Sunset challenge

Favourite lens is falling apart... No, I haven't dropped it or anything like that at all ... I fact, I keep all my equipment, lenses and camera bodies always well wrapped. Since shooting for my blog, however, I have noticed that some of the elements around the focusing ring were getting looser and looser by the minute. It's down to wear an tear really. Quite normal when you think that I have used that lens for well over 15 years.

It has been to all five continents, almost around the entire world and has served me extremely well.

Now that it has been worked hard again it wants a bit of attention, I suppose :)

So, I made time to get the Canon 70-200mm f.2.8L to Fixation, a Canon Authorised Professional EOS Centre and Official CPS Service Centre.

The engineers at Fixation are great. When ever my equipment needed some TLC I took it there.

But, I didn't really have a blog shot yet. A bit of a worry that. However I thought that they may be able to tighten a few screws there and then and that the lens would be as good as new and ready again for an early evening outing.

The short answer to my theory was: no. All the screws are inside and the lens will have to be taken apart.

I had no other choice than to have it booked in. Hopefully I will get it back in a few days.

What next? Panic not. I have another great lens. Not a zoom this time but a 135mm f2L lens. It's a fixed focal lens and at f2 a very light sensitive one at that. It's beautiful. I generally used it for portrait session.

Not today though. No, for a change I thought I'd have a go at catching some still life in the late afternoon sun.

However, because I so enjoy getting close up and personal with my subjects and I was missing the 200mm range, I dug out my 1.4 converter. Fitting the converter between the camera body and the lens meant that the focal lens was now 189mm - that's better! Only drag is that putting the converter on the lens the light sensitivity gets reduces by one f stop. The lens was now no longer a f2 lens but the widest aperture was now f2.8. Still very light sensitive and much better than most semi professional or amateur lenses.

On my merry way went. Photographing with a fixed lens gets a bit more demanding. Quite simply you have to do more leg work! Specially if you want the framing to be perfect.

On the way down the road I got some very nice still life images. Shots of a large crumpled up dead leave on the bonnet of a Mercedes looked beautiful! I loved the reflexion it made. It also reminded me a bit of a shot I took early in the morning with my little Canon Ixus 100.

But on I went. I hadn't finished playing with my long lost friend.

I see two guy playing Frisbee. That looks a bit cool. Their Frisbee is one of these thin rings and supposedly it can fly up to 400 meters.

"In the hands of a more capable player though!" one of the guys tells me.

"Wow, Can I please take a few shots of you? I'd like to get familiar with my lens."

"Yes, by all means"

"Great!"

So, I hang out with the boys and take a few shots. Not so easy. Specially as I had one particular shot I wanted to catch in mind.

The guys were enjoying the extra attention and made a real effort at getting their throwing as accurate as possible.

After a few minutes I got what I wanted. In fact I got two shots I really like. One of each player.

My final choice is a bit more dynamic though and, this is why it got my final vote.