Good photo god, what an incredible odyssey!
As you might remember: first my brand new D7000 + gimmicks get stolen. I had a hard time coping with this fact. Then I bought a new D7000, a new 50mm f/1.4 (this time a sweet AF-S Nikkor), a new battery grip and a new flash (SB-700 instead of SB-900). Then, the new D7000 decides after a short working phase to take some days off because the flash stopped working. Off to Nikon Service Point Vienna and another 2 ½ weeks without camera – FINE!
Now FINALLY everything is back in my hands, everything is working and everything is fine. So here’s a quick recap of the last few weeks:
First of all, I managed to contact an old friend of mine who’s currently also living in Linz. Nice thing: Bogdan’s got NIKON! (Nice side note: he’s got a D700 and I’m starting to like full-frame cameras 😉 ) Nicer thing: He’s got the 200mm f/2 lens. This lens means business. It weighs about 2.9kg, looks like a freaking rocket launcher (like all lenses in this category or above … I guess) and requires a Schwarzenegger-arm to hold it still – even with VR on!
But hey, 200mm SUCKS. I’ve got an 70-200mm so why bother with this heavy 200mm prime lens? Because it’s f/2, that’s why. So let’s do the maths: 200mm f/2 + 2x Tele Converter = 400mm f/4. This lens on a crop camera (factor x1.5) then turns into a 600mm f/4 … well, ~f/6.3 (DOF). At the end of the day I even got 2 sorta awesome sport shots! 🙂
Next thing: The ultra wide angle incidents:
Same guys, same city, different location, different lens: an old Sigma 14mm f/3.5. Really cool! Manual focus, aperture ring (like Nikon’s AI-lenses), 19cm minimum focus distance – really sharp images and a great distortion (even on DX/crop cameras, resulting in a focal length of 21mm).
Anyway, story recap: met @ main train station Linz, took a bus ride to the harbour area, snapped an hour or so. I took most of my photos on that day with my 17-70mm or the 50mm. But then Bogdan finally gave me that 14mm, so I took advantage of that unusual perspective and did some portraits.
Yeah, I know, you shouldn’t use wide angle lenses for portrait but … just shut up! I really like the results 😀
Oh and by the way: Balancing on a rail track with a ~1.5kg camera in one hand is pretty difficult when you’re also trying to frame & shoot your shadow 😀
So these are the 14mm photos! The first one has a really strong vignette because we wanted to try if the reverse-attached lens hood shows up on DX-photos. Well … it does 😀 but nevertheless I really like the photo.
Ok, to sum this whole thing up. I AM BACK!
Stay tuned, drop some lines in the comment section and – oh, I almost forgot: Visit Bogdan’s blog! It’s not entirely about photography and only has 3 posts yet …
But it might turn out worth reading/following/stalking.
Cheers!