[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Which 50mm lens is the best? The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II or the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro?”] [/caption]

I have as of a few months now, I have two 50mm prime lenses - the Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro and the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

I wanted to compare them to see if one is clearly better for another. After all, if I’m going to use a prime lens, why not use the best one? Before we get to the photo comparisons, let’s take a look at the other factors.

I wanted to see how I’ve changed as a photographer so I went to my first ten photos uploaded to flickr.  The two biggest changes are that I am now really into portrait photography (although mostly natural portraits) and not quite as much into photoshop.  My first two pages are mostly photoshop-manipulated photos.  The next ten or so pages are photos documenting my life.  I got to do some exciting stuff like going to NYC for the second time (but with a lot more time to look around) and also was busy documenting my life as a college student.  I’m still into documenting my life and activities I participate in, but I’ve become more sophisticated in my techniques.  I now know about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO and I strive to use them to get the best photos I can.  I came to appreciate light and how it can work for and against the composition.  I also learned when to use flash and when it’s useless.  Before I thought no one would want to see an unaltered photo, hence the focus on the photoshopped photos.  Then I looked through photography books and learned about street photography and documentary photography.  I’ve grown quite a bit from the old days and here’s the proof.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“People came to Otakon from all around the USA”] [/caption]

For the first time since moving here, I found out about Otakon ahead of time. Unfortunately, the economics didn’t work out we didn’t buy tickets. But I did go to hang out outside Otakon on Saturday to get some photos. Lessons learned:

• Remember what you learned in Hawaii and don’t be afraid to approach people. This is especially the case with Otakon. The cosplayers have spent a long time working on their costumes, sometimes up to a whole year. They want to show off their costumes. So go up to them and ask to photograph them.
• With a 1.6x crop factor camera like the Canon 400D, 28mm is not wide enough. It’s very, very crowded at Otakon. They had something like 19 000 preregistered attendees. I missed out on getting some awesome shots of costumes such as this one where the girl on the left had an amazing bottom part to her costume, but I couldn’t fit her and her friend in without backing up a lot more
• Buy tickets to Otakon! I missed out on a bunch of costumes because they were walking into the conference too quickly for me to intercept them at the door. So attend so you can see all the costumes

And now here is my photo essay on Otakon 2009.

Nam’s parents came to visit on Sunday and I captured some good shots of Nam. Here’s a small selection.

I wanted to share some of my latest flower macro photos.

Looking over my search statistics I saw the searches that had recently led to my blog.  Here are the most recent ones with comments on the strange ones:

mythtv totem makehuman review mario 64 3D model - I don’t think I’ve even mentioned this before.  I’ve written about Mario and 3D models, but not 3D models of Mario “Rudy Winston” +Canon - I spoke about Rudy Winston’s talk at B&H.  I wonder who’s searching for him and connecting him with Canon. rockbox anime themes - I haven’t really spoken about this hitchhikers guide to the galaxy binary - What would that binary be of? alvarez guedes diary joke gentoo vs opensuse 11.1 - Check out my Gentoo Posts and Opensuse 11.1 posts and compare. Garmin eTrex HCx tutorial bunny binary - binary bunnies?  Hmm…. crunchbang rocks - It certainly does! ati fglrx sabayon 4.2 ta spring gentoo binary - Not sure what this means credit crunch bunny animation - what does the credit crunch have to do with a rabbit animation? top ten web of world pictures digital world human world interface opensuse 11.1 review

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Yankee Stadium from the Train Station”] [/caption]

Ever since I’ve known my wife I wanted to go to a Yankees Game. But we were often busy during the baseball season and neither of us are big ball fans. In fact, this was also my wife’s first Yankee game despite having grown up in NYC and rooted for the Yankees her whole life. So it was to my great dismay that I found out I would never get to see a Yankees game in the original stadium that housed Babe Ruth. However, I finally did make it to a Yankee game after nearly a decade. It was a bit of a taunt to see the old stadium right next to the new one as demolition has not yet taken place.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Thanks to podcasts, NPR maybe be obsolete”] [/caption]

I am a huge listener of public radio programming, but I no longer listen to my local NPR station. Most of the time I just listen to podcasts of the shows that would otherwise be broadcast on NPR. The basic force behind this is the same as the reason why I loved my MythTV when I had cable TV. I don’t want to have to do appointment radio listening any more than I want to do appointment television. In many cases this is because the shows I enjoy listening to come on the air while I’m at work, in the gym, or sleeping. The shows I listen to are produced by NPR, Public Radio International (PRI), and American Public Media (APM). That includes Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, On the Media, Media Matters, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Away with Words and On the Money with Christ Disimio. Together with other non-radio programs and some BBC programs, these provide for all of my radio-listening needs. This started out (and a big reason I got into podcasts a few years after most techies had) because, in Baltimore, the local NPR station at 88.1 is interrupted by XM (or Sirius) FM transmitters. So I got pissed that whenever I happened to be available when a show I liked was on, every time someone with satelite radio passed by I couldn’t listen to my program. This is why I donated to the Washington DC NPR station - that one isn’t subject to interference so I’d rather pay for a station I can hear.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“478” caption=“Abuelo Sotero enjoying the Party”] [/caption]

After our mini-vacation to Naples, we went to Hialeah, Fl for my grandfather’s 70th birthday party.  I wrote in May about wanting to capture photos of my grandfather at his birthday party.  I was definitely able to do that.

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The Sign for Our Section of the Park”] [/caption]

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“I’ve got some beef with the White House’s Policy”] [/caption]

The Whitehouse has been posting the official photographer’s photos on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse .  They each have the following written in the description:

This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.