Sunday, June 2, 2013

Reality check

Every now and then, I have the urge to buy a professional lens because my compromise lens works up an itch hard to get rid of.  I actually went on Kijiji and Craigslist to find a used Nikon 17-55mm f/.8.  A used copy could go for about $800 or a bit less if one is lucky.  Anyways, at the Henry's Exposure show this weekend, I had  the opportunity to test out a Nikon 17-55mm and as I feared, I could not make the best use of it.  Hand-held, it's not too easy to get a nice, sharp picture, and when I managed to get a sharp picture at f/2.8 there were some purple fringing (see below).  It's not too much but there is definitely purple fringing.  The Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens gets me a sharper picture, but not the image effects of an f/2.8 aperture.

Nikkor 17-55mm at f/2.8, centre crop

Nikkor 18-200mm at f/6.3, centre crop

Invasion of What?

What are these bugs? I've never seen them before. I saw them at my parents' place the other day. Lots of them in soil or grassy areas.