Finally I'm almost up to date with the 365 Project photo challenge. And soon it's the end as I started it at 01.01.2011. I thought it will be  a long journey... well it was, but now I feel like I had just started it. Still not sure if I'll go for another...

Red River - At the Vistula River again ....

And I miss Sumer...

Sarigerme / Turkey

Still over 50 photos to clear the backlog... Anyways, Project 365 is still active and going back and forth at once. 

Taken with picplz.

 After about two years of using Canon EF 70-300  IS USM DO f/4.5-5.6 lens, I decided to replace it with another one. Still not sure if I'll get a longer
and faster like 100-400 mm or similar to the one I have but introduced in 2010 Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM.

Diffractive Optics (DO) helped to achieve that great compact and discrete size. It's a  smallest Canon zoom lens and it's black. As a  full frame lens it's compatible to all EOS cameras,  very well made, fast focusing and has a great IS. 

The only thing that forces me to to sell it (except I can't afford to have 10 different lens) is sharpness. What I need is to get !SHARP! images from f/4 to f/16. Unfortunately this lens needs great lighting conditions, which translates into short exposure times if I want to shoot at ISO 100 or 200.

I try to stay away from high ISO because of the noise. I sell photos on internet, through microstock agencies for example and the main requirement is a highest quality possible.

From my 70-200 L f/4.0 I get what I need and I want the same quality from 70-300, unfortunately DO lens is not for me.

And that's the problem.. my requirement is to have a sharp picture, underexposed, overexposed, blured by subject motion or by my shaking hands but not due the lens. 

This gear may be great if one uses high ISO values and the shutter speed goes below 1/300, but still there is a bit of the 'dreamy' softness which doubles my workflow time.

So I can't accept that. If I need such blurry edges I can easily add it later and trying to remove that effect is a real pain. 

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS is heavier, almost 1kg and it's white though... but I expect the image  quality same as in 70-200 f/4.0.

By the way, recently I invested in a backup camera for the DSLR. After reading and watching many reviews and samples I decided to buy Canon G12. It's full of buttons for ISO, exposure etc. like a real DSLR, solid and compact size, also I am stunned with the image quality. There is no doubt it will serve me well as a backup gear and photos taken with that 'point and shoot' will get approved by microstock agencies. I know people submitting with success using a G9 or G11.

I'm in love with tiny camera from the first sight;) Images above and below are taken with Canon G12 and it took me few minutes to set all up and process in Lightroom.

See more on the auction site if You like. And picture below shows 70-300 DO compared to 17-55 f/2.8, pretty amazing huh? 

If You need to sell Your photo gear too - check out this great article
that helped me a lot How to sell your DSLR stuff on the internet