Even though I’ve been into Photography for quite a while, I only recently took the plunge into the realm of DSLRs.  Ever since then I’ve been making use of the 28-135mm kit lens which has worked out great.  However; due to the upcoming weddings and our upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest I’ve been on the lookout for new equipment.

Last week I happened upon a great deal on Craigslist.  A woman was getting rid of her old Canon 35mm Film SLR along with all the lenses, flash and camera bag.  It came with a 50mm F1.8 (one of the lenses I’d been watching for, although I was more interested in the 1.4) a slide in-out 70-210mm F4 and a Speedlite 420 EZ.

The equipment isn’t the greatest, it’s rather old and fairly low-end but it will do just fine for a while.  The 50mm alone made the deal worth it.  Either way I decided to purchase it and add the stuff to my inventory.

I’ve also been examining wide angle lenses.  Unfortunately I haven’t found any used lenses that were wide enough for me.  Because of our upcoming trip to some of the most scenic places in the US, I decided to pursue new ones.  There have basically been 2 I was interested in (that I could afford).  The Sigma 10-20mm and the Tokina 12-24mm.  After tossing them back and forth in my head and reading lots of reviews I finally decided on the Tokina 12-24mm.  My first impression is nothing short of excellent.  It definitely seems wide enough and the build quality is superb.  I also enjoy the different type of manual focus mechanism.  I’ll probably post a review of it once I get the chance to try it out a bit more.

In just a few short days I’ve quadrupled the amount of photography equipment I have.  The only downside is now I need to find a place to keep it all.

I’m very excited to play with and learn my new toys.  I posted a few test shots in the slideshow below. Most of the shots were taken with the new Flash which requires Manual mode so some are a little overexposed as I get used to it.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649