It took some doing to convince myself to part with the amount of cash that an L series lens costs. I was eyeing up the 100mm f/2 USM (not the f/2.8 macro) and I probably would have been happy with that lens if I hadn’t tried out some L series glass in LCE. After that I knew I wouldn’t be settling for anything less.

I am SO glad I did make that jump, the Canon EF 135mm f/2 USM is an exceptionally sharp lens, I thought my 50mm f/1.4 USM was sharp, but it is blown away by this. Even wide open at F/2 it just blows my mind with the level of detail it picks up and the depth of field gets silly small. I took the shot below at f/4 and uploaded the full size image to show off the detail picked up, you should definatly check out the face area, you can see the texture in the paint, every speck of dust, all of it! Take note that this image is 2922px x 4386px and about 2mb eek, still go look at it.

This lens suites my style of shooting so well, if you have ever ventured onto my flickr you’ll have seen low DOF portraits with a healthy helping of bokeh, this lens is already helping me take that to the next level. I’ve only had it week but it has quite possibly ruined me for all other lenses. Telephoto Primes Rock My Socks!

Presentation

Whole site does a really good job of presenting user content. The user home page its self (Mine is pictured above) shows your ten most popular photos in a cover flow style gallery as well as an about section, your friends, your recent activity… the usual sort of stuff. Clicking through to the image gets you, as you would expect, a nice big version & the ability to start content. Awesome. The site still being developed & new features are being added. Being a camera geek I’d love to see the EXIF data from photos presented nicely along side the photos, & maybe some slightly nicer presentation when the “View Full Size” link is hit.

Community

The site has a really nice sense of community & the Hellamega team make them selves very accessible, this is rare for a site like this but it’s something I really like. Michael does a these awesome spotlight videos, featuring contributors, sharing news, photo adventures & generally just being excited. There are some great contributors on the site, right now I’m loving work by Benny & Michael Petralia.

It’s Invite Only

So this might seem an odd move for a social networking site, but it makes a lot of sense IMO. It means they have an extra level of regulating quality. It means you don’t really get spam users, it means you don’t get that guy who signs up when he is bored one night – uploads 20 pictures of his neighbours dog and then never uses the site again. It also makes the contributors feel special, everyone likes feeling special!

I guess it also doesn’t hurt that two #of #my photos have been featured in their “Photo of The Day” section on the site. So in closing, get on the site, tell ‘em you want in, & get contributing!

Link Round Up

• Live for Fame The site!
• Hellamega The guys behind it
• Andrew Cornett On twitter, give him a follow
• Michael Perry On twitter, yeah follow him too
• Rick Nunn My page on live for fame
• Benny Check this guy out
• Michael Petralia Check this guy out too
• Invite The invite request page

Yeah, it’s been a while coming but it’s finally here & I’m happy about that. I use the mobile flickr site a huge amount probably 20+ times a day, I’m not addicted or anything… ok maybe a little. Anyway yeah it’s totally out now & it’s good, it’s really good. It needs some more features but, like anything, they will come with time.

I like: that it’s quick, that it’s simple & how nice it looks, even the opening screen makes me smile.

I want: the ability to edit info & delete photos you have already uploaded, user icons next to their comments & I wanna see EXIF too, I’m totally addicted to it.

So what are you waiting for? Go download the app now!