Halloween Pictures and Camera Lust

D's costume this year was Super Grover.  This is his first year to choose his own costume. About a month or 2 ago he decided he wanted to be Super Grover, and has actually stuck to it the entire time.  Our nanny got into sewing over the summer, and volunteered to make a cape and sew the Super grover logo onto a shirt for us.  I then made his helmet following an idea I found on Pinterest, to take a kids play helmet and cover it in duck tape.  The end result, I have to say, was pretty awesome.

His school had a festival on Friday night where the kids wore their costumes, and they all recognized D's immediately. He was quite popular.  We also went trick or treating here in our neighborhood today, and again heard many kids calling, "Hey, it's Super Grover!"  D was a bit shy about it, but smiled each time.

Q had 2 costumes-- Zach insisted that he go as Quinn the Eskimo (from the song), so we tried that... although he wasn't a huge fan of the coat.

Today was a bit warmer so I opted for a lighter costume of a mini-Mack Brown.  I wish I'd thought about it sooner than this morning, or I might've been able to figure out a headset or clipboard or playbook or something else as a prop to kinda help the costume along.  But, hey, he still looked pretty adorable in his UT gear.

In other news, I had a bit of a photography-related epiphany this weekend... I don't think I like zoom lenses.  Most of my daily shooting is with prime lenses, but I use my 17-85mm for things like, well, the festival on Friday night, or parties, or other times when I figure I need the convenience of zooming in and out.  Except, zoom lenses are big.  And heavy.  And I'm never as happy with my pictures with the 17-85mm as I am with ones taken with any of my primes.  My dream zoom lens is the 24-70mmL lens which is even heavier than my current one.  Last year I bought a Canon 35mm f/2 lens and have been using it a lot lately, and I'm realizing that when I use it I don't miss the ability to zoom in and out as much as I thought I would.  And it's much lighter, faster, and better quality in my opinion.

I'm almost tempted to just get rid of the 17-85mm now, though it's still nice to have for the wide angle.  But, I'll be sticking to my prime lenses even more now, and have officially erased the 24-70mm off my wish list.  Interestingly, this means that now my next "dream" purchase has shifted to wanting a full-frame DSLR camera body (ahem).   I really like the 35mm field on my 30D which is approximately equivalent to what my 50mm lenses (Canon 50mm f/1.8 and Sigma 50mm f/2.8 macro, aka my top 2 favorite lenses) would look like on a full-frame camera.

And yes, I do realize how ridiculous it is to want a $2,500 camera for a $80 lens (ok, so the better noise handling, HD video, live mode, etc would also be quite appreciated).  I have no idea if/when I'll ever upgrade to that nice of a camera-- it'd be quite a few birthdays and christmases put together.  But, hey, a girl can dream, can't I?