Vegetarian Spider?

Spider with pea in a kitchen sink

Spider with pea in a kitchen sink

I found this common house spider in our kitchen sink, hanging on to this pea which was  suspended from an overnight web. The spider wasn’t moving at all so I touched it gently with the tip of a pen to see if it was alive. It quickly ran up a strand of its web. I left it alone and it eventually came back to the object of it’s interest, the pea. It was time to take some pictures.

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The Best of the Best: Photography Recommendations For The Best Photo Gear, Books, Software, and Online Photo Labs

The best of the best cameras, accessories, photo books and more.

The best of the best cameras, accessories, photo books and more.

This time each year I put together a collection of articles recommending the best photo gear, books, DVDs, software, calendars, online photo labs, and a whole lot more. The articles are revised every year, some of them extensively. Here’s the list of linked articles.

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Digital Cameras and the “Field of View” Crop

Caribou, image circle, sensor sizes

Caribou, image circle, sensor sizes

What is a “field of view” crop on a digital camera? What difference does it make if your  camera is full frame, or has a field of view crop? It makes a BIG difference, so I just updated my illustrated article on the digital field of view crop. It will help you understand how to work with your lenses and how to chose lenses that will work best with your camera (and a warning about lenses that won’t work with, or could even damage some cameras).

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Choosing Photo Gear For Airline Travel

Basic camera gear.

Traveling by plane severely limits the amount of camera equipment you can take with you. As lots of photographers will attest, take everything with you as carry-on gear, NOT in your checked luggage. The airlines will NOT reimburse you for lost or damaged photographic equipment (see my comments toward the end of this article). If your checked luggage goes astray, everything you need should be with you in your carry-on luggage. And you need a backup plan in case something quits working.

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LENS REVIEW: Tokina AT-X PRO SD 12-24mm F4 IF Lens

For some time now, I’ve been recommending this lens to friends looking for a high quality, super wide-angle lens. It’s not quite as wide as the 10mm super wide-angle lenses, but it makes up for it in superior image quality. If I didn’t have a Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens for my digital camera with an APS-C sensor size, I would be using the Tokina 12-24mm lens.

DPReview recently posted an on online review of this lens. The result isn’t surprising:
“The 12-24mm returns extremely good results in our studio tests, with impressive image quality across the range. Perhaps as a result of its more modest wideangle ambitions, it comprehensively outperforms both the Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 Di-II and the Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM. Indeed overall it’s arguably a better performer on APS-C than Olympus’s ZD 9-18mm F4-5.6 is on Four Thirds – no mean feat.”  Source.

Not only is this a great lens, it is on sale this week at Adorama.

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Tokina 12mm – 24mm f/4 PRO DX Autofocus Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Digital SLR Cameras.

Sale Price $399
$100 price drop
Free Shipping
http://www.adorama.com/TN1224EOS.html?emailprice=t&KBID=57428

LEARN MORE ABOUT LENSES


Downtown Columbus, Ohio at 15mm (24mm in 35mm film terms).
Canon 20D with a 10-22mm wide angle lens.

To learn more about lenses and focal lengths, go here and here.


Downtown Columbus at 185mm (296mm in 35mm film terms).
Canon 20D with a 70-300mm telephoto lens.