I'm almost afraid to write this, but I had feared that my love affair was ending with my little Fuji. I KNOW, right?

Was it the camera? Was it (gasp) user error? Was it the lens I was using? Honestly, I'd invested time and money in this baby, and I thought I'd loved it, so I kind of wanted it to be user error. But the more I read and the more I talked to people (And for this, I apologize.), the more I started to think it was mostly lens, less camera, less me.

Whew!

There are a whole lot of boring details that I won't well, bore you with here. I'm trying to not even bore my family with them! But with this answer comes many questions. (cough-newlens-cough) Enter my friend Misty! Isn't the Internet amazing? I've met just the most amazing people in this little (big) cyber world. Misty is a fellow photographer and a mom, and we can talk cameras and photography all the live long day! So Misty says, "Hey, just borrow my Helios and see if you like it." Jackpot!

Uh, okay. So. About this Helios business. Three photographers who are part of a Fuji group I belong to have written about them here, and I've had the fun over the past few days of testing out Misty's copy. I might need one of my own. And you might see a few more samples tomorrow and down the road as I play around some more.

I don't usually shoot this dark, but it was a gray and blustery day, really feeling like fall, and my photos are reflecting that. Still lifes of my home on a gray fall day should feel like a gray fall day, I suppose.

The Helios makes a great portrait lens, and I haven't completely tested it's mettle in that regard (even the beagle was unwilling to sleep on the sofa for me yesterday), but you'll be seeing more from it, I promise. It's a little tight for an everyday lens, I think, meaning that the amount of territory you can cover within the frame is pretty small (which is why it's good for portraits), but I love the manual focus. Apparently I love manual focus. And while those creamy, blurred backgrounds aren't the be-all, end-all of photographs, the blur you get from this little gem is pretty fun to play with. As for my Fuji? I think I'll keep her.