Merry, and bright

 

Christmas came early for me this year.  My middle brother, HS, is back in town from Melbourne, my other brother, HW, is home from the army and yesterday the whole family came to pick me up for dinner.  I slid into the car after work, exhausted and a little shaken, and HS handed me a little box.  "What's this, hmm?" he teased.

They'd bought me a new prime lens for my camera.

I'd been feeling very down the last few days and it showed.  To cheer me up, HS decided to get me the relatively inexpensive, but wonderful little Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens.  I was moved by their generosity and the fact that amid all the hustle and bustle, they had noticed.  After we got home, I put it on and started trying it immediately.

As mentioned in the last post, I'm far from a photography aficionado so I'm still dealing with all kinds of weird lighting, focus and composing issues, but I'm so caught up in the joy of all the new things I'm learning that I don't care. The new lens is great at letting in tons of light and of course, all the colour quality of Canon.
 
I just go round snapping anything I can get my hands on from the warm Christmas lights at work (check out the little bokeh in the corner!  I'm thrilled!) and my bedtime reading, to my beautiful friend Amanda while we marked work at Starbucks.     

At present, my biggest issue is learning how to really sharpen the parts of the image that I want and make sure that the pictures are clear.  Right now, practising with focus points, handshake and my astigmatism are contributing to erratic results.  I'm also learning a little more about metering as I go.

I'm just going to continue experimenting and enjoy the mistakes and the successes, and hopefully my photography will improve a little on the way.

I bought these incredible highlighters called Mildliners yesterday for $1.95 each at Popular.  For someone who has to stare at students' neon stripes and scribblings every day, these are such a pretty relief!

And finally, this last picture isn't from the prime lens.  It's from the 18mm - 50mm kit lens, but I think it's a fully justified addition, don't you?