For Christmas this year, I got a swanky new lens, specifically a Canon 50mm f/1.8. This is a lens which is basically built for portraits, but as it is a more professional tool than the lenses I had owned previously (the closest I had ever come was my old 28mm f/2.8, and back then I still wasn't sure what all the f/X.Y stuff was about anyway), I had to learn a few things as I went along.

Since this was supposed to be a lens about taking pictures of people, I started by taking... pictures of people (well, and cats).

And as you can see, Tammy and Louie came out just fine.

But the whole point to the lens is its ability to pick and choose your subject (well, and to be able to shoot in low light, which it also does well).

This means, for example, if you aren't paying attention your group photo might become a very odd photo of one. Cool if you mean to do it, weird if you don't.

Since it was the holidays, I had to practice my food porn shooting:

Also, some fun software that came with my new camera that I hadn't used much let me make a little snow panorama.

And then, finally, off to some 'on the road' testing in Washington, D.C.