My new prime

**Photography talk in this blog concerning my new camera lens, scroll down for pics of my kiddos**

So I've added a new toy to my camera bag...and I must admit I'm pretty excited.  I have loved my 50mm f1.8 prime, but really it's just for close ups.  If I try to get everything in focus & a pic framed correctly you really could not do it at more than 3 feet away.  If I tried to take pics at greater than 3 feet away from the girls, they always came back not as sharp or blurry.  Thanks to my hubby for my new 85mm f1.8 prime.  Why do I need this??  If anyone reading has ever used a prime lens on their SLR they know that the sharpness & contrast can not be matched by a zoom lens.  I guess the downside to a prime lens is there is no internal stabilization so you really must be steady when taking pics or use a tripod, but so worth it.  This 85mm is considered a medium telephoto & can get really sharp images up to approx. 20 feet away from the subject, which is nice for fast moving toddlers--which, soon I will have 2 of them, so I better get good with this lens.  Also, the f1.8 allows you to take pics in low light conditions.  My other telephoto lens is a zoom, but my largest aperture is a 4 so really useless indoors & also poor in late evening.  This new is much better built than my 50mm prime, it's an ultrasonic, so the focus is much faster & after going through my test shots, only 2 or 3 had any significant blur to them at all, which is really an improvement over my 50mm.  Now up close, I'll always love my 50mm, but I think for doing pics of the girls my 85mm might become my new favorite as they are always in motion & I often have to be further back to get everything I want in the pic, especially when I want both of them in the pic.  So here are a few test shots I took just walking around the yard with Jessica.  No fancy editing, you can still see her boo-boo & her face is dirty from eating half of my chocolate protein bar, but look at the sharpness---pretty impressive.  Reviews I read of this lens said that as your technique improves, the results may equal that of an L-series lens---the holy grail of Canon users....the red stripe luxury lens (they start at $1000 & go up--mine was a fraction of the cost)!  Anyway, sorry to those who don't like photography talk, but enjoy some pics of my big girl with the new lens.  I have high hopes for the summer photo shoots that I plan to do with the girls & our friends ;)

I was about 10 feet away from her here...you can zoom all the way in & see individual eyelashes

About 4 feet away

These are the new rain boots, she had to have the pink "kitty" boots

This was at a f1.8...pretty good for me, usually these are mostly out of focus

At a 2.2...great contrast & color

Zoom all the way in on this one & you can count individual eyelashes & specs of dirt around her mouth---it's a good piece of glass

Ok, Ok so I couldn't help myself...here's one of little Ella also, after some photo editing (converted to b/w, used dodge tool to add a few catch lights to her eyes, sharpened over the eyes to add"sparkle", applied dust & scratch remover set to a 2 radius, & used paint brush blur tool to smooth skin)!  Eyes are really sharp--high hopes people, high hopes!

One more...I promise this is it, look at the eyes---pretty nice, looks professional quality to me!