New toys for the Canon

I never realized how addicting this can photography thing can be. The wifey and I recently added a few accessories to the arsenal. Thanks to Craigslist, we acquired an affordable 50mm f1.8 lens. It's a little noisy when autofocusing, but this 'nifty-fifty' provides lots of fun with its depth of field - I can finally take those fun blurred background shots, but I'm still trying to get accustomed zooming in and out with my feet!

We also purchased an external flash from B&H Photo. I'm really eager to play around with our new 430 EX II speedlite. And last but not least, I just had to get some lens hoods. I went to Samy's Camera in LA and was I impressed with that place. It's a 3 story building with nothing but camera and video stuff galore. Aside from preventing stray light and flaring, my main motivation for the lens hoods was my long held perception that they gave cameras a more 'professional' look. ha! So, we went from this......

....t0 this!!!!....