fatelephant

What are you going to use it for? If it's for taking portraits of little kids/people or single flowers, 50/1.8 is incredible value for money or rather incredible bokeh for money. If you are more of a purist and more interested in getting better at composition, you want to get the 28/1.8 since it is so close to being a normal lens. If you are a gear head like me, you will get both :-) I enjoy them immensely, even though my results are nothing great.

<p>The out of focus problem most likely has to do with f/4 aperture. you need to be using something smaller. I used to have an inherent bias towards using large apertures (perhaps because it cost me more money to purchase) and faced this problem multiple times when shooting candid shots of a bunch of people. As the cost of the lens got amortized over time, the bias went away :-)</p>

<address>If you dont have 50 f/1.8, I think you should certainly start with that. I have used that as well as the 85 f/1.8 and both are great for portraits. But that said, in general, my experience is that taking photos of small children with primes is really going to test your patience. </address>

<p>For a first time visitor to the park, I recommend staying in the Yosemite valley. Your options are</p>

<ol>

<li>curry village ($) - This should fit your budget.</li>

<li>yosemite lodge ($$)</li>

<li>ahwanee ($$$)</li>

</ol>

<p>June weekends are going to be crowded, but weekdays should be relatively quieter. Also if you can move your trip up by 2 or 3 or 4 weeks, that would be even nicer, since flow in the water falls usually drop off over these weeks.<br>

I also recommend staying a couple of days visiting Toulumne Meadows (perhaps stay in any of the hotels opposite Mono Lake) but I believe the Tioga road that leads up to these parts usually open only in late June.<br>

Have a fun trip.</p>

Gil, Your explanation clarifies things a lot. Thanks...

Thanks for the responses. This really helps. I never noticed that as I changed the Exposure compensation ( in Av mode) the shutter speed was changing alongside...

Hi,

I understand the aperture controls how wide the lens is opened and the shutter

speed controls how long it is going to be opened. Given this, I'd like to know

what exactly the exposure compensation is controlling?

 

Thanks,

Shyam

Ha Ha. That was one fun read. I have been into the SLR scene for the last 18 months and so far accumulated the canon xti, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 24-105L and the tamron 17-50/2.8. My better pictures have all come from the 85$ 50/1.8 (To be fair, I only got the 85/1.8 a few days ago, and havent played with it...)

Thanks Mark. I just ordered a 30$ sunpak 4300 prob B ball head for the gorillapod. Let me see how good this is. Will get the Bogen ball head when I am getting the fancier tripod legs.

Hi,

I got myself a Gorillapod SLR zoom and wanted to find out what might be a

reasonable head for this. This is going to support a Rebel XTI + Tamron 17-50

lens. I am thinking of getting a Bogen 486 RC2 since, from reading these forums,

it seems like it will go well with the 055XPROB which I intend to get later on,

but at the same time I am worried it might be way too big to attach to the

gorillapod. Any comments/suggestions for this or another (smaller) head ? Any

good/bad experiences using a ball head on the gorillapod? I only need for the

head to have quick release, and for now dont really have a preference between

ball head and pan-tilt head.

 

Many thanks,

Shyam