What’s in the Bag: 24-70mm

(If you missed the first two post, check them out: 50mm and 35mm)

Today we are departing from the prime lenses and talking about my go-to lens. I love my prime lenses but this tends to be my go-to lens for when I’m out and about. If I’m traveling and one want to take one lens, it’s this one. Hiking? This this is always on the camera (even though I might stash the 35 or 50 someone in my pack). It’s a wonderful lens that is extremely versatile. Canon has released a newer version of the lens since I purchased this one, but I saw no need to really upgrade- the first version works just fine for how I use it!

While I find the photos are as clear or crisp as I would get with the prime lens, I like the extra space I have to play with in a shot without having to take steps backwards or forwards.

  • example 7

  • example 6

  • example 5

  • example 4

  • example 3

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  • example 1

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What’s in the bag: 50mm

Working my way through the lenses, next up is the (Canon) 50mm.

Read almost any article on food blogging and photography and the 50mm lens will be one of probably two that are mentioned as the best lenses to get. When I first invested in my canon rebel, I also purchased a 50mm lens, the 1.8. If you want to get a feel for how to work with a prime lens without shelling out major money, get this $100 lens. This lens is awesome for the price.

This was my first and only non-kit lens for almost a year (until I tipped over my tripod and smashed it, leaving the auto focus useless). After that, I took the next step up and purchased the  50mm 2.5 macro lens. This lens functions a bit differently from the 1.8 and the 1.2 in that it has the macro capability (except, don’t allow this to get too close to your food for every shot, I promise it doesn’t look as good as you might think). Plus, this is a decent lens for the price. I used this lens for two years until I saved up enough to invest in a new lens (I bought the 100mm.) Continue Reading

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What’s in the bag: 35mm

I get a lot of questions about what I shoot with and why. I tell everyone who is just starting out to start small and build into better equipment as your level and technique grows. I started off with a Canon Rebel five years ago and have slowly built my camera equipment to where it is today. The great thing about digital cameras is as long as you stick with one brand, the lenses will last you forever. My father and I once got into a discussion about why I spent twice as much money on a lens than he did, but once he saw the quality of photo the lens help capture, he was sold.

(Again, not saying you need the most expensive lenses but 1 or 2 quality lenses will really help with the crispness of the photos. I saved and purchases lenses as I started to get more work with my photography).

So, it sounded like the perfect set-up for a mini series here on the blog about what lenses I use and why. Continue Reading

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Tip: Site Back-ups

As we get back into blogging after a bit of a break, we want to bring you more information that will not only help you grow your blog but also keep the contents safe.

Let’s play a hypothetical. You’ve spent countless hours over many years writing, photographing, and posting content to the internet then one day, something happens. Your site gets hacked, and all the sudden all of your files are gone, erased. What would you do? Or say you get an email from your hosting provider that your database has been corrupted.

What do you do? Cry? Throw fits? Yell angrily that all your content was on there?

No, you don’t. Because you thought ahead and started taking regular back-ups of your site and your database. There are many components that keep your site running, store information, and keep track of everything.

But don’t worry, you don’t need to know where everything is located to back it up. There are a plethora of plug-ins that can help you manually and automatically back-up your site to your computer and to cloud storage like dropbox or google drive. A full list can be found here. While I use WordPress Backup to Dropbox, this plug-in also looks good and you have a choice of where the file lives.

So go  and back-up your site!

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