 50 mm. So if you're subject is too close, you physically need to move back. But the depth of field, is exactly what I'd hoped for. [You know, your subject in focus, and the background blurred] It's lovely. So it will remain. Here are a few shots.

 There it is! Welcome!

Blurry cupboards in the background

Focused on his hand, so slightly blurry face and background totally blurred.

Don't think these two will fit in the same chair for much longer.

And lastly, this is just a great picture, celebrating Gigi's 96th Birthday yesterday. 

But it was using the new lens. Mason didn't come fast enough to get included. He was busy playing with another little cousin. Perhaps I can photoshop his little head in the picture somehow, because now it seems like he should have been in there with us.