Stability in a Lens

A few days ago I said I was going to get the Canon 3-pack of extension tubes.

Yesterday I rang TED’s, PW‘s, Camera.House and Diamonds to get prices.

To make it more fun, I also asked for the price of a Canon EF 1.4x II Extender. Diamonds were the only one to tell me they were two different products. I knew this already, but wanted to see how each would respond.

Anyhow, most had neither the extenders nor extension-tubes in stock, or couldn’t give me a price. Weird how everyone has sold out. So last night we went to each store in the Adelaide CBD.

We started at the Camera house in Adelaide CitiCross.

Their stock is limited but they have a lot of knowledge. They also provide great service for printing images in a hurry. We’ve purchased plastic-sleeves for negatives from them.

Then we walked down to TED’s in Rundle Street.

I know nearly everyone there on a first-name basis, but particularly Susan who always provides us with good information and knows my jokes are funny! Rafael spent 20 minutes selling me a great light-weight tripod, another Manfrotto which I’ll pick up next week sometime. Then I said I was actually wanting to purchase either purchase a Macro Lens or the extension-tubes. It didn’t take long for him to convince me that a proper macro would be better than the ‘tubes.

But then the conversation changed slightly:

He showed me the Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS. The IS stands for ‘IMAGE STABILIZER’. Yes, OK, it’s definitely not a macro. But when I had it on my camera … everything changed. I tested it at 25cm away from some brochures and got an amazing image. Then I did a sweep of the floor, panning across … and took another shot. Nice. (Unfortunately already deleted so cannot show you the result).

After oohing and aahing over this lens, the new 60mm Canon lens and a few others, I decided that this lens was really what I wanted. SWMBO knows I still want a Macro, so she is paying for the next lens in our collection. I don’t know what she chose for me, but I know it’s a macro! Xmas time is so good!

Let me say this about TED’s:

I’ve paid the price for high-resolution 6″x4″ photographs on the TED’s Kodak machines: Pitch-black because their machines cannot handle high resolution. Nor does the city-store does not have the adequate equipment to print 12″x8″ photographs. I have been reliably informed that it takes about two weeks for them to get them prinTED — but once you get over to TED’s at Westfield Marion your prints will be done as little as two hours (or less depending on their work load). Ironically, this is where the City Store will send them! So don’t give up hope, just choose your location for your printing needs.