50mm

I am starting to get used to shoot with a 50mm alone.  For a long time, I have always trusted my Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens.  I would shoot everything and anything with the 18-200mm.  Coupled with a flash gun, I have a lot of fun with it anywhere and anytime, indoors and outdoors, any time of the day.  I am quite comfortable with it.  I know its limitation and like its zooming capabilities over a wide range, and thus, I never like shooting with anything else, even when I have a 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.

I have to say I am starting to like the 50mm f/1.4 more and more these days, partially because of the f/1.4 (more light, faster, and smoother bokeh), partially because it makes you work harder to get your picture, and partially because it's a good portrait lens on a crop sensor body.

For now, I have it attached to the D90 body.  I try to shoot at ISO less than 1600 with an f-stop around f/1.8.  In most situations, it is a very fast lens at those settings.  The whole combo is small and feels like fun to use.  Over the last couple of outings, I try to force myself to take the D90 around with me instead of the D7000.  I will kick myself in the derriere when I run into this situations that require a wide angle lens though.

(BTW, I should really attach the 50mm to my D7000 and use my D7000 instead of the D90 but because the D7000 has a battery grip that I do not want to remove, the D7000 would feel too big for the 50mm.  I am using the 18-200mm on the D7000 so that the slower lens can be compensated by the higher ISO capabilities of the D7000.)

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D

Well, the 50mm f/1.4D is in my hands. It is harder to use than I thought. The problem is with purple fringing. This happens often at f/1.4, in areas where white transitions to a darker colour. The whole point of buying this lens is for the f/1.4 aperture so I will need to figure out to control this purple fringing.

There is a website that compares purple fringing of the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AFS vs. the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D here: http://home.comcast.net/~mhmyers/1.4dg.html

The other issue is sharpness. Without VR, it is a challenge to get a sharp pictures, especially when the lens is really small compared to the D7000 with the battery grip. I find it a bit awkward handling this lens again because of its size. However, definitely in low light conditions, nothing will beat a fast lens and a high ISO range of the camera body!

BTW, this Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D was made in China.

Back to 50mm

Well, I decided to sink some more money into some more camera gears. I recently bought a Canon battery for my old but quite useable point-and-shoot SD110--I could not believe it is only $5 now, including shipping! I am still waiting for it to arrive. In the meantime, I was on eBay last night and came across a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens. I used to have a 50mm f/1.8AF and a 50mm f/1.8E. They are no longer in my possession. The new 50mm f/1.4D will be soon though. The fellow that sells it is in Brampton, probably within 20 minutes drive from my place. It's paid for and now I'm going to pick it up.

Why a 50mm f/1.4D? I will be helping shoot a wedding this summer. Combined with my D7000, I think this lens will fantastic as a portrait lens and it will work really well in the darker reception hall--no zooming capability but imagine f/1.4 and ISO 3200!!

First macro shot with D300

Here is the first shot I took with my D300 and the pancake 50mm MF AIS lens with an extension tube:


As one can see, about 19 mm of the ruler fits onto the sensor of the D300. Given that the D300 sensor is 23.6mm wide, the macro setup produces a 1.24:1 ratio. It is better than the 105mm macro lenses but obviously, I'd have to get pretty darn close to a subject with the 50mm, in fact, about 10 cm, a tiny bit too short for live insects.

Here is my D300 fitted with the 50mm attached to a simple extension tube. The extension tube has no electronic contacts.

Colour temperature

Here is something to play with -- the colour temperature setting. The original photo looked a little flat with a dull colour to it. I threw the photo in Irfanview and adjusted the colour temperature, turning it down until the water looks blueish. We're in the fall so the colours of the leaves should really be red and yellow now, but they are greenish in this rendition. I kinda like it this way. It looks like a late summer shot.

50mm f/1.8E

I once owned a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 and sold it to a student of arts. Well, after a friend showed how his camera was able to capture a billion more stars than my camera could on a camping trip to Cyprus Lake, I decided to get back one of those 50mm f/1.8!

I found on craigslist an old 50mm f/1.8E version. This is one of the original 50mm Nikkor made. I wanted it and knew how I would use it. During the day, my faithful 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 is still my primary lens but from time to time, when I need to shoot in the dark, the 50mm f/1.8 will be it.

So tonight, when I drove out to the Waterdown Falls, I made good with this 50mm lens.

