Category Archives: lenses

Bicyclists

bicyclists

I’m working on a project with JNA Advertising and the great guys over at Gizmo for the next couple of weeks that involves a bunch of quick-turn environmental portraits. Last night Tavio and his biking buddies made great subjects and I decided to try the Nikkor 10.5 fisheye with a little off-camera flash. I used the Nikon D300’s pop-up flash in commander mode and dialed it down 3 stops so that it wouldn’t influence the shot. It remotely triggered the SB-600 in my left hand that was cranked up 2 stops. I dialed the camera down 1 stop.

I wanted to overpower the ambient light with the flash to highlight Tavio in the foreground. It all took about as much time as it did to just explain it. The result here has had just a bit of vignetting added but is not too far from being straight out of the camera.

Winter

frozen pond

If anyone suffered retinal damage from the two previous, intensely-colorful posts, I’ll offer a couple of soothing, nearly-colorless images today. We’ve been getting some snow lately and yesterday morning there was also a light fog so I thought it might be a good time to get out and do some testing of the new equipment. The shot above was made with the full-frame Nikon D700 and the Nikkor 17-35 at 35mm. I’ll try not to keep saying this but it is soooo nice to have that lens back as it was intended. The cropped factor of the previous Nikon bodies reduced the 17mm end to the equivalent of a 25 — not nearly as fun and a real loss when it came to interior work.

trees in snow

This shot is from the D300 with the 24-120 kit lens that came with the 700. This will be my first lens with vibration reduction so it will be interesting to see how it fares. The image above was made at the long end of the zoom at 120mm, roughly equivalent to 180mm since it was on the cropped-sensor body. I’m looking forward to having a full-frame and cropped-sensor body as it really expands the range of the lenses I carry. I imagine I’ll keep a wide on the D700 most of the time and take advantage of the crop factor on the D300 to get that extra telephoto reach.

More glorious yellow

Zhenjiang, China

Three monks at the Buddhist temple in Zhenjiang, China. Great faces, great color. How can you go wrong?

The packages I mentioned in my last post have arrived. Unfortunately, I’ve had little time for anything other than unpacking them. First among the new arrivals is a shiny new Nikon D700. I’ve waited a long time for a full-frame digital body from Nikon and the first thing I did was introduce her to my Nikkor 17-35mm. This had been a favorite lens of mine on my old film bodies and it’s good to have the wide end back. I think these two will be nearly inseparable.

An odd circumstance of pricing made it cheaper to buy the D700 with the 24-120 lens than without. It wouldn’t have been my first choice in a mid-range zoom but since it was basically free I could hardly say no. I’ll put it through its paces and see how it does. On the D300 it will be a crop factor similar to a 36-180 so if I carry it along with the 17-35 on the D700 I’d have most bases covered.

Part of my reasoning of going with the D300 and D700 is that their controls are arranged very similarly. When I was shooting with the D200 and D300 in China, I was constantly hitting the menu button on the 300 when meaning to hit the preview button (Nikon — stop moving buttons, please!). This would typically bring up the menu with “format card” highlighted which was particularly disconcerting. Anyway, while the two new bodies aren’t exactly the same, more similarity will help. As will their both having much better high ISO performance. I’ll post images and more thoughts when I get the chance to get these cameras into the field.

I should also mention that I added a Lensbaby Composer to the order. I borrowed a 2nd generation Lensbaby from my friend, Doug, when I went to the Gaspe last summer and had a ton of fun with it. The Composer is a little more rigid and controllable than the older models but I hope it will still be as enjoyable. I have to say my initial reaction was mixed. The build seems a little rough and the swivel clicks loudly when you first shift it from its current position. Maybe that will loosen up with use or I’ll get used to it. We’ll see.

The other major addition to the ol’ camera bag is a new iPhone. I’ve been nursing an ancient old cell phone for years but finally made the move to join the rest of the 21st century and now have a phone that can actually receive a text message! First reaction to this piece of gear is sheer joy. I can’t believe how sweet this piece of technology is. I’ve already hit the app store for a sunrise-sunset calculator called Focalware, too. I had something similar on an old Palm device and found it very useful. Nice to have that info handy again.

So much to experiment with in the coming days. Sure would be nice if the weather would cooperate with a nice day for shooting this week but it looks like it will be luxurious if it gets above freezing. Maybe we’ll get a good snow…

Vermillion Lakes, Banff

Vermillion Lakes, Banff

Most of yesterday the weather was not kind to this photographer but perseverance paid off and just before sunset the clouds finally started to break up and the sun peeked through for a great evening shoot at Vermillion Lakes. I don’t use my Nikkor 10.5 fisheye all that much but I like the effect here. It looks like you’re on top of the world. I have to say, though… looking at that foreground ice now… I’m wondering how it supported my weight.

Huh.

Mount Rundle, BanffThe spot was perfect as it allowed for several shooting opportunities. Nearby hot springs had kept this body of water open and the stillness made for perfect reflections of the nearby mountains — including Mount Rundle shown at the right. Ice around the edge of the lake provided a good surface to shoot from as well as some nice leading lines and foreground elements. in other areas patches of golden reeds broke the surface of the water giving some nice warm color and a very different look than shots that were dominated by the ice. In the end I was able to grab lots of different images that don’t all look like they were shot in the same place or on the same evening. A very versatile location. What a great way to end a day.

A quick word of thanks to Bob for stopping by and leaving a comment yesterday. It’s always great to hear from you. Hope to see you again one day soon.

Nikkor 24mm tilt-shift lens

Nikkor 24mm PC lensNikon has announced new products including a D60 DSLR as a follow-up to the popular D40X. Interesting to a smaller segment of the population is the addition of a 24mm Perspective Control lens. Canon has had one of these for some time while Nikon only offered an 85mm PC lens.

Perspective control, or tilt-shift, lenses have movements that allow you to correct for perspective distortion (Wikipedia has more info). For instance, when shooting architecture from a low angle, you can “straighten” the building so that it doesn’t appear to lean back. Happily, that particular function is now also available in Photoshop. I use the “distort” function to do this but there is also a “perspective” option.

An additional advantage of tilt-shift lenses is their ability to distort the plane of focus. By tilting the front element you can angle the plane that is in focus to artificially create deeper (or more shallow) depth of field. Landscape photographers have been doing this with bellows movements on large format cameras for decades. And then there is the ability to use this effect to take shots that look like tiny models.

Whether any of these uses allows you to justify the rather steep price is up to you but at least those of us on the Nikon system now have a wide-angle, tilt-shift option.