Last night and tonight, my wife’s working overnight shifts. The main pitfall of her job here is the unpredictable and sometimes nonsensical schedule. But she does get extra pay for the night shift, so there’s a bonus.
Rebecca woke up yesterday evening just after my wife left, and cried very sadly. She just looked around the house, staring at places where Mommy normally is visible, and then continued crying sadly. She drank some milk and went back to sleep within 20 minutes. She slept nine hours (tying her record), and felt a lot better when she woke up at 5 a.m.
Fortunately, I had just awakened a few minutes earlier and heard her stirring, so I was ready. She stayed awake until her Mommy arrived home sometime after 6 a.m. They had a very good day together, napping, eating, playing, bathing, cooking, and so on.
So far tonight, Rebecca seems to be trying to make it through the entire shift, but I don’t think she will. I’m anticipating a middle-of-the-night feeding, and I’ll try to pretend I’m in a good mood when that happens. :-)
In the meantime, I’ve still been posting test images taken with my new lens (mentioned yesterday). So far I’ve been happy with it. Like most wide primes, it’s not “tack sharp” at maximum aperture, but it is certainly usable, and offers opportunities for images that I didn’t have before.
For example:
(Copyright © 2011 by Wil C. Fry. All rights reserved.)
With the longer prime lenses I own, I couldn’t have taken this shot, because the bed frame would have been in the way. With the Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX DG Macro, I was able to position the lens between the bed frame and Rebecca. With my other wide-angle lenses, I couldn’t have taken this shot because there wasn’t enough light.
The same situation applied here:
(Copyright © 2011 by Wil C. Fry. All rights reserved.)
The next image was taken with the camera inside Rebecca’s crib:
(Copyright © 2011 by Wil C. Fry. All rights reserved.)
Without the close focusing distance of this lens, the wide angle, and the wide aperture, I simply could not have created this image, which is one of my favorites of Rebecca so far.
I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to play with the new flash yet, except to assure myself that it’s better (by far) than my older flashes.
I was particularly frustrated with the Canon 420EX Speedlite that I bought used a few years ago. For those of you who aren’t aware, the 420EX is a fully automatic flash. On a Canon dSLR, it automatically adjusts its flash output, based on what the camera decides about the light levels in the scene. It also adjusts its zoom level based on the focal length of your lens. This is nice for a beginner, I guess, but doesn’t give you any control. And when it’s fired off-camera (via radio trigger), there is no power adjustment; it just fires at max power.
The new flash, with full manual control over zoom and light output, is just what I was looking for. It also feels sturdy and rugged, at least as much so as the 420EX.
As always, keep up with Rebecca’s progress (and newest images / videos / blogs) on this page, see my newest image uploads here, and my newest blog entries here.
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At my request, Abby bought me a Sigma EF-530 flash for Christmas, for exactly the reasons you describe. And it has a built-in slave unit, which so far has rocked.
Please frame that second picture…it’s adorable!! :)
I can’t wait til Rebecca can take pictures. I bet she’ll have a great eye and take better pictures than either of us.
@ Richard: I’ve heard *very* good things about that flash; looks like it’s now discontinued though… Which is the main reason I didn’t get it.
@Kelly: Thanks! Before long, Marline will be nagging me to frame a bunch of these… :-)
@Marline: You are probably right. If she gets her eye from you and her technical knowledge from me (and uses the superior cameras of the future), she’ll surely surpass us… :-)