After weeks and weeks of hard work… and many trips to Lowes, Laura has just about finished the upgrade to our office. She stripped all the old molding off from around the baseboard and in the closet. Pulled out all the panels in the closet and put beadboard up. It looks beautiful! On to the the kitchen.

The 70-200mm lenses are probably the most versatile. They are a great travel lens… able to do portraits, compress landscapes and capture images you can’t get closed to. The 2.8′s are a bit of monsters… over 3 lbs. But if you can carry it, it is certainly worth it… as is the IS if you can afford it.

I have a love-hate relationship with this lens. I love the images it produces but hate how damn heavy it is. I also hate that it is white. I wish there was a black option like Nikon. It is purely cosmetic but I feel it is so conspicous when you whip out this enormous white lens. I know the 1D is already inconspicous itself… but the bazoka being white does not help. The lens is super solid, weather-sealed and did I say it produced amazing images!

This is my second most used lens. Mainly because it is the small, light and convenient to take around. It also produces beautiful images. I had the 50mm f/1.2 L for a while and although I loved the build quality, the bokeh, and the colors… it certainly wasn’t worth $1000 more than this lens. Plus, I did experience its weird focus issues at close distances between f/2.0 and f/2.8.

The 50mm works well on a 1.3 crop for everyday shooting and can also serve as a portrait lens. With the 24L, it makes a great everyday combo. Throw in a 70-200L, and I have a travel kit.

The 24L is probably my favorite lens in my lineup. It was a lens I wanted for a long time. I had actually originally gotten the 35L (which is another FANTASTIC lens) and 24L to test against each other. I kept the 35L which was nice on my 1D Mark II and the PERFECT focal length on my 5D. When the 5D went, I wanted that focal length back and, based on ONE website, bought another 24L. On my 1D Mark III, it has quickly become my favorite.

It is the perfect wide-angle (good for full body shots and close ups of dogs) and super fast. It is a good size and very solid. The lens hood can be shared with my 16-35L. Since the Nikon D3 was released, I have thought about “going to the dark-side” but the inhibitive price to replace this lens with the Nikon 28mm f/1.4 has kept me from experimenting with the “other” brand.

So after much debate, I decided to move my old photoblog to a more up-to-date blog. This will let me categorize and share some more than just pictures. I know what you are all thinking… yippee. Hope everyone enjoys.