Musings

Black and blue butterfly

2008-06-24T19:34:00.003-04:00

Held still by a fast shutter speed - it was a windy day. They almost never co-operate like this.

2008-06-10T21:13:00.001-04:00

Thoughtful

2008-06-01T00:32:00.000-04:00

Conducting..

2008-05-30T18:08:00.002-04:00

The flower looked like it was. I was using my 50mm prime today, just to keep things light. Not being able to zoom sometimes makes me look at things differently

Old tractor

2008-05-29T16:17:00.002-04:00

and overgrown fence.

Fingers and Horn

2008-05-27T17:28:00.003-04:00

Something abstract about the colors and movement here caught my eye.

Nikon consumer...

2008-05-27T13:27:00.004-04:00

Browsing KEH camera, looking at manual focus (Ai-S) lenses, and thinking about the stuff I've found at garage sales. I'd love to be able to play with some of this glass on my digital, but Nikon hasn't given their consumer-level DLSRs the ability to meter with these older lenses. Worse still, the newer (D40 and later) bodies won't work with the screw-focus AF lenses either. I bought a 6mp D50 used last year, rather than a new camera, for exactly that reason.

But a "prosumer" camera, like the D200 or D300, will work with the older autofocus and manual focus lenses (Ai and later). I know that Nikon has to differentiate between price points in cameras, and I know that "megapixels" aren't the way to do it. I know, too, that buyers of consumer DLSRs are thought less likely to have a collection of old lenses sitting in the closet.

I'll be sitting on the D50 for a while, it looks like. I can at least use the older AF lenses with it (and all of the 3rd party AF lenses). One of these days, the prices will come down on the last-generation D200 or D2x.

Or I'll just bite the bullet and buy a D300.

Fast lenses

2008-05-24T21:59:00.003-04:00

When I started taking photos with a Nikon film camera, I sought out lots of advice on what to buy. Amost everybody recommended the same thing - put your money in lenses, and don't worry too much about the body. At the beginning of the digital era, this advice became even more correct - digital bodies get eclipsed every few years, but fast glass is always useful.

This is starting to change...

I've mentioned before that I take a lot of my shots with a 18-200 3.5-5.6 lens. Not fast glass by any means. But the D50 I bought takes perfectly good shots up to ISO 400, and perfectly usable ones to ISO 800, which makes up for a lot. Now, the D300 comes along, and by all accounts takes good images at ISO 1600. Suddenly, this lens is not that slow at all anymore. In addition, I'd get more pixels to play with. Maybe my next purchase should be a camera body?

But wait, you say - faster is always better! After all, you can still get shots with F2.8 that I can't get with a slower lens.

You give things up to get that speed, though. Size/weight, expense, and zoom range are the main ones. I'd miss some shots with two lenses covering this zoom range, and two fast zooms would cost more than a D300.

I have a nice, light, 50mm F1.8 that I'll be keeping. If I know I'm going to take shots where I can't use flash and the light is bad, it's coming along. It's so small and light I throw it in my kit most of the time anyway.

But I think my next purchase is going to be a camera body.

2008-05-23T18:46:00.003-04:00

Redwing blackbird in cherry tree. Nikon 18-200, Nikon D-50. Taken at pretty much the extreme limit of the lens, so could be sharper, but illustrates what I love about this lens. 10 second before this photo, I was taking wide-angle shots of a pond. 10 seconds after, he was gone.

2008-05-23T10:08:00.001-04:00

What to do for Memorial Day when you can't afford to drive? Walk, of course, and take pictures along the way.

Confederate Horsemen

2008-05-21T22:17:00.003-04:00

Leading the charge...

Flute and Wagon

2008-05-21T21:51:00.005-04:00

Taken at a local Civil War reenactment. With gas prices what they are, local vacations are a must...

Working with the Nikon 18-200mm

2007-10-14T06:28:00.000-04:00

I've been using a Nikon 18-200mm VR with my D50 for a couple of months now. If you have a DX sensor Nikon body, this is a great "walk around" lens. Sharp and colorful, it's great for taking pictures of kids or other subjects where the 11x focal range lets you change composition quickly to catch the shot. Sure, you can get better optimized glass for a given situation by changing lenses. Still, one of my best pictures of my niece was taken as I was taking a macro shot of an insect in the driveway, heard a giggle, and pulled up and in to take a picture at about 30mm as she shot by on her tricycle.

My biggest fear was that the 3.5-5.6 aperture would be too slow. Here's what you get: perfectly usable F3.5-4.5 in the portrait range (about 27-70mm equivalent), slowing to F5 at about 135mm equivalent and F5.6 at about 150mm equivalent. With VR, I've been taking portrait and candid shots with this lens using flash and available light; no problem. Telephoto shots for me are outdoor shots (kids and football/cheerleading), so the slower aperture has been no handicap there either.