New lens!

I just bought a "new" lens from a friend of mine who upgraded to a super fancy lens.  I was using a 50 mm 1.4 lens for pretty much all my pics.  I bought it about 3 years ago shortly after I got my camera.  About a year ago, I looked into buying an 85 mm lens but just could never pull the trigger and spend the money.  But when I found out my friend was looking to sell hers, I was all over it.  Here are some of the pics I took with it.

 I seriously love this pic of my brother's dog, Buddy.  So soulful.

 This one is slightly blurry mainly due to the fact that with three toddler boys, you don't have time to get the perfect shot.

Then, of course I had to get my favorite subject outside for some more practice.

Yeah, I am still practicing but I love it already and feel like my pics are instantly a thousand percent better than before.

For any of you Canon EOS users out there that want to know what settings I typically use, I almost always shoot in Tv mode since my subject is almost always the little Mister and he moves at the speed of light so I need the shutter speed to be fast.  I do adjust the ISO sometimes, especially if there is low light.  For the white balance, I just choose from the white balance menu depending on if I am in the sunlight, shade, inside, etc.  I don't use a grey card.  I NEVER use the flash.  And any lens I use has to be an auto focus.  Any editing I do is in Picasa because it is free!