I’ve been anguishing over lenses lately.
Right now, my kit consists of a Nikon D300s plus the following lenses, all Nikon-made Nikkor lenses:
- 16-85 f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. This is my walking around lens. I used it during my European vacation last summer, and got some terrific shots of Venice and Florence. Although with my latest purchase, this might become redundant.
- 24-70 f2.8G ED. This lens seems to be getting a little long in the tooth (no VR, for example.) But it’s a sharp lens, and I’ve gotten some great shots, like these shots of San Francisco at dusk shot from the deck of the USS Hornet. In fact, it was the relative sharpness of this lens, as compared to the more DX-oriented 17-55mm f2.8 that made me choose the 24-70.
- 70-200 f2.8G ED VR. This is the older version, not the latest VRII version. It’s fine for what I’m doing on DX sized sensors, so I didn’t feel driven to upgrade.
- AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. I got this particular lens for a fairly dumb reason. I was shooting indoor color guard competitions (aka Winter Guard) last winter. Some of the tournaments had exlcusive deals with professional photographers, so lenses “longer than 8-inches” were prohibited. That meant the 70-200 f2.8 was out, so I picked up this lens. As it turns out, this is a fabulous lens for a variety of work, and is now one of my favorites.
What’s missing from this picture?
Read More »
I’ve been heads down on a number of freelance writing projects, many of which are finally reaching fruition.
I had fun writing an article on new graphics technology as it affects games. That ran in the August issue of Maximum PC, and is online now at MaximumPC.com. The real bummer is that I had lots of cool screen shots, most of which the magazine ran. But the need to reduce size for both print and online makes them less effective. Still, I think DirectX 11 will have the biggest impact on PC gaming since DX8.
Also up on Maximum PC is a review of Bigfoot’s Killer 2100 network interface card for gamers. It’s an interesting product, in that it works as advertised, reducing lag and ping times… but most people won’t notice any benefit. I’d class it as a luxury product, maybe useful to the 0.5% of gamers who compete online, care about winning and have the insanely fast reflexes to notice the small differences.
More stuff after the jump.
Read More »
I shoot a lot of action photography, often in poor lighting conditions.
It all began about eight years ago, when I started taking photos of my older daughter in her volleyball games. At the time, I had a Minolta DiMage 7, a relatively sophisticated point and shoot for the day. It did fine for outdoor snapshots, but any attempts to capture indoor shots were frustrating at best. I knew relatively little about digital photography at the time, though I’d been shooting with film for years.
You know what happened, of course. The madness sets in.
Read More »
The box arrived on August 31st. Nestled in it was a shiny new Nikon D300s body.
What follows are impressions of using the D300s. I’m comparing it mainly to the D300 I’ve been using for the past eighteen months. I may also comment a bit on the D90, since I used that fairly extensively last during the first few months of 2009, but most of my comparisons are to the D300.
This is also not meant to be an exhaustive review, but a set of impressions based on what interests me as a photographer.
Read More »
By now, the Lynnfield reviews are in. Here are just a few.
Certainly any new processor and platform, like the new P55 chipset, is benchmarked to death. If you take a sort of metacritic approach to the reviews, you can get a pretty good picture of how the new platform behaves in a wide array of performance metrics.
However, I took a narrower view of Lynnfield testing: digital photography processing. How does the new platform compare to the older, but more powerful X58 platform? I ran a number of different benchmarks of actual photographic applications. Let’s see how Intel’s new mainstream quad core CPU shapes up for digital photographers. Read More »
We’re approaching the end of summer here in the US, and that means that the semiannual push for new CPUs and GPUs is imminent. This year, it’s looking like we’ll have some significant new hardware on tap: new capabilities, new price points, better performance or all three. That can only mean one thing:
Benchmarking. Lots of Benchmarking
Read More »
I’ve been shooting with SLRs for quite a few years. Back when I ran a darkroom at a local community college, I carried around an old Yashica SLR. But I inadvertently left it in a cab in New York City. Over the years, I drifted away from serious photography, and went through a series of point-and-shoot cameras. After experimenting with digital, I finally returned to the SLR fold with the Nikon D70.
History occasionally repeats itself, so of course, I accidentally left the D70 on an airplane when I was on vacation. Unlike the first time, I stayed with SLRs, replacing the D70 with a D70s, then a D80 and finally the D300. I’ve also had my share of point-and-shoot compacts, and liked a few, but now I use the D300 almost exclusively.
But SLRs aren’t for everyone. If you’re thinking about getting a digital SLR, and are on the fence, here are five reasons to avoid jumping onto the digital SLR bandwagon.
Read More »
Earlier this week, Nikon announced two new camera bodies and two new lenses. Rumors have been floating for the last few months about the new Nikons, ranging from the ludicrous to the fairly accurate. Now the veil is off some of the new gear. Basically, Nikon introduced the D3000 (an updated D60, more than anything), the D300s (an enhanced D300) and a pair of new lenses, which aren’t new categories, but replacements for existing lenses. You can read the coverage at Digital Photography Review and Thom Hogan’s side. DPReview also has a brief hands on with the D300s.
So I pre-ordered a D300s. But I already have a D300. Why I did such a crazy thing is after the jump.
Read More »
Recent Comments