Almost every day since late August I’ve been counting down the days to the longest, and farthest vacation I will take to date.

We are now just 5 weeks away from our trip to Japan. With our busy schedules as of late, the date is fast approaching and neither of us cannot wait to be on that plane (ugh…14hr flight) to Tokyo. My plan for the trip is to absorb as much as possible while not looking too much like a tourist (I’m sure that will be impossible)

We plan on traveling to a few different places in Japan including Kyoto and Hiroshima. The trip will also include hanging out with my fiance’s family.

Can. Not. Wait.

Well, the new Sigma was received and after I quickly unboxed it, put it on my camera and snapped a few shots out on our patio I quickly realized I needed to send it back.  This lens, like some other Sigma lenses suffers from front focusing and a general lack of proper focus.  The image I took at 150mm at f/2.8 were pretty soft where I focused the camera.  This should have surprised me but I knew walking into this purchase that I may be shipped a lens with this problem.
I spoke with the vendor I bought it from and they are taking it back/exchanging it as a defective unit.  The lens is mildly usable, but the performance is pretty disappointing.  Hopefully a new copy will change my feelings

Keeping with the “We’re going to Japan, let’s buy some stuff!” theme, I thought it was time I snagged myself a telephoto zoom. Canon offers up some fantastic solutions in the telephoto zoom category, unfortunately, they are far too expensive for my taste and far too heavy (70-200mm f/2.8L IS = ~3 lbs!) and far too big/conspicuous: “Hey look, a guy with a huge white lens…lets see where he’s going!”.

Sigma, a third-party lens manufacturer has been doing a nice job at providing some interesting lenses. They have lenses in all the major categories and now they have a lens in the “cropped telephoto” range along with Tokina. By “cropped telephoto” I mean a zoom lens that is designed for a camera with a ~23mm sensor. The focal range on their lens is 50-150mm sporting a nice and fast f/2.8 aperture which is constant throughout the focal range.

On a cropped sensor such as my camera’s 1.6x sensor, the Sigma has an 80-210mm 35mm equivalent focal range which gives roughly the same effect (albeit 10mm longer) as a more standard 70-200mm telephoto zoom on a 35mm/full frame camera.

The nice thing about this lens, however, is that it is much lighter and smaller - two big pluses for me. The reviews I read praised the lenses resolution even at the long end wide open. There was mention that when it focuses closely at 150mm there tends to be a drop in image quality so I’ll have to test it out and see what I think.

In terms of price, the lens is roughly the same as Canon’s 70-200mm f/4L but is a full stop faster and is a more usable focal length for APS-C cameras (70mm is a bit too long on crop cameras).

The lens will be here tomorrow according to UPS and I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival.

My need for another bag came about when I realized a) How heavy my Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home is fully loaded, b) It is a shoulder bag and c) shoulder bag + long hike = bad shoulder pain. So, I set off searching for a new bag. I went to my first love, Crumpler USA - great bags, simply awesome construction. I really love my 7Mil Home, but again, shoulder bagged’ness is something I’m not looking for - it’s time for a backpack. This will primarily be used for excessive walking excursions and I will give it a full test in Japan in approximately 7 weeks (from today).

Just as I was starting my search I came across Crumpler’s Sinking Barge and was impressed by the fact that I could have a camera bag and a laptop bag - I could essentially bring my camera to work and wander around the canal path during lunch! Now my hunt for a bag changed directions - I was determined to find a camera bag with enough from for my work laptop. Crumpler has some other bags (Karachi Outpost, Whickey and Cox) but they are pretty expensive and are not as accessible as the Kata R-103 while it is on your back.

“Kata who?” says I. Well, Kata is a maker of all sorts of bags/covers, etc for photo/video equipment. Their R-103 rucksack is, in a word, incredible. It’s beyond durable, comes with a tripod holder (though, my Gitzo’s a bit too big for it), heat/water reversible cover and is very comfortable. I’m not going to bore you with a lengthy review as there are a good number of reviews for this bag. Head on over to Cambags for some good reviews on this and other camera bags (great site).

Pics of my new Kata. I may take product shots of it if I have time.