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It was only my first week with the 14mm Rokinon/Samyong 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Angle Lens, and I’m a believer!  The build quality of the lens is above average, it is mostly metal with the build in lens hood constructed of plastic (lens hood is non-removeable)

The picture came out sharp and clear.  The down side of this lens is that because it is a manual lens without any electronic parts, focusing though the viewfinder is tough, as I have to constantly switch to live view mode and press magnifying button to zoom in on the picture to focus.  So it’s not a lens for action photography.  But if your subject is relatively still, you can definitely get awesome shots with the lens.  I even managed to snap a few pictures of our cats.

Enjoy a few shots I’ve took with this incredible lens below.

Update:  It is on sale at Adorama’s eBay store (Brand New In Box with Warranty) for just $270 shipped.

We traveled to Everglades National Park during the holiday season, and had the chance to test our new Canon 5D Mark III for it’s performance.  Quite pleased most of the time, with the exception of exposure metering system where Canon still lacks far behind from Nikon.  Enjoy the photos!

I saw those catfish swimming in the display window in an Asian market. Definitely an interesting perspective.

Tried something fun with Baxter in our office, we put a Steak Cufflinks on his paw and he hold it for just a few seconds for me to snap a photo and later edit it.

Included the original shot for comparison.

Just took a trip to Miami, such a beautiful place!

Sadly I only got a 50mm on a full frame with me that day, couldn’t get any closer, but you get the idea, fun to watch good’ol American traditional sport.

Parking lot in Dallas, then Fort Worth Botanical Garden.

Arrows in parking lot

Parking lot on a Friday afternoon

Color of autumn/fall in Texas.

Phasmatodea. (Stick Bug!)

Enjoy nature.

Ancient Forest

I’m visiting the village of Wuyi, near Chuzhou, Anhui Province.  This is the place where my dad was born, I visited here often with my dad when I was little and he was alive.

Uncle’s Dad In His Kitchen.

This chicken was cooked the next day after picture was taken.

The Dragon Shrimp, 3 dead, 1 alive.

Fly Trap

Preparing the speech

Beautiful fireworks during wedding.

Max eatting a duck head

Cool cat on the street.

I’ve seen the panda for the first time in real life.  They are very slow moving, sleeps in the day time for the most part, and looks really cute.

I’m thrilled to be invited to travel to China to photograph and attend my friend Murray James (http://www.murrayjames.net/) and Liu Liu’s Wedding!

My flight depart tomorrow, and I will have limited access to my blog (or the rest of the world outside of China!).  Will post photos after I come back to States.

Mother is cooking some delicious Chinese food tonight, Charlie and Plato are all happy to be camping around the kitchen in hope of getting a treat of some sort!

They’ve been with me for over 4 years now, I absolutely love them 🙂

A bathtub was used for fish

A stairway was used for storage

Tasty food, sugar dipped cherries, orange peel and Apples.

A homeless guy has utilized the abandoned railroad to grow vegetables and setup a tent for himself to live in, he have about 4 cats and 2 dogs.

Click thumbnails for larger view.

Our neighbor raccoon decided to sunbath while sleeping, I don’t know how he manages to sleep like that.

Two deers (a young one and an older one) just popped out of the woods near our house.  This area is frequently visited by raccoons, possums, deers, all kinds of birds, and stray cats.

Instead of bouncing the flash off the ceiling for a very soft, even and wide flash bounce, what you can do also is to utilize the SB-600/SB-800’s manual zoom function to create a “Snoot” effect (along with a wide angle lens), which creates a spotlight that would make your subject stand out.  This is great for that moody effect you want to achieve with your subject.

Note in the example above, the flash is mounted off camera on a stand (or you can just handhold the flash,) thus creating a cast shadow at an angle.

Simple lighting techniques that works.

The Nikon SB-600 speedlight flash’s build-in wireless firing system is one of Nikon’s distinctive features that stand out from it’s competitor Canon.  With SB-600’s very affordable price,  everyone who owns a modern Nikon digital SLR can have fun firing their SB-600 remotely and effortlessly. Bounce flash always produces better results, softer shadows, and better skintone than a direct flash.  Provided there is a neutral roof that you can bounce your flash on.

Plato, with a SB-600 set 45 degrees to my left on the table, and bounced up towards the ceiling.  The catch light around him from the ceiling nicely differentiates him from the surroundings.

Zigi sleeping in a long tube.  The flash is placed about 20 degrees on left side of camera, bounced towards upper part of the box in front of him, the light bounces inside multiple times thus reduce the shadow cast on the back wall of the box.

Imagine if you mounted the camera directly on your camera and shoot them, these images would be made with the cats horribly lit up while the background rendered almost completely dark from lack of ambient light.