Purchasing Tamron 28-75MM F2.8

Now that I've learned a bit more about DSLR and lenses, I simply can't resist shopping for a better lens for my T3i. As I shoot mostly indoor and I love those beautiful portrait photos, I wanted a lens with longer zoom and faster aperture. I don't really like to use flash because even if I bounce it and I actually use a bounce card backward (I used the black part) to keep the flash from flashing directly or near the eyes, it's still pretty uncomfortable and I honestly do not want to subject my daughter to the discomfort. And so began my search for the near perfect camera. I actually went through a couple of lens before decided on it but I'll talk about that in another blog.

To make it short, I settled on Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. It has a constant f2.8, which is fantastic and one of the reason I didn't choose Sigma's 17-70mm. Plus, I like the extra 5mm and don't really need the wider range. The problem is that it seems that it's quite common to get a "bad" copy of the lens. I really dreaded that because Indonesia's return policy is non-existent. But the photos I saw in the Tamron 28-75mm's flickr group is gorgeous and the review of the lens is generally good. So I decided to give it a try.

The main complaint about the lens from what I've read is that front and back focus problem so I went to the camera store prepared with a focus test chart I downloaded from here: http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html

I conducted the test without a tripod and without the perfect lighting, but I wasn't too concern about it. I'm not looking for a tack sharp enough but just tested to see that it can focus where it's supposed to focus.

The results seemed to be quite good:

I also took a couple of random test at different zoom range:

So all seemed satisfactory and I bought the lens and brought it home. I'm really loving it. I think I've found my near perfect lens.

Kelly Moore's Hobo Bag

This is very scrapbook related as one of the most important aspects of scrapbooking is photos. To take photos we need cameras and to carry camera around we need.....CAMERA BAG.

I just received Kelly Moore's Hobo Bag today and I'm so excited. Honestly it's so hard to bring a DSLR around. Most of the camera bags at camera stores here are quite manly and ugly. They are generally black and hard-case. I guessed for guys they would be ok as typically guys don't carry a bag so it won't be weird for them to wear a camera bag on their shoulder or carry a camera bag.

However, for us girls, we're already carrying bag for mobile phone, wallets, hairbrush, lipstick, tissues, and those are just the basic stuff. Imagine carrying a bag + a camera bag. I did try it and it did look quite silly. I felt that I'm being weighed down with so many gigantic bags. Plus I need to carry my daughter. So my daughter in the middle, a sling camera bag on the right and a sling bag on the left.

Getting a camera bag that doesn't look like a camera bag AND can hold all my bag's basic stuff is THE DREAM. So I did some googling and found a couple of designers/stores that sell camera bags that are more stylish and girly.

Kelly Moore 

Epiphanie

Jo Totes

Emera

Shootsac

Ona

Theit

Porteen

In the end I decided on Kelly Moore's Hobo other than I like the color and style, it's one of the smallest size bag I could find. I was actually very interested in Epiphanie's Lola bag too but in the end decided that it's too big. I'm happy that I chose the smaller size camera bag because it's easier to carry and fits me quite well. For everyday use I plan on just using it to carry my 600D with 18-55mm lens, 320EX flash unit, and the rest will be my basic bag stuff. So I don't need a too big bag for couple of lenses. I'm not very tall so I'm also concern that I'll look quite ridiculous with an oversize bag. I'll post a photo of me wearing it when I got the chance to use it.

From a quick first look the camera bag looks quite sturdy. It's quite soft (synthetic leathery soft) and not stiff like some Canon, etc. camera bag. The zipper is just a tad difficult to open at the "slope" part when I wearing the bag but it's not such a big deal.

Here are the photos of my Hobo bag.