I got some new photography gear last week.  I thought it would be a good idea to give everything a “test run” prior to the wedding I’m shooting this weekend, so grabbed my daughter and went to the park tonight. I always use my flashes off camera with radio controlled slaves, but my old ones would only sync up to 1/200th of a second. This is okay, but it’s almost necessary to use a tripod to avoid any image blur due to camera movement at this shutter speed with my zoom lens. Another downfall is that I was unable to shoot at low apertures because they would require a high shutter speed for proper exposure. Thanks to these nifty little devices, my problems are solved! I bought two PocketWizard Flex Transceivers and a Mini TT1 Transmitter for my flashes. These bad boys will sync at shutter speeds up to 1/8000th of a second. The image of my darling daughter was taken at f2 @ 1/3200th , they worked great!

I got a new lens last week: Sigma’s 50mm 1.4 I have only owned Canon lenses to this point, but so far I am really impressed with this product. Canon has a 50mm 1.4 lens, but from what I could tell, produces mediocre photos; especially with a $300 price tag. It’s obvious that Canon puts a majority of their effort into the “L” series lenses. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an astonishing line but they’re expensive. It’s nice to see a 3rd party company realize, and fill, a gap in the product line in terms of quality and price. Good job Sigma! Both of these shots are stopped down to 1.4. While other lenses will get soft at this aperture the Sigma remains fairly sharp.
ps. This is really the only “hood” you can live in Portland.