I first shot with my expensive 18-200mm lens. The image came out too dark to work with. I could not make out anything in the image viewed on the LCD. Just not enough light.

I then remembered I brought the 50mm along. After swapping the lenses, I re-shot the pictures. I knew I could not get the same wide angle shots but at least, I would not have wasted the fuel and time driving out there.

Here was the result, colour-adjusted:

My Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

Well, as of today, the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 is no longer in my possession. It is in the good hands of a student. I hope he can make good use of it, and will very likely, as that is going to be his only lens.

Now, I am down to four lenses -- my trusty walkaround Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II, my super-zoom Tokina 80-400mm f/4.5, my new super fast Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8, and an old Nikkor 500mm f/8.

Macro photography

Well, I was not planning to do any shooting today although the idea of another hiking trip was very appealing in this 25C temperature, but a buzzing noise was hovering over to my right in my bedroom. The last time I heard that buzzing was from a wasp that managed its way into my room a few weeks ago. I wondered where it came from. Well, today, I see two of them. I think there is a hole in my new window frame and their nest is somewhere close, very close.

Anyways, I decided to test the macro capability of my Vivitar 70-210mm. Alone, it can produce 1:2.2 real life ratio. Added the 2x teleconverter I have, I can whip up a near real life macro shot, at 1:1.1. I took a few shots of the wasp but I had set the shutter speed too slow at 1/10 secs so the pictures turned out a little blurry. I did however get a couple of shots at 1/320 secs. I also tested my 50mm lens with one 50mm extension tube to take a few shots of the wasp.

The first four shots are from the Nikkor 50mm. The last two on the right are from the Vivitar 70-210mm. The original photos have been resized to 1024x685 but they are not cropped so what we see here is what filled the sensor screen. With either lens, you have to get to about 10 cm of the subject. It was a little unnerving to get so close to a wasp (as I had been stung once) but this one was very gentle.

For these shots, I had to use the external speedlight set on Manual mode as the built-in flash is too low -- the Vivitar lens is almost a foot long. In Manual mode, the speedlight does not talk with the camera so it was a little painful trying to figure out the right setting without a light meter. I wish I had a D300 or one of the other professional DSLRs that can meter with the manual lenses. I had to take a few shots and adjusting power output level of the fash, before getting the right exposure.

The lens aperture was set between f/8 and f/22. The speedlight was set somewhere between 1/128 to 1/1 depending on the shutter speed I used.

For most of the shots at f/16 or f/22, the power output from the flash was set to 1/1. I just cannot remember which photos were shot at minimum aperture but the last two photos were shot at f/16.

So, which lens do I prefer for macro photography? I have to say, the old 1975 Vivitar lens was easier to use. At whatever aperture I dialed, you could still view the subject clearly in the viewfinder -- the Vivitar lens is a bigger, wider lens than the 50mm so at f/22 the Vivitar aperture is the same size as the Nikkor 50mm lens at f/8. That is, the Vivitar can gather a vast amount of light even at f/22. With the Nikkor 50mm, without background light, it may be impossible to see what you are shooting. So, for this reason, I prefer the Vivitar and while I had the intention to sell it because I hardly ever used it, I will keep it for macro photography now.

Another test of the 50mm

This shot was taken indoors during the day around 3:20pm. A fair amount of ambient light filled the room when I snapped this photo with my prime 50mm lens at f/1.8 with no flash. The cat was about one meter from the camera.

The first photo below is the original, resized to 1024x685. The second photo is the same photo sharpened a little. As is, the eyes of the cat in the first photo are almost tack sharp. The sharpness of the eyes in the second photo came out like a razor blade.

Portrait

I have been rather busy over the last couple of weeks. I did not get much of a chance to take my camera out of its bag but this weekend, my time freed up. It might have been a nice hike outside today with the snow storm in full force but I am not sure what I could capture out there then. Instead I thought I would try my 50mm f/1.8 lens on my baby niece. She was sitting on the dining table in our family dining room. The shades of our sliding doors were pulled open, so I took the opportunity to shoot without flash at f/1.8. I tried to focus on her eyes before taking the shot but it feels a little soft. I should have taken the same shots with my 18-200mm lens for a comparison. Another time.


For these shots, I placed my camera on a tripod because I am sure my hand shake will introduce a lot of blur in the image.