Goal Oriented
by Samantha ~ April 4th, 2009. Filed under: miscellaneous magic.At the beginning of March, I had made myself a list of goals to complete by the end of the month. I am still meandering along through them, since I have a poor concept of time and scheduling.
1. Launch HauteMacabre.com
WIN! It somehow came together, with the help of a few friends, and a lot of me crash coursing in CSS. There was a lot of “Oh Eff, I broke the site”, but it seems to be working just fine now. There are a still a few minor tweaks I’d like to make, but overall, we are pleased.
2. Spring Clean
This is turning into a massive project. It has begun, but it no where near complete. It shall eventually involve the moving of furniture, the replacement of curtains, the purchase of a new and improved vacuum, and possibly, if we are feeling industrious, new paint on the walls. Each room in the house has its own list of “This Shall be Done”, and it is being checked off slowly. The closets have been reorganized, the cabinets have been rearranged and cleaned out, and many various objects have been dusted. I breath pure Windex.
3. Buy a New Lens
Sadly, this one hasn’t come to pass just yet. At the moment, I’ve got a loaner, and I may have to kill its owner so that I don’t have to return it. I’m hoping to purchase the same model, but I’ve gotten rave reviews of the 35mm as well. I’m leaning towards eventually buying the 24-70 though, mostly because I really enjoy having a zoom. Hopefully, by the end of April, I’ll be able to pick one up! Earlier this month, I was purchased a (used) Canon 5D Mark I, and have noticed such a huge difference in it vs. shooting with the Rebel and kit lens that I was previously using.
5. Raise $1k for Lou’s Fuck Cancer Fund!
WIN! Rather than repost all the details ad nauseum, I will simply say THANK YOU, EVERYONE. We have absolutely flown past our goal, and are still accepting donations until April 12. After that, I’ll post our final amount, but for now, everyone should pat themselves on the back for being so incredibly generous and awesome.
Related posts:
Share on Facebook
Suicide Girls
Twitter
Facebook
Zivity
Myspace
Flickr
Wishlist
April 4th, 2009 at 4:00 PM
i have a 24-70 1:2.8 from sigma – it’s really great :)
April 5th, 2009 at 7:58 AM
Consider the 24-105 in lieu of the 24-70. The 24-105 is a little more general purpose as a walk around lens.
Look at the 17-40 instead of the 35mm. The 17-40 can be found for $600, its an L lens, and a great performer, and its a great price. Its an older (technology) generation lens.
the 24-70, 24-105 and 17-40 are 77mm filter size lenses. If you start purchasing filters, migrating to a common outer ring size will save a boatload of money.
If you have to have a prime, think about the 50mm f1.4 EF lens. Its around $400 and considered by many to have L optical performance. (Its a 58mm filter size – however, as its a smaller diameter, the filters are cheaper.)
Since your photos appear (to me) to lean towards black and white style, keep in mind that the 24-105 and 17-40 perform (transmit) very well in the IR range, many other lenses are optically coated to block IR. (Yes, I own an IR camera, however, you might consider getting a 72R infrared filter to experiment with.)
I am quite interested in your opinion regarding the difference in shooting with the mark 5 versus the xsi. I have an xti and on the outer fringes of wondering if an upgrade is warranted. I was thinking about the 50D or the latest rebel – mainly for the digic IV processor and the full sized sensor. I don’t really want an image larger than 15megapixel – I have chewed through two hard drives with images.
April 5th, 2009 at 1:22 PM
@TC – The main difference that I’ve noticed between the XSI & the 5D is the frame cropping. The Rebels aren’t full frame, and it makes a huge difference. I haven’t been doing a lot of personal photography projects lately (actually, I’ve had none), and have been mostly focusing on shooting for SG, so having the full frame is really working to my advantage.
Canon is also releasing a new Rebel in the next few months, which is comparable to the current version of the 5D (the Mark II).
April 7th, 2009 at 4:50 AM
Recommended new vacuum: The Dyson Ball.
Fast (what with the ball), powerful and it won’t give you tinnitus.
Does it seem weird that I pick up on THAT out of all the cool stuff you mentioned? 8-)
AJT
April 7th, 2009 at 5:00 AM
Actually, while you’re talking digital cameras…
Maybe you can explain this enigma to me…
Why is it that even “professional” digital cameras use JPEG to store the photos? It’s a lossy format, after all. Granted, few people can “see” the difference provided the quality is high enough. But wouldn’t PNG or lossless TIFF be a better choice? Yes, the files are a bit bigger, but in today’s Terrabyte world (Gigabytes are just not enough), why should that be an issue?
It also bugs me that so many cameras not only insist on using JPEG, but use 2×2/1×1/1×1 subsampling when encoding the JPEG. Quality just isn’t quite as near-lossless as 1×1/1×1/1×1. Again, file size might be bigger, but who cares? Especially for original masters.
Just a bizarre way-of-things that bakes my noodle.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:52 AM
Update, should anyone care : All have been accomplished, save for finishing the spring cleaning, but that is meandering its way along.
And AJT : you also have the option to shoot in raw mode (my 5d saves them as CR2) which is what I do. Other than that, I don’t know, and honestly, don’t really care.