eileen the winter queen

I was looking at pictures of my grandson that I took recently in my newly remodeled portrait studio and just was not completely happy with the sharpness. I've been eyeing the Samsung 85 mm lens for quite some time but just not ready to throw down $1000.

Every review I read said 85mm was the lens to have for portraits. I don't even know how I stumbled upon this lens, but I'm so glad I did.

I ended up buying a Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 Aspherical Fixed Lens for Samsung NX 85M-NX.

I have a SamSung NX30 and it works great. If you can handle manipulating the focus and aperture settings manually, then this lens is for you.

The lens retailed at $269.00 - but I found one through the Amazon warehouse with damaged packaging and got another $50 off.

So I spent $200 on the lens.

And I can't believe how sharp it is.

Once I figured things out - most of my pictures turned out great. I spent some time photographing my Santa figure and think I've got a good handle on how to use it. I still get some blur and sometimes it difficult for me to get the small aperture sliver on par. Most of these were shot at 2.8 aperture and ISO of 100.

I'm totally in love with this lens.

Samsung NX30 Digital Camera

I wanted a new camera for Christmas and I finally got around to looking at the different ones available. It has been awhile since I looked at the digital camera technology.  

When I started thinking of what was truly important to me in a camera, I came to the conclusion that it was the ability to share my pictures and videos quickly. Share them to social media sites and for my blog. I wanted a nice digital SLR that was SMART.

After reading a bunch of camera reviews, I settled on the Samsung NX30, which is a mirrorless digital camera. The mirrorless technology also makes the camera smaller, so it's easy to just throw it in my bag and go.

If you're looking for me to spout all the technical shooting specifications, then you're going to be disappointed. It has all the bells and whistles of being a good digital camera, but when it arrived - I set out to discover all the sharing capabilities. I knew it was Samsung and the picture quality would be excellent. The HD Video capability is fantastic as well!

I loved the fact that I could easily share my pictures and videos to my smart phone. Right away I was using my smart phone as a view finder for the camera. It was quick and easy to attach to my wireless network and just as easy to log in and share my photos to Facebook. Done and Done.

The one gotcha that I found with sharing was with Picasa, which is the Photos capability through Google. I keep logging in and it was tell my that the username/password was wrong. In my email, I got several notices from Google saying "We recently blocked a sign-in attempt to your Google Account."

After monkeying around, I figured I had to move to the 2 step verification process in my profile's security options and ta-do! It worked! It caused me a little heartburn as every device I had logging into Google was now changing through a 2 step verification process. 

All in all, I love the camera and I'm having fun going through all the shooting features and trying them all out. I also ordered a close up and long range lens - coming soon!.