OMG I'm in LOVE!

It's NEW.
It's BLACK.
It's FLASHY.
It was freakin' expensive...

You thought it was a car, didn't you?

Is it a computer? Nah uh...

What about the latest techy gadget? Sorry...

Is it shoes? Nope... but it needs one to work most of the time...

Give up?

It's a FLASH!

Yes, I never thought I'd get excited about such a thing either...but necessity forced me to upgrade my flash unit recently and I could KICK myself for not doing it sooner. My trusty Sigma 500DG flash has served me well for many, many years, but I was surprised to find that it didn't work (except in full manual mode and who has time for that??) on my new Canon 7D, so off to Henry's I went with my Christmas money in hand to *gulp* buy a Canon Speedlight.

Doesn't look like all that much, does it?

One of the things I'm (slowly, painfully) learning as I grow as a photographer is that the least important element in your gear seems to be the camera body itself. Upgrading bodies gets you more megapixels, sure, and more frames per second, and, in the case of the 7D, HDR video...but you really want some WOW shots? Get new glass. Lenses make ALL the difference, and now too it seems, so do flashes.

Wednesday, I shot my first house using the combination of the 7D and the new Speedlight but the old Sigma 10-20mm and I was SO impressed with the images. Now, I want to get the Canon wide angle...it's the only thing I'm lacking right now. I had my eye on one before Christmas, but couldn't bring myself to buy it at the time, so that will be my goal this year. When it came time to make a decision on what to get Boxing Day, it had to be the flash, since the Sigma flash didn't work with the 7D at all, but the Lens does for now, so that upgrade will have to wait for a while longer...

So here's one of the shots from Wednesday. There were so many great ones, it was hard to pick just one, but I like this room also. Nice, even light - no halo on the ceiling (I know this is a cathedral ceiling, but there was no halo even in the bedroom shots with normal ceilings!!), the shadows are soft when you can even see them at all. This was shot on a bright, sunny day, in a south-facing room in the winter. Anyone who shoots real estate photography knows that's a recipe for horrible photos with dark rooms and blown out windows, so I am extremely pleased with the results above.

- Paula