Tuesday, July 9th was my 1st excursion out with the 25 mm lens. It was a typical summer day here in Alberta, typical for this year anyway; cloudy, bit of wind and looking like it would rain any minute were my conditions on my lunch break.

I started with a couple empty buildings.

I wandered through City Hall Park on my way to the parkade.

I took a few shots to make a couple of panoramas.

Had to get another shot of my favorite rose bush.

I took all of 1 photo on Wednesday, July 10th.

Thursday found me at the Service Canada office with my mom as she filled out her passport application.

My wife and I went to Sylvan Lake for an outdoor movie in the park. Enjoyed a beautiful sunset and half of Top Gun before an impending thunder storm shut it all down.

Saturday, July 13th found the sun shining so I took my scenic route to work.

The water level is starting to go down.

I found a scraggly looking rose.

I found a nicer looking rose so I thought I’d try varying degrees of depth of field.

If you look real close you can spot the young buck. 25 mm is not much of a wildlife lens. (Even with 2x digital zoom turned on.)

I wanted to get my 10 thousand steps in on Sunday so I went out in the morning and took my camera with me. I started on my scenic route and planned to do a loop up to Heritage Ranch, then down past Bower Ponds on my way home. It’s a bit over 9 kilometers so I was sure I’d make my goal.

There was a fence here a couple weeks ago. I did notice that next week the trail would be closed for construction in the new neighbourhood that is going in. (Closed and the bike path has been removed.)

With all the recent rain, plants grows like gangbusters.

When I first saw him I thought to myself, “It’s just one of them joggers.” Turned out to be one of my co-workers husband and their dog out for a run. I didn’t realize it at the time but he would be the first of 6 people I knew that I would run into on my walk. I met the next person I knew just by the 1st building.

Looking down from the top of the hill I spied the pretentiousness that is the Red Deer Golf and Country Club. I was in that building only one time when I was a freelance reporter at the Red Deer Express covering a press conference for some event that I don’t remember. Even at that you had to follow the dress code to be there.

Seemed like a good time to try out the clear image zoom.

As I was heading back down the hill at Heritage Ranch, I saw a couple out walking their dogs. They are customers in the store and my wife worked with the lady for a while a few years back. Maybe my wife is correct when she say I know everyone.

I tried to get a bit closer to get their photo but they saw me before I was where I wanted to be.

The fishing pond at Heritage Ranch is named after Barry Mitchell, a long time customer of mine and a very nice guy. Barry published the Alberta Fishing Guide and often told me that if I ever wanted to go fishing he’d take me to the good spots.

I took this one for the Trans Canada Trail marker. It’s readable, right?

I saw the geese on Bower Pond zooming along the water but my lens was just a bit too wide an angle to show it.

This was the most used lens in my month long test. I think part of that was because it wasn’t my lens (not yet, but…).

I must say that I really, really liked the 25 mm Batis. I think I would rate it and my 40 mm Batis as a tie for my favorites. The 85 mm Batis would be next and oddly enough, the 18 mm Batis as my least favorite during the test. I say oddly because I usually like a wide perspective as I see wider than most people, even after a couple eye surgeries.

I think I’ll have to try another test with some static subjects and the camera on a tripod and change the lenses out to change perspective.

With all the rain on Canada day, I never even left the house to try using my widest angle lens for week 3.

As it was I waited until after 9:30 pm to go out on the 2nd. The light was so nice I thought I’d go see if I could get a nice sunset shot or 2. I decided to take the scenic route (You may have noticed that I like scenic routes.) to Bower Ponds by taking the South Bank Trail to get there.

The destruction of the old water treatment plant was progressing and I wanted to get a shot over the construction fence but it was too tall for that so I had to improvise the shot I had envisioned in my head.

As I thought I’d try some shallow depth of field to see how I like it.

Then I tried for a shot of more depth of field with the foreground in focus.

Lastly, I went for the background to be the sharpest point of focus.

As I continued along my way, I saw a shot that I think would of worked better with last week’s lens choice.

The sun was going down and the colour was starting to show in the sky.

So I hustled across Taylor Bridge and looked for photo opportunities.

The wind was calm and so was the pond. My only real disappointment was that the lights along the bike path were already on when I got there.

The reflected cloud really caught my eye. Again, a narrower field of view probably would have been better, but use what you brought.

I didn’t take any more photos till Saturday, July 6th and Sunday, July 7th at the Ellis Bird Farm. I posted these photos in an earlier post but they belong here as well so…

A very short photo week. As much as I liked the results I found the 18 mm was actually too wide some times. (I never, ever thought I would think something was too wide.)

Tuesday, June 25th was my first picture taking day during week 2 of my trial. I was now using my 85 mm lens for testing.

I really liked the compression I got from the slight telephoto. I did have to check angles a bit more to make things fit where I wanted them to as opposed to my usual wider angle shooting.

The 26th dawned as another walk to work day so I revisited some familiar ground.

I was glad the bike path was open because where I had to walk last week was a bit of a mini lake to walk through.

I only took 1 photo on the 28th on my way to work. (3 actually to make a panorama.) Demolition had started on the old water treatment plant. The fence had been up for a couple of weeks without seeing much activity so it was nice to see what was happening.

I had noticed that the Lazer Tag place had closed down a couple of weeks earlier but the “For Lease” sign was fairly newly installed. I only went there one time for one of Adam’s birthdays but I walked past it a lot over the past 5 years so I was a bit sad to see it close. The building looks pretty sad all in all.

Week 2 was in the books. Again, not a very taxing week photographically but it was challenging none the less.