Portraits with my new gear

Last weekend I finally ordered my new camera gear! That's right, it was finally time to upgrade from my "starter" DSLR, the trusty Canon Rebel T2i I've been using since January 2012. I'd saved up for almost a year, and did a lot of research (both on my own, and talking to some of my photographer friends), and ultimately settled on the Canon 60D and 85mm f/1.8 lens . There were many reasons for both, which I'm not really going into here, but let me say that after my first 4 days of working with this combination, I very much feel that I made the right choices! 

Note that these are from the very first time that I used both the camera and lens, so I was getting used to both, particularly the focus on the lens. So the focus is definitely a little off on some of these photos, but I think you can at least see the potential inherent in the gear, and in me as I get better and better!

 


I learned as I kept working with the lens that with the aperture wide open at f/1.8 the photos came out a bit softer than I really like for my work. However, there are uses for that, so I'm going to work on getting familiar with the focus at all apertures!

Here you can really see the difference. The photo on the left was at f/1.8, while the right was f/2.8. Just that 4 stop difference really changes the photo. I like them both for different reasons, but would probably go with 2.8 more than the widest open aperture!

 

So, there you have it - first shots with the new gear. If you want to see more, I have a whole post on my personal blog with shots from the entire day, all taken with the same gear. I'm also going to post more from our vacation here, again all taken with the new gear and I think you'll see how I get more and more used to the new gear. Can't wait to use it for a shoot this summer - should be perfect for newborn shoots coming up!