Glass Eye

So? Didja listen?

Did you go out and buy a “real” camera?

You did? But then you found out that it doesn't come with a lens and you are howsomeeverannoyed with the Ole Trawler for talking you into buying a doorstop.

Okay, I did tell you that glass comes extra and you want it to so that you can get exactly the right lens for the kind of pictures you want to take.

But my pocket camera had just one lens and that was enough so why does that expensive, boat anchor, whiz-bang have to have a pay extra lens?

Because you like do to many things and while the 50 or 35mm lens which comes with most Point and Shoot cameras will do everything poorly you don't want to settle for poorly when you went out and got a camera which will do everything and you are an artist and would never settle for doing things poorly anyway and besides doing things well is better and you want to be able to do a lot of stuff well and that's why you need interchangeable lenses.

Now most people, I did not say photographers, will tell you to buy a wide angle lens and they are doing that because like the 35 or 50mm in your Point and Shoot camera a wide angle will do almost every thing okay.

It will keep everything in focus because of the depth of field and will allow you to get right down on the very freckle on that sun-kissed face of the Marshfield High cheerleader so that you can do art pictures and not look like pervy Uncle Ernie taking snaps of the high school girls for God only knows what sort of horrible, disgusting and evil purposes.

But it does come with some draw-backs. The lens is so short it causes linear distortion and you can have lines which swing and sway long after Sammy Kaye has gone to his great reward.

Me, when I was a 35 man I never used anything except my wonderful, amazing, fantastic Komura lenses, an 85mm F1.4 and a 135 F2 cause they would see in the dark and I could hand-hold them at a sixtieth of a second and not get any shake and that meant no flash back in the days when it took an MIT graduate with a slide-rule and two spreadsheets to calculate the correct exposure and who has time for that when you are trying to capture the peak moment so I never learned how to calculate the correct exposure and didn't use flash and I could get away with it because of my Komura kids.

But now, the zoom lenses are so good you don't have to carry around a bag full of primes and since you don't have to and with all of the ISO range of the modern DSLR only The Donald can afford a 1.4 or F2 lens and since you don't have to you can just buy a solid zoom lens like the Nikkor 18-55 or 55-200.

And since you are thinking about it, why not buy them from one of our own, master floral photographer Paula Reis, who just happens to have an 18-55 and a 55-200 lens for sale and they will couple right up with that D90 I told you to get if you just had to have a Nikon which makes you and Nikon owner and not a photographer but by having these lenses you will have the right equipment to become a photographer and then you can get hired by UPI or AP or National Geographic and travel to all of the God forsaken places where flora and fauna insist on living or maybe you want the glamorous life of a celebrity photographer and want to chuming with rock stars and Kardashians and snort Borax or Drano or whatever designer drug they are doing or maybe you crave the artful life and want to get a picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone so you can hob-nob with artists and writers and musicians, but wait you can do that right here in Coos County and just look at all the money you will save by not having to travel which is why you can afford to buy Paula's lens and launch your career.

So don't waste another minute hie yourself to the Internet and email Paula at

elkcreekpaula@yahoo.com

And set a time and place to trade your hard-earned money for some of the best lenses used gently by a “real” photographer and then you too can start working on becoming a “real” photographer and might even decide to enter the Art by the Sea Eye and the Lens show down in Bandon but probably not this time around cause your entry is due tomorrow or Sunday so it might be just a bit late and maybe by next time you will have something really amazing and that would be better than rushing into the show unprepared.

So if you want all of the fame and glory, not to mention bad habits and poor health of a professional photographer contact Paula Reis and buy those lenses.