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Sunday, cars and a kit lens

The so called “standard zoom” is the lens I used the least. Point of fact, I still have the original kit lens (Canon) even though, as every Internet-indoctrinated newbie photog can tell you, I’ve been thoroughly enlightened on its awfulness (we’re talking the 18-55 non-IS version here: the newer model is supposed to be better optically, aside from having image stabilization on its plus column. It doesn’t get the hate the old model does, anyway). I just don’t use it enough to make it a priority upgrade: even now, after a couple of years, a better standard zoom is probably 3 or four on my shopping list, far behind a ultra wide-angle and a couple of fast primes.

This strikes me as odd: this focal range is called “standard” for a reason, after all. And yet. Anyway, this preamble takes me to my Sunday activities, namely shooting a vintage cars showcase with my not-so-standard-for-my-habits zoom, equipped with a polarizer since it was outdoor, a very bright, very sunny outdoor. Polarizers are a wonderful thing as far as I am concerned, I use mine too much (skies too blue to be true? Yep, I’ve got plenty of those). Well, it was fun, though in retrospect I kick myself for shooting just the cars mostly. The people ogling them were interesting, too. Next year or next car show, I suppose.

This is my favorite shot of the day:

This one is a cheat: it’s twice a cheat, actually. It’s a cheat once because in the pre-processed photo the car was in focus and it’s a cheat twice because the fake bokeh effect (and the b&w with just one spot of color) were done using Picasa’s presets and not slaving hard (assuming it requires hard slaving, I didn’t try) in Photoshop or similar “serious” photo editing software. I think it looks nice, though:

This is, I think the word is curious, not the picture though, just the subject. All I have to say is, this old Jaguar came very well equipped. And I’d love to have such a cool tool box in my car (which is not a Jaguar, either old or new. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t have one):

I also shot cars in their entirety: but for some reason I always like the details better than the whole picture (pun mostly intended). Maybe that’s why the standard zoom doesn’t work as a standard for me.

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