As mentioned yesterday, camera lewt arrived today!  A buncha stuff I’ve been needing – B+W 58mm mc clear filter, a giottos rocket air blaster, 70W 5500K fluorescent bulb, and to top it off, a new tripod!

Went with a Manfrotto 190XPROB & 322RC2 grip action ball head.

Some of the major improvements over my old tripod:

• Supports 11lbs (both legs & head)!  I’d be surprised if my old one was rated for more than 2 or 3 -_-
• Minimum height of 8.5cm!
• Super easy to adjust!  Simply squeeze the grip, adjust, and release.  No more screwing and unscrewing to get the shot I want.

Cost quite a pretty penny but I’m (dangerously) acclimated to the high cost of photography gear ^^;

Went with the 190XPROB over the 190XB and 190XDB to get the repositionable center column – basically you can flip it horizontal to get extremely low or do overhead shots, etc.  Figured if I was going to drop over $100 on a tripod I might as well get one with all the features I wanted.

The grip ball head is really amazing.  Adjustments are now a few seconds rather than 10 or more.

What I upgraded from:

As for the other stuff… figured I’d get a higher quality UV filter (if you’re not familiar, this type of filter doesn’t actually change the image, but rather acts as protective glass).  Reading around seemed like B+W and Hoya were the best ones, went with B+W.  Next up is a circular polarizer but those cost like $100 ;_;

Air blaster is pretty self explanatory… cheaper than buying canned air to clean my lenses ^^;  As a bonus, should double as a figure duster ^^

And finally, why would I buy a 70W 5500K fluorescent bulb?

mufufufufu, why that’s a backup for my new softbox ^___^  … … which won’t ship for another week or two.  Was on back order ;_;  I can wait though… it was only $40!  Doesn’t come with a light stand, but given that the bulb costs half that much, still pretty nice ^^

Comparison to my current bulbs:

I think everything should be here by the time fate arrives…  Can you tell my interest in photography has been steadily increasing? ^^;;

bleh, was gonna take some figure pictures but I’ve run out of time.  Early meeting tomorrow.

Update: some pics of low height mode of the tripod for wolfheinrich:

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