Monday Morning Hit Parade - Canon 50D; 18-200mm IS Lenses; and Nikon D90

Good Morning Everybody,
We wrapped a great wedding this past Saturday. The bride was getting ready at her brother's penthouse which had access to a beautiful garden area on TOP of the building. We had a great view of the entire downtown Cincinnati and also across the Ohio River to the Kentucky side. Here was the challenge - the entire shoot was in direct sunshine from about 2 - 4 p.m. It challenged exposure control, and composition because of how the sun fell on the subjects' faces.

We pulled out all the stops to control the light - that included translucent panels to soften or block the light, high powered flash to overcome the high level of ambient sunlight, and judicious posing of the wedding party to avoid the "squint" problem. So, did we get the shots - heck yea, we were able to capture a great series of images. I was so excited that the clients loved the images I previewed on the back of the camera for them. I can't wait to show you a few later this week. The whole experience will provide some great tutorials for upcoming DigitalProTalk.com articles.

As of early Sunday morning and right now we are down in Louisville, Kentucky for the Kentucky Professional Photographers Fall Seminar. We will be leaving heading back home later today, and getting ready for a 9 a.m. presentation tomorrow for the Ohio Society - one of the oldest photographic associations in the state of Ohio. It will be an honor to present to this esteemed group of individuals. By Wednesday we should be back to our regular in-studio schedule.

What else is happening? Let me point our Nikon and Canon readers in a few directions you may find of interest. First, check out "The World According To Roland", a blog run by Roland Lim. He has a really good post reviewing the Canon 50D. This isn't a quick, "I tried it, I liked it and so will you kind of a review." He really gives a thorough peek at the camera and it's functionality with lots of screen grabs and images. This is definitely worth the read if you are considering a Canon upgrade or a camera addition to your system. Here is the link right here. Thanks to our friends over 1001 Noisy Cameras for providing the heads up.

Another piece of equipment I'm dying to get my hands on is Canon's new 18-200mm IS lens which just started shipping last week. I just spotted one at one of the vendors exhibiting here at our Seminar. I'm planning to take a closer peek in just a few hours. After last Friday's post about one of my favorite lenses being the 17-85mm IS lens which I shot with mostly over the weekend, I mentioned that I was drooling to get my hands on this new Canon puppy.

OK, Nikonians, no razzing me about how you guys have had this lens for months - I know, I know, and it's been killin' me. To me, this looks like a wonderful focal range for the wedding shooter. Please no emails about the fast glass issue again. Simply said, if it's not imaged stabilized, I'm not too interested. For me, it's just so much quicker to shoot with the IS lenses, and now with the new super zooms, it only presents an even better rapid access solution to our wedding candids.

That said, check out "kenshin's" first impressions of the 18-200mm IS lens over at Fred Miranda's site. One of Fred's readers has a nice first take on this new puppy with high-res images featuring images taken over the full range of the focal range. Go check it out - here is the link to the forum post.

One more word on IS lens - Jim Chagares a friend and great photographer was at the KPPA Fall Seminar yesterday. He and his wife Deb had just returned from shooting in Alaska. He happened to have two lenses with him - and they were monsters. One was the 500mm F4.0 IS lens with a 2x tele-extender - 1000mm in all. The other was the 30mm IN IS. I picked up the 1000mm, it weighs a ton, and pointed out the hotel window. It was amazing to me how the IS worked even on that super long lens, but I digress.

OK, OK Nikon readers - you guys and girls can check out this quick take review of the new Nikon D90 right here by Allan Weiss over at B&H Photo. I checked over at ByThom.com to see if Thom Hogan and any news of the Nikon D90, but no luck yet. I'll keep you posted. He does though have a nice report on Photokina. If you are so inclined to check it out, here is the link to all the happenings in Germany.

Hey gang, that's it for me today. My Verizon network card is giving me fits by disconnecting every two to three minutes - pretty frustrating when trying to get the blog up this morning. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow for Technique Tuesday with, "It Sure Didn't Look Like That When I Shot It." It's Lighting and Lightroom - I think you will enjoy it. So until then, Adios, David