Going wideee and a different type of car shot.

GOING WIDEEE

I have been obsessing about wide angle lenses since I first met Todd in June of 2010.  We were there for a meet with Butch, another tog we met on the forums.  We were given exclusive access to the top of a 20 something story building in down town Dallas.  At that point I was rocking my 40D, Tamron 28-75 2.8, Canon 55-200 all perched on top of an $80 Quantary tripod.  It was set up as a night shoot.  I had never done night before, and had always wanted to shoot downtown from up high.  This was the perfect setting. 

Todd was shooting a 5D2 and 16-35 2.8L.  16 on a full frame is wideee!  I decided then I had to go wide.

The week before last I sold a guitar I have had for 20 years with the intention of getting wide glass.  I was all set to get the Canon 10-22 (10mm on a 40D is basically equivalent to 16mm on a 5D2).  Doing a lot more research while waiting on the second half of the cash to come in, I found that there were more decisions than to just settle on the Canon offering.  Sigma has a couple in this range, but I started looking at their 10-20.  But they are all the F3.5-5 range.  Then I saw the Tokina 11-16 2.8.  Looking at the sample image archives on several forums, I was impressed.  And so far no one has had much to complain about this this one.  There is some issues with the other UWA's.  I e-mailed my local camera shop for price and availability for several of these, being told by the shop that the Tokina is way sharper.  At $200 less than the Canon.  And this is the retailer suggesting I get the less expensive glass.  I think that this speaks volumes!


A DIFFERENT TYPE OF CAR SHOT

Okay,  for those of you who know me either personally or online, I have been hunting old abandoned cars and trucks for some time.  (IF you know of any, please comment below).  I have been a car nut for most of my life.  I had a subscription to Hemmings Motor News at 11 years old. I have had a couple of vintage bugs. I actually still have a few Hot Wheels that my 6 year old son does not know about. 

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a couple of threads on a forum I frequent.  One was about OCF lighting of cars from a strobist point of view.  This is cool, and I have integrated several techniques learned there into lighting my abandoned cars.  The other thread, however, really took me by storm.  It outlines setting up a rig attached to a vehicle to mount your camera on.  This allows the camera to be moving at the same speed of the car that it is attached to.  One thing I do not like about the method most used is that it uses suction cups to attach to the body panels.  Big honkin industrial pump action suction cups.  I am seriously not feeling this.  A) multi-thousand dollar paint jobs.  B) flimsy body panels (depending of the vehicle).  C) my a$$ in a lawsuit?  I think not.  Plus all of the post processing work to remove the boom arm.  I have decided that I will design and build an under car mounted rig. Then I do not have to worry about messing up any ones body or paint.  Don't have to worry about cloning out a boom arm from across a complex body panel. I just had the idea of "going under" today.  This is going to be fun.  Stay tuned for updates.