Christmas Weekend

We had a busy weekend around Christmas. Thursday, the 24th, we went to my Grandma and Grandpa's house for their Christmas Eve party.

This is my Cousin playing the violin.


My Grandma set up her little town under the tree this year:


Here's a shot of Mushna by the tree:


And another of my Grandma's spoiled dog:


After visiting the Grandparents, we attended a Filipino Christmas Party. Mushna said that it's traditional for Filipinos to stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve. We didn't make it that late. Mushna found a guy in Provo who could roast an entire pig for her.




Christmas Night, we decided to head down to Provo after dark to photograph the Christmas lights. It was really cold, but I wanted to get out there before the lights were taken down:









I was also able to get the flash out to get a few good shots of a very cold Mushna:




And another of my friend Dave:


Saturday morning, we woke up and drove to Heber. Mushna got tickets to ride the Heber Creeper (an antique train) from Heber down to Soldier Hollow (where the Cross Country Skiing events were held during the Olympics years ago).

Here are a few shots of the Heber Creeper and other train engines/cars around the yard:




This is the meanest snow plow I've ever seen.


This is the train we actually rode on:


Once at Soldier Hollow, we spent a few hours tubing down the mountain. I used my 2X teleconverter on my 70-200 to track her up the mountain, the took it off to get her coming down.

Here is he is being pulled up the hill:


It's hard to see but here is he is at the top, getting ready to come down:


And here's the descent:




It was a busy, cold weekend. I'm getting over a cold, so I probably should have spent more time resting, but it was fun.

You can see the sets here:
Christmas Eve
Christmas Night
Train ride and tubing

Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

The weather's getting colder and quite frankly, things outside aren't as photogenic as they were a month or so ago so we decided to hit The Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. I had been there before, but I didn't have the lenses I have now, so it was fun to go back through and shoot with new glass. The museum is pretty dark, so my 50 mm f/1.4 got a lot of work. I also used my Sigma 10-20 where I could.

The whole set can be viewed here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoeyez99/sets/72157622903418530/

Christmas Tree, 2009

Mushna's been excited to get the Christmas tree up this year. On the way home from Thanksgiving at Grandma's, she realized she could "legally" set it up tonight. Here are some shots of the set up. I'll post something once it's all finished.

New Lens November

I was asked to shoot one of Mushna's friends' wedding here in a few weeks. I was concerned with my lenses at the shorter/wider end so I went to Pictureline to look at options.

Part of me really wanted to go full steam ahead with the 24-70 f/2.8L, but I ended up settling for a couple of primes instead, the Canon 50 mm f/1.4 and the Canon 35 mm f/2. While the L glass would have been nice, I think these two lenses will do just fine, plus this combination was about $500-$600 cheaper than the 24-70.

I headed out for some test shots the other night. These are pretty much straight out of the camera, some sharpening applied in Adobe Camera Raw because I shoot in Raw.

The Canon 35 mm f/2:










The 50 mm f/1.4:













Pixel peeping, I find the 35 mm might be slightly sharper than the 50, but overall, both lenses seem to perform really well.

The 35 mm suffers from some chromatic aberration and softness at the edges, but it seems to be very slight on my cropped sensor body.

I'm happy with both purchases.