I went into your Flickr account and viewed all 7 pages. Although your color work is great, what really got me was your B/W work. Those were fantastic.

Rich...

Ok, I will be brave here and I realize this may start a "Holy War" but here goes. Does, or has, anyone ever used software to convert their photos to Sketches or Paintings?

I have been playing around with this and it is a lot of fun. I know, there are purists photographers and purists artists who condemn contamination of their art by non "Professionals" but I am not saying to do one or the other; just try them. Some photos that you are thinking of putting in the trash may be quite nice as a sketch or painting.

I have been using Akvis programs and they work very well. My only bone to pick with them is that they use an assault rifle picture in their tutorial for their sketch program. I have written to their support and suggested they use something else because to me, assault weapons are not what most photographers and artists hold dear to their heart. They don't seem to be anxious to reply to my wishes or even address them. Too bad, because I think their software is decent. I know, you can do the same type of things with other software but I have found the others to be lacking.

I am looking to purchase an "L" zoom lens. Brand new it is $2099. B&H has it for $1799. Canon refurbished on their website it is $1679. Lens Authority has it for $1470 with cosmetic rated as excellent and glass rated as excellent. Performance says passed. Would I be taking a big risk trying to save $200 going this route? I checked the forum and didn't find much and Googled reviews on this company. I have purchased both my cameras and all my lenses through Canon's refurbished site, but I wanted the opinion here on UHH. Thanks in advance.

The subject lens can be purchased for under USD 200 from ebay, which seems like a bargain for a Canon L-series lens.

It's my understanding that this is one of the first EF L-series lenses, placing its introduction in the late 80s? So, it's old technology, but Canon certainly had good optics back then.

What kind of performance could you expect from this lens? Obviously it's slow (f/5.6) but what about chromatic aberration and sharpness?

Thank you for any feedback on the expected performance of this lens.

Jason