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I finally was able to save enough money to buy some more camera equipment on my long, expensive camera wish list. New to the arsenal is a Canon 50mm 1.4/f lens and a Canon 580EX Speedlite flash. The 50mm lens is going to be my prime lens and, due to it’s aperture range, allow me more flexibility in low-light situations, high-speed situations, and provide nice bokeh for centering compositional items, especially useful in portraits. The flash was an addition that was long overdue. As a photographer, light is essential and the built-in flash on the Canon 30D was not able to provide the flexibility I needed. It generally threw way too much light on the subject resulting in a harsh, whitewashed exposure that drained all of the color from the shot and created unacceptable shadowing. The Speedlite flash is an amazing peice of equipment and exactly what I was looking for. Along with a mind-boggling myriad of settings and features, it can adjust the power of the flash as well as fire in burst shots to match high speed shooting. I definitely have some experimenting and testing to do before I’ll feel I have a strong grasp of these new items (not like I’m complaining).
And if that wasn’t enough good news already, I get to test out the new camera this Sunday at the Chargers-Steelers game here in San Diego. My co-worker’s wife works for a company that manages the event ticketing for the Chargers and was able to procure 2 field-level goal-line seats on the Steelers side!!! Those tickets are selling for about $400 on CraigsList. It’s like a dream come true!