The start of a day

So this morning I woke up early, quite early in fact. It was barely 4:30am. The music I left playing last night was blaring into my ears so I guess I had to wake up. The morning feels so quiet after I turned it off just minutes ago. Anyways, I am contemplating at driving out to Hamilton this morning to do some hiking and winter photography. I had planned to be at a certain location by 9am but there is only one thing ... rush hour traffic. I might have the day off but the world is still running on its own accord. It takes 40 minutes to get to this one location but I'd be in rush hour traffic if I leave at 8am. I might sit in traffic for 1.5 hours, not something I'd enjoy. Maybe I should leave at 7am. Hmmm....

I'm also still tired. The Sound of Music did not doze me off immediately last night so I was up until 12am. I'm going to take a nap now.

NAS restored

Almost two months ago, my NAS that I built with 4 x 300 GB SATA drives died. After trying out three power supply units from old hardware I have, I thought the NAS motherboard got fried. Last week, I decided to visit craigslist.ca and found a PIII machine someone wanted to dispose of for $10. The bonus there was that this PIII runs at 1GHz while mine runs at 450MHz. A rather adventurous drive into Etobicoke and one and a half hour later, I came back home and fixed the NAS. I was lucky enough it was just the power supply unit. Apparently, all the power supply units I had tested with were broken too. Great.

The NAS is up and running. Backups are running as usual and I have access to all my pictures again.

I did not move everything over to the PIII I bought for two reasons: there are fewer RAM slots in this PIII than in mine and while a 1GHz boost would be nice, 450MHz is sufficient, and don't want to fix it if it ain't broke.

White Balance

Well, this is something I have to remember the next time I shoot anything, especially indoors -- set the proper white balance setting! Now, it sounds like a rather easy thing to do. After all, there are preset options for sunny skies, cloudy days, shades, incandescent lights, fluorescent lights, etc. but indoors, guessing what type of light bulbs are being used can be difficult. There could be a mix of incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs in use at the same time and even the bulbs could be coloured. I'm trying to stay away from guessing so if your camera has a custom "PRE" white balance option like the D80 has, that's what I'd use.

On the D80, I get to the PRE option by holding on the WB button and using the rear dialer to change the WB options until it reads "PRE" on the LCD.

To set the right white balance for the current light condition:

• Hold the WB button until "PRE" on the LCD starts blinking
• Hold a white piece of paper (I used tissue paper) in front of the lens and focus on it in the centre of the viewfinder.
• Depress and release the shutter button to take a shot of the tissue paper.
• The LCD should then read "good".
  

Leave the white balance setting at the "PRE" option and start shooting. If you move to an area of the house where the lighting changes, repeat the steps above to reset the white balance.

If you need to use flash, repeat those same steps above to set the proper white balance with flash. If you did not reset the white balance with flash but are using flash, the picture will turn out very cold blue.

My lens gears, going into 2010

Here are the lenses I am using now:

• Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
• Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 VC
• Tokina 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6
  
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

The Tamron will be used indoors and for portraits. The Nikkor 18-200 will be my walkaround lens, when I go hiking. The Tokina will tag along on those hiking trips or vacation trips, although I find it gets very little use because of its weight -- I also have a Nikkor 500mm f/8 lens that never sees the light of day anymore. The Nikkor 50mm will be used for some portraits and in extreme low light conditions, e.g. shooting stars.

Tamron 17-50mm Di II VC, part II

Well, the Tamron SP 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II VC LD lens is in my hands. I have done some testing against my venerable Nikkor 18-200mm VR II. I had wondered if I might end up selling the Tamron after purchasing it just hours earlier... except that this f/2.8 lens has VC!

For less than half the price of a Nikkor 17-50mm, this Tamron lens gives a good punch, a definite keeper I think. Hand-held, the Tamron produces better results than my Nikkor 18-200mm. The Tamron is definitely faster and with its VC (Vibration Compensation) produces sharper images, something I have been looking for for a long time now without the need to spend $1000+. This is fairly consistent, especially indoors on a cloudy day like today. The faster lens with VC has its definite advantage. In terms of the handling, the feel is similar to the Nikkor -- plastic and light. I have no problem with that. Also, the Tamron shares the same 72mm ring size as the Nikkor so I can move my expensive UV filter between the Nikkor and the Tamron lenses.

There is only one odd behaviour I did not expect in a lens though. When VC is used with auto-focus, the lens jerks a little before stabilizing on a subject. I guess this is how VC works which is very different from how Canon's IS or Nikon's VR mechanism works. I also find the Tamron VC mechanism to be a little noisy. In a quiet room, the spinning noise is quite noticeable but outdoors, it would be inaudible.

After some hand-held testing, I decided to put my D80 on a tripod and do some quick comparison shots between the Nikkor 18-200mm and this Tamron 17-50mm. The images below are center-cropped at 100%. Note that I am NOT comparing apples to apples. The f-stops were different, I did not use the delay shutter release, and I did not have total control of the lighting -- flash light was not used and a TV was turned on (in the background). Also, in all the tests, Vibration Compensation / Reduction was used, even though the camera was on a tripod.

Nikkor at 18mm, f/3.5, 1/2.5 secs:
The colours are somewhat dull.

Tamron at 17mm, f/2.8, 1/5 secs:
Note how the colours in the checkered pattern of yellow and white are richer than in the Nikkor image.

Also, note here that the field of view of the Tamron at 17mm is the same field of view as the Nikkor at 18mm.

Tamron at 17mm, f/4, 1/2.5 secs:
















Nikkor at 50mm, f/4.8, 1/1.6 secs.


















Tamron at 50mm, f/2.8, 1/