Hello! I love the blog! I’m new to the camera world and I was wondering if I have a Canon XSi is the only lenses I can buy Canon? I want another one than the one it came with. More zoom. I mainly photograph my 10 month old. Any ideas?

Hello!  Just because you have a Canon or Nikon camera that does not mean you have to buy that manufacturers lenses.  There are third party lenses that you can buy.  Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina are the three major third party lens manufacturers.  While first party lenses are not interchangeable between different manufacturers (Canon lenses must be used with Canon camera bodies), third party lenses can be used with different manufacturers (as long as the lens mount is the same).

If you are a professional photographer I would not suggest buying a third party lens.  You get what you pay for and I guarantee overtime you will be disappointed in the performance of a third party lens.  Guarantee it.  I use to second shoot for a photographer who only used third party lenses and even with my Canon 30D my images were better with my Canon L Series lenses.

For the average Mom*tog a third party lens may not be a bad idea.  They will be cheaper and the quality of some third party lenses has improved.  If you’ve never shot with a pro lens you will probably not even know the difference and most likely the lens will be better than the stock lens your camera came with.  The good thing about buying a third party lens for a Mom*tog is that if something happens to it (juice gets spilled on it, baby decides to use it as a toy, etc.) it will be a lot cheaper to replace.  Moms put a lot of wear and tear on their equipment.

One lens that I recommend for Moms is the Canon 24 – 70 2.8.  That lens runs $1249.  While the Sigma version runs $569.  That’s a huge savings!

If you’ve read Mom*tog enough you know what I’m going to say, right?  Try renting the lens and see which one shoots your shooting style best.  Borrow Lenses has all three third party lenses that I mentioned for rent.  Rent one for a week and see if you like it before you invest!

I avoid shooting in full sun like the plague.  But, there are times when you just can’t get around it.  For professional photographers it is important to educate your clients about the best times of day to shoot.  I won’t take on a shoot if the client can only do it midday because their pictures won’t look like the pictures in my portfolio and I don’t want anyone to be disappointed.  For weddings there may not be a way to get around shooting midday.  So, I’m always looking for open shade.  But, for everyday snapshots of your kids open shade may not be available and you probably can’t get them to stay in one place anyways.

When shooting in full sun I’m always looking at the shadows on my subjects face.  Typically I want the sun to be to their back (this will create less shadows).  And I always expose for the person rather than the background.  I don’t care if the background is totally blown out as long as the subject looks good.

These pictures I took of Brayden and Chuck at the beach were taken around 11:30am on a totally bright and sunny day.  I positioned myself so the sun was behind them and paid close attention to shadows on their faces.

Canon 5D, 50 1.2

f 2.8, 1/2500 ISO 125

f 2.8, 1/4000, ISO 125

That is the number of hours that we spent at Disney World.  We weren’t there for very long, but we fit a lot in!  I have been to Disney World twice.  Once in fourth grade and once for cheerleading nationals in 1998 (go PACE All-Stars!).  But, this was Chuck’s first trip (first trip to Florida even!) and obviously Brayden’s first trip.  We’ll be making a big Disney World trip for Brayden’s 5th birthday so we kept this one short just because a 2 year old can only handle so much excitement.  Here are a few of my observations about Disney World:

*** Pics in this post are taken with Canon 5D and the 24 – 70 2.8 and my Canon G10 point and shoot.

-  While the Magic Kingdom has a better castle, Disneyland is a much better park.  Everything seems more updated there.  I’m probably totally bias.

-  Disney World resort is a much nicer resort than Anaheim.  Much prettier and spread out (which is kind of a good thing and a bad thing).

-  The Tea Cups are much better at Disneyland, but to a 2 year old a pink tea cup is a pink tea cup!

-  People are much friendlier at Disney World.  I think it’s the Southern hospitality.  And I love hearing all the Southern accents!

-  Animal Kingdom is awesome.  Brayden loved the jeep safari and Dino Land.  I won a teddy bear and a lizard for him there.  That’s how we roll in this family.  Mom has to win the prizes.

-  Animal Kingdom resort is a nice hotel.  It was Disney without being too busy.  The savanna view rooms are kind of a rip off.  We saw an ostrich, two giraffes, and some other animal that I don’t know the name of .  Maybe we would have seen more if we would have stayed longer.  B was pretty darn impressed by those giraffes.

-  Florida ducks are not nice.  If your kids are eating popcorn beware.  They will get bit.  Poor Brayden is scared for life!  But, like any good parents would do, we tortured him and made him take a picture with Donald Duck later in the day.

-  For a two year old the bus ride to the parks may  just be the best ride in the park!

And we had a great time in the JAX.  Brayden and I visited St. Augustine while Chuck was at his conference.  We rode the train around town for an hour (it was freezing!).  B loved the train and I loved learning about the history of the city.  Total win-win!  We then visited an Alligator farm.  It was a bit smelly, but B enjoyed it very much.  He especially loved feeding the gators.  We also visited St. Johns Town Center (twice) and I got a new pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from GAP (if you follow me on twitter you know why!) and a super cute shirt and purse from Anthro.  I also got to visit Ballard Designs.  I get the catalog and was SO, SO, SO excited to see everything in person.  Love that place!  Thanks for all of the suggestions, friends!

I’ve been a bad blogger.  You know I’m very busy when I’m not blogging!  That’s what 4 shoots in 6 days and getting ready to go out of town will do to you!  I’ve been a bad Formspringer too.  From now on I will probably start taking some of the questions I get over there and answering them here.  Today’s question is:

What’s your normal attire when shooting a wedding?

I always wear all black (or at least dark colors) to weddings.  I want to blend into the background and not stand out like a sore thumb in their wedding video or their guests pictures.  I try to make it fun by wearing cute shoes that are a bright color.  I always try to look cute at weddings, but at the end of the day I’m a sweaty, frizzy haired mess.  But, it’s not about me anyways, right?  I don’t try to wear heels or skirts.  For me it’s about comfort and practicality.  I’m climbing on chairs, laying on the ground, and running all over the place.  I want to be comfortable while looking professional.

I don’t really have too many pictures of me shooting.  I usually delete all the ones my second shooters take because I look like a dork ball.  I do have one that’s my absolute fav.  Taken at 36 weeks pregnant.

Photo by:  Jasmine Star

I hate going to the post office.  Actually, I hated it before I had Brayden and could go by myself.  Now I absolutely loathe going to the post office with a toddler in tow.  Nothing about it is fun or easy.  The parking lot is a disaster and I always feel lucky when I come out of there unscathed.  The lines are just ridiculous at anytime of day it seems.  It’s just not a pleasant experience in general.  I found myself procrastinating shipping my packages because I hated going.

Now, I know I’m probably the last person on the earth to try this.  But, last week I started shipping my packages online and scheduling for my postman to pick them up at my front door.  And I think most of my packages actually got to their intended recipients.  It’s brilliant, I tell you!  I might actually enjoy shipping my packages now!  I have some of the priority mail flat rate boxes (which are free!), but the aren’t the most ideal sizes for shipping prints and the flat rate shipping prices are kind of pricey.  I’ve found that using my own boxes (which I recycle from my lab) is cheaper.  Then I just print out my postage online and schedule my pickup!  It’s easy peezy!

If you’re not already using it, you should.  It’s life changing!

I’ve received a few emails and comments about Brayden’s pictures on the train tracks.  I want to let everyone know that those are dead tracks.  No trains travel on them!  I may do a lot of crazy things to get a shot, but putting my child on real train tracks where real, big, fast trains travel is not one of them.  I would highly suggest that you do not put your two year old (or anyone else’s two year old) with suitcases and a birthday cake on real train tracks.  Seriously.  I was shooting an engagement session last year and we were shooting out in the middle of nowhere, but close to a train track.  The couple was probably 10 feet away from the track and out of nowhere comes a train.  I did not hear it.  I did not feel the ground rumble.  As I was taking those pictures I thought it would be cool to have the couple on the tracks.  Had they been on the tracks I honestly don’t know if the train would have seen them / us.  The whole thing really scared me!  It’s just not worth it!

Onto happier topics, I love what Kristen is doing over on her blog:

I’m totally guilty of blogging about the happier times and sugarcoating things a bit.  But, I think the better pictures come with happier times.  I mean, how many crying pictures can I really post?

Because there’s a lot of this that goes on in our house, trust me!  But I would rather post the pictures of the times when we are having fun!

Now, if you follow my tweets there isn’t anything sugarcoated over there!  In fact, I think I probably tweet to much.  I’m guilty of tweeting before I think.

Do you ever get random little dots in your pictures?  Especially when shooting pictures that have a blue sky as a background?  Those little dots and yuckiness means that you, my friend, have a dirty sensor!

I was scared to death to clean my sensor.  Instead of doing it myself I would drive it to the Canon repair center and have them do it for me.  This worked out great until they started charging to clean sensors.  I figured I should learn how to do it myself.  And you know what?  It’s not that hard.  And I think I do a better job then Canon does.  Here’s how you do it:

1)  Buy some sensor cleaning stuff.  I use the Sensor Swab Type 3 and the Eclipse cleaning solution.

2)  Take off your lens

3)  Turn your camera on and go to the “Clean Sensor” option in the menu.

4)  Lay the camera down flat so you can access the sensor.

5)  Put a couple of drops directly onto the sensor swab.

6)  Slide the swab firmly across the sensor.  Repeat in the opposite direction.

7)  Turn your camera off and you’re done!

And just in case you still need help here’s some guidance via You Tube.

To avoid getting dust on your sensor always change lenses as quickly as possible and hold the camera with your sensor pointing to the ground when you have the lens off.  If you have the sensor pointing to the sky you are more likely to have dust fall into it.  Good luck and don’t be scared!  I promise it’s not hard!

Remember the Clickin Moms contest I had awhile back?  So many of you were disappointed that you didn’t win.  Well, they are offering a 10% off discount for all new members!  Just enter in the discount code “FRIEND” at checkout.  Go check it out!

I hope all of your Valentine’s and Presidents Days were great!  My wonderful husband surprised me with a night in Laguna Beach at my favorite hotel… with no baby!  It’s amazing what a night away can do to revitalize you!

Now, back to business.  Emily sent me this email:

My 5D won’t format my biggest card and I’ve tried all I can to fix it with no avail- so I am in looking to buy a new card. Do you have any advice? Are certain cards better than others? Thanks Drew!

My cards are SanDisk and I’ve never (knock on wood) had a problem with them.  I always buy whatever the newest version is.  The last cards I bought were the Extreme IV and I love them.  As long as you stick with a major brand (SanDisk and Lexar are two of the biggest brands) you should be okay.

I personally only shoot on 4GB cards.  The reason I don’t use an 8, 16, or 32 GB card is because what happens if you lose it?  Or if it gets corrupted?  You lose that many more images, right?  It may be more convenient, but at least if something happens to one of my 4GB cards at a wedding (knock on wood again please!) I only lose 200 something images (if I’m shooting RAW) versus half of a wedding with a 32 GB card.  Even if don’t shoot weddings I think it’s a good idea to not shoot on a large card for that same reason.

Happy Tuesday!

Dear Brayden,

2 years ago today, after a very long and painful labor, we met at exactly 3:30pm for the first time.  4 days past due and you had no intentions of coming out so the doctor had to force you out.  When the doctor held you up over the curtain for the first time and your Daddy and I saw you we both cried, but later admitted to each other that we thought you were an albino baby.  Your hair was as white as your skin and you had bright blue eyes.  Regardless, we loved you because you were ours.

2 years ago today you were a stranger.  I could only dream of what your voice would sound like when you said, “Mama”.  I could only imagine what you would look like when you took your first steps.  I could never comprehend how proud I would be every time you learn a new word, when you blew out the candles of your 2nd birthday cake, when you said, “Love Mama” for the first time, and all your other little accomplishments.  I would have never guessed how much joy and happiness you could bring to me.

2 years ago today I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I still have days that I’m not sure I can do it.  But, I hope you know how much I try to be the best mom possible.  I love making you laugh so hard that your face turns red.  I love tickling you so hard that you giggle and say, “No, Mama!  No!”.  I love that I’m the only one who can understand your “Branglish”.  I love that I get just as excited as you (okay, maybe more excited) when we get stuck at a train crossing.  I love getting to discover new things with you.

2 years ago today I knew I loved you, but I could have never imagined how much more I could love you today.  Brayden, I love you so much and am so proud of the boy you are.  I can’t wait to see how much you change and grow over the next year.  But, please don’t grow up too fast.  These past two years have flown by.  I’d just like you to stay my baby for a little bit longer.

Love,

Mama

I was going to try to take credit for this outfit, but I can’t.  I would never pick out something this cool.  The outfit was a birthday present the very stylish Trista Lerit.  Trista has been buying Brayden designer duds since before he was even born.  Thanks Trista!

And a big special thanks to my hubby who helped me take these pictures during the Super Bowl  He’s so awesome!

And with Brayden’s birthday it also means that’s it’s the 1 year anniversary of Mom*tog!  192 posts, 2372 comments, over 350,000 hits, and countless new friends.  It’s been a great year!  Thanks for the support.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for the fun!  I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store!

And as a Happy Birthday / Happy Anniversary gift the UNposing Guide is 25% off until Sunday at midnight!  Enter in the code “Anniversary” at checkout.

Last week we found out that Brayden’s pre preschool class was having a Valentine’s Day party.  His very first Valentine’s Day party!  His teacher requested that we bring something with a Valentine’s Day theme, but preferably healthy.  If it were up to me I would have brought cupcakes or brownies (yum!).  But, I wanted to be a good mom and adhere to the rules.  Of course I panicked yesterday because I still hadn’t thought of anything.  What’s a girl to do?  Twitter it!  My friend Kimmie suggested that I make these.  Um, cute!  So, I showed my husband a picture and told him to make them  Because, I’m just not good with things like this.  However, I did cut up the oranges!  And I tried to skewer them, but I stabbed myself twice and called it quits.  Here is the end result:

They were a hit!  Brayden’s teacher, Miss Heidi, loved them and so did all the parents!  First Valentine’s Day party = success!