No you don't use a teleconverter to do macro. I guess you were referring to extension tubes. Given a choice, I'll go with Raynox anytime.

Singapore.

There's another one at Toa Payoh Lorong 8 which is pretty notorious for its crabs. $88 for one damn crab. tsk tsk.

The couple blended into the background. I mean, the fence.

This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 6 2011, 01:26 AM

If it stops there, Nikon will never be able to last long. So, just buy buy buy!

Buying new toys and upgrading gears is just like smoking cigarattes so don't tell me stuff like you've been smoking plenty packs of cigarattes this month and you are damn sure you won't have any urge the following month.

What's the pricing for both the lenses?

The difference that I can see here is one has VC and another doesn't. If the price gap is not that much by all means go for the VC version. VC helps a heap especially when you are using long focal length lens.

The color seems like washed out.

Several factors that will affect bokeh.

Focal Length - The longer the focal length, the more bokeh it is. E.g. Telephoto lenses

Sensor - Full frame bodies produce more umph bokeh compared to cropped sensor bodies if you mount the same lens on both.

Distance between subject and camera - The nearer the distance between the subjecct to the camera, the more bokeh it is.

Distance between subject and background - The further the distance between the subject and the background, the more bokeh you get.

Aperture - The bigger the aperture, the more bokeh you get. e.g. f1.0, f1.2, f1.4

Give it a try then, it's easy to produce heart shaped bokeh, but whether you can produce a nice picture with heart shaped bokeh rather than a pointless shot just to show heart shaped bokeh is another matter. You can always refer to the online guides on the other patterns that you can cut out to produce other shapes.

I see that you are having hard time handling big aperture lenses. Perhaps you should stick to lenses above f2.8 considering you mentioned that 100L seems ok.

Let me enlighten you a little, testing a lens is not like eating nasi lemak where you get to taste everything the moment you swallow it down your throat. You'll have learn its characteristic and it takes time to understand it. You might have screwed up your first experience with those premium lenses due to your inexperienced handling in big aperture lenses but if you were to conclude saying all of their focusing sucks then I would suggest you to just stick with budget lenses.

On the other hand, focusing on 85mm f1.4 is obviously a lot faster compared to f1.2. The F number is already obvious unless you have difficulty in differentiating between f1.2 and f1.4. I own a 85L and also a Sigma 85mm f1.4 HSM. The Kegma beats my Keg in focusing speed significantly, I wouldn't deny that. I own a 5D2, 1D3 and 50D and I hardly need to whip out my 1D3 to shoot just because my 5D2 focusing forces me to do so. I own close to 20 Canon premium lenses and the lenses which actually gives me some 'challenge' in focusing is my 85L and 50mm f1.0. I wouldn't blame them cause they reward me heavily when I manage to tame them.

Also, if the focusing is really that bad, I guess those NatGeo photographers must be damn noob to have use Canon whitey bazooka to shoot. Same goes to Olympic official photos. Almost every big events you can see whiteys don't ya?

LoL, couldn't agree more. Very obvious user's problem. I fully agree that both my Canon EF 85mm f1.2 Mark II L USM and Canon EF 50mm f1.0 L USM are slowpokey lenses. They are damn hard to tame when I first got them, once you get used to handling big apertures, your hit rate will certainly improve and you'll start loving them.

This post has been edited by vikingw2k: Jan 16 2011, 12:50 PM

Get a Siggy 50mm f1.4 HSM. Damn good 50mm. Don't need to go that extreme for f1.2 unless you got extra money to splash.

Have your surveyed on Siggy 50mm f1.4 HSM? It's better than the both lenses mentioned by you.