Sachin Agarwal: December 2006

Christmas is an incredible time in New York City. The whole city lights up and gets into the spirit. The energy is turned up another couple notches and everyone is in a great mood. Here are a bunch of pictures I took around the city in the past month.

On one day I walked down Fifth Avenue, from Central Park (and the Apple Store) all the way back to my house, admiring the window displays, Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, Ice Skating, and more.

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Here's a mini review of the Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. You may have noticed that lately I've been taking a lot more low light, indoor photos with no flash. This is thanks to my new Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. f1.4 (coupled with the 1600 ISO capabilities of the Canon Rebel) means I can take almost any picture with no flash. Low light photography is in huge demand with most consumers wanting to take pictures at concerts, parties, clubs, etc.

While the Sigma does let me take almost any photo with no flash, it suffers from two problems. First, it isn't particularly sharp at f1.4, which is unfortunate since I use this lens only for low light photos and therefore I want it at f1.4. Second, it sometimes misfocuses. Before this lens I had the Canon 28mm f1.8 which also wasn't super sharp at f1.8 (it's fairly common for lenses to not be super sharp wide open). The Canon, however, did focus fast and well.

I traded the Canon for the Sigma since the Sigma is almost a stop faster (though it doesn't work on full frame sensor cameras, it's digital only). In summary, look through the night time pics and you'll see what I mean. For low light shots, the Sigma f1.4 is probably as good as it gets unless you move up to the Canon 35mm f1.4L, but that costs over $1000.

I haven't been good about keeping my New York restaurants and attractions list up to date recently but I'm hoping to get it updated over winter break. My New York attractions list is looking good and I'm getting stuff done, but the restaurant list is growing out of control so I need to do some prioritizing there.

Anyway, here are some highlights:

1. The Stanton Social - THIS PLACE IS AMAZING. One of the best restaurants I've ever been to. Amazing tapas place. Every item will blow you away. Go in a big group to try more food. Wow.

2. Schillers Liquor Bar - Great restaurant in LES. Always tons of fun, great drinks, great food.

3. On Friday I went to The Burger Joint, a hidden burger place inside the fancy Parker Meridien hotel. Great burgers and fries. Beats the Shake Shack, and you don't have to stand in line outside for 45 minutes (though that can be a good thing on a nice summer day)

4. On Saturday I went to Ruth's Chris for the first time. Pretty awesome. I don't think I'll go back to Peter Luger's again unless someone is visiting NY and wants to go there because it's famous. The steak was great (on par with Lugers). The chopped salad was amazing, all the sides were great, and the apple tart was perfect. Given Luger's horrible service, I'm glad to have a new favorite steak.

5. On Saturday I went to the Brooklyn museum with Gary. We went for Annie Leibovitz, which was good, but the Ron Mueck exhibit was totally amazing, some of the most mind blowing art we've ever seen. GO TO THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM AND SEE THIS.

Last month I took a little vacation to Barcelona. It was my first time in Spain and I loved it. It's a beautiful city with some great museums, churches, and lots of cool modern architecture.

While there I went to Casa Batlló, la Sagrada Familia (including a long and sometimes scary winding staircase, don't look down! check out the picture), Arc de Triumf, Catedral de Barcelona (great views from the roof), tour of Palau de la Musica, La Pedrera (another Gaudi house), Museu Picasso, some cool design stores, and more.

We were staying right on La Rambla which was amazing, just steps away from lots of restaurants, cafes, and bars. I had lots of excellent coffee and chocolate treats throughout the days there. The food highlight was this awesome place called Mamacafé in El Raval. The food and service were amazing.

Thursday night in Barcelona was my big partying night and I made full use of it. I got to a club early, became friends with the bartender, and was getting free shots throughout the night. It was wild. I'm not sure how I wandered home at night, and I didn't wake up on Friday until 7pm!

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