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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Boo.  Once again, my text  and some of my photos were deleted by blogger.  I'm getting pretty annoyed by blogger's quirks.  I feel like there's always something.  Either an error comes up when I try to submit something and my text is erased or it won't let me upload photos or any number of other things.  Ok, moving on.

So, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to write all the text again.  I don't have time!!  I'll just say that this post is of a day when I drove around Tainan on our scooter and explored.  This first pic is of the Confucius Temple in Tainan, where I ate lunch (recognize the tree Mom?):


The next few are of a fortress (probably Dutch) that I stumbled upon):






These last few are of the Tainan Municipal Center, surrounding pedestrian area and the park across the street.  I also stumbled upon this and had no idea it was right down the street from Tom's work:














P.s. While I was at the park some teenagers followed me around for a while and then asked to take my photo.  So bizarre.

And, I'm sorry that this is a bit of a complainer post, but I'm afraid I'm not really happy with my camera.  I think it's actually the lens.  I don't know if it's just me, but the colors don't seem right and (i've forgotten all the technical terms) they often seem grainy or blurry when they absolutely shouldn't.  Like, on a bright sunny day when the ISO is down to 200.  I think I compromised on quality when I bought a super zoom lens.  At this point I really really really want a prime lens.  Just a 50mm Canon prime.  Maybe for my birthday! 

3 comments:

  1. I believe the technical term is "wonky." Lol. My photography teacher used it once and it caught on. I think your pictures are cool! Although I feel like they could be a little sharper, but maybe that's just the internet. I have a 55-200mm lens w/ vibration reduction and I don't shoot with it that often, but I haven't see any loss of quality with it. But maybe it's the VR? The general rule for zoom lenses w/o VR is to shoot at a shutter speed that is 1/(focal length). I know you don't have a lot of time on the internet, but I'd try googling for known issues with your lens. Maybe other people see what you see and have figured out how to fix it.

    I also have a 35mm prime lens (which 52mm equivalent when you take my camera's crop factor into account) and I absolutely love it. Mostly cuz it's a f 1.8 and I'm addicted to shallow depth of field. :) But I shoot mainly with my 18-55mm lens cuz it's more versatile. I tried shooting buildings in LA with my prime lens and nothing fit!

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  2. Wow, soooo refreshing to talk about photography. I haven't been around any photographically inclined people for a while. Anyway, the lens does have VR, but it's not a great brand - Sigma. And it's even showing issues when my shutter speed is really fast! I think googling it is a good idea and I'm definitely going to. I think if I did it over again I'd go for (roughly) an 18 - 55 mm plus a 55 - 200 mm combo (or even 3 lenses) instead of an all in one, but I was worried before about not wanting to switch out the lenses. I vaguely remember being warned about the quality of lenses this long, because the technology for it just hasn't been around long enough.

    Next time I'm in CA (which will be August) we should get with Jen and have a shooting expedition!

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  3. Umm... yes!!! Photo expeditions are fun! Also, I randomly met this guy on a photo expedition in downtown LA and he had a Sigma lens and he said he had to send it back to them for repair. So maybe you can do that too? Especially if you're having issues at high speeds. That's odd. You NEED it to work at high shutter speeds!

    And when I'm on photo expeditions, I don't really switch lenses. I carry them all with me, but I usually end up just either using the 18-55mm or the 35mm. I don't switch that often. My dad says I need to buy a new camera body so I can just switch cameras like the pros do. Lol, like I'm made of money!

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