{"id":253,"date":"2020-05-27T15:02:22","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:03:17","slug":"2020-5-27-upgrading-to-the-l-series-9-26-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Upgrading to the L series – 9\/26\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Towards the end of September 2019 I was feeling more confident with photography. I was finding what I liked and learning how to do it better. By this point I had felt the pull of seriousness about this hobby and kept coming back to it. As I\u2019ve mentioned in previous posts I have had a habit for most of my life for diving in head over heels to a hobby or project and either not finishing, or getting distracted and never coming back to it.<\/p>\n

Photography was different, no matter how much I went out to take pictures I found myself wanting more. I never got bored with it, even when it can be quite boring itself. Like waiting for hours to get a shot of wildlife. But the results were getting better and it was encouraging me to keep going. Which of course leads to more spending. I wanted to try macro photography, I wanted to replace the mid range telephoto I had given to my dad, a cheap canon 75-300. And I really wanted a wide angle that wouldn\u2019t creep when I held it downward.<\/p>\n

So on the 21st of September after many weeks of watching prices, adding up the totals, putting things into a cart and comparing the total to my bank account. I finally pulled the trigger on several purchases, and this time some were the L series. Which is top quality Canon lenses.<\/p>\n

For the wide angle I wanted to get the 24-70 F2.8 L. Because my brother has one and was telling me all about it. But the price for one of those, even used as I buy all my gear, is quite a bit. More than double the price of the 24-105 F4 L. Which I picked up a great condition one for $452. <\/p>\n

For macro, although I did want to get another L series I just couldn\u2019t justify that and the other lenses I purchased. I went with a Tamron 180mm for $278 the first time. Because I had to return it and get another as the buyer sent a Nikon version. The actual Canon EF version was only 10 bucks more. <\/p>\n

And then finally to replace my mid range telephoto and because I desperately wanted that 2.8 aperture, I purchased a Canon 70-200 F2.8 L. Just the first version, no image stabilizer unfortunately. But even without that it cost me a pretty penny, $825.99 pretty pennies to be exact.<\/p>\n

I also picked up some cheap filters for all of the above lenses, as I am quite afraid of going out without a lens. If anything happens and I scratch the lens I want a filter to go first. Alongside these filters I picked up a new flash. I had enough of trying to balance that 15 foot cable for an off camera flash. I wanted wireless. So the Godox TT600 and a Godox X1T wireless control got added to the purchase.<\/p>\n

Armed with all of these new toys I started putting them through the paces. The flash and macro combination was tricky at first. Handholding is extremely difficult as it turned out. To eliminate the shake I would need to raise the shutter speed but now I had a problem with the flash sync. Too high and you get an image like this. <\/p>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/Tamron 180mm – 1\/400 Sec – F3.5 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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So if I\u2019m to take a macro photo inside, where the light is only going to be good enough with a flash. I would need a stable tripod, adding more to the complexity. Thankfully I already have that gimbal head, which is so much easier to use than the ball head the tripod came with. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take another shot at some macro, with a different subject. A ring that my significant other gave me from one of my favorite book series and author. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/Tamron 180mm – 1\/25 Sec – F3.5 – ISO 3200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A much better subject, but the plain for focus is just so small. How do people get so close to a subject and still get the entire subject in focus? Would have been my thoughts back in September. Eventually I would learn about focus stacking. But not on this day. Instead I turned to something more flat that I could shoot with more of just one dimension.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/Tamron 180mm – 1\/200 Sec – F3.5 – ISO 3200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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How about some really close up peppercorns inside the grinder? Yeah that\u2019s cooler, still couldn\u2019t do a great job with getting them all in focus. But closing that aperture would really cut down on the light I could get, and my ISO was already cranked up. Or again, shutter speed. This one was a bit faster since I was just playing around in the kitchen without the tripod.<\/p>\n

After this it was time to head outside, for the biggest light source we have. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/24-105 @24 – 1\/400 Sec – F8 – ISO 800<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This tree caught my eye, and looking closer I found something pretty neat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/24-105mm @95 – 1\/400 Sec – F8 – ISO 800<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Little seeds inside these pods, which you can see through when the sun hits them just right. <\/p>\n

I also managed to find these little\u2026 berries? Some research leads me to believe this is the Callicarpa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/70-200mm @200 – 1\/200 Sec – F2.8 – ISO 640<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then as the sun started to set, I popped on the flash and played around with it and the macro lens for a bit. Really had some fun by putting a colored gel on the flash, red to be exact. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/Tamron 180mm – 1\/125 Sec – F4 – ISO 1000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It\u2019s wild to take a photo with that kind of setup and see the color change entirely. This dried up flower was mostly yellow, I am wishing now I took one without the flash for comparison. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 5D Mark II w\/Tamron 180mm – 1\/200 Sec – F4 – ISO 1000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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That was enough for one day, plus I was just about entirely out of light. Time to head home, backup all the photos and get to editing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of September 2019 I was feeling more confident with photography. I was finding what I liked and learning how to do it better. By this point I had felt the pull of seriousness about this hobby and kept coming back to it. As I\u2019ve mentioned in previous posts I have had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1818,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}