New Lenses!

Friday we got our economic stimulus money and I got a fun new gift: two new lenses for my camera! I researched this extensively and concluded that the lens receiving the best raves and reviews (and suits my needs) is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM (a prime lens), aka the "basketball lens", great for portraits, especially outdoors or somewhere you have a little space to back up. I also got the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II (another prime), aka the "fantastic plastic". Although it's considered a cheap lens, and has a couple downsides (less durability, difficult to manually focus - but I like using autofocus anyway since my subject(s) are rarely still), it still takes amazingly sharp pictures, and has a very wide aperture allowing fast shutter speeds in low light. There is a more expensive 50mm available, but this was more like an extra bonus lens since the 85mm was the investment. Neither is a zoom lens, which means the focal length is fixed... so I'm going to have to move around more to get the composition I want. However, from what I read, that is something you quickly become accustomed to (and even after a couple times using it I don't mind it at all... the improved quality is well worth it - as far as primes vs. zooms - unless you spend a couple grand on a certain level of zoom lens, primes will almost always outperform in sharpness).

So, I'm just getting used to both of them, and have not yet put my kit lens back on the camera! Now I just need a slightly bigger case for my stuff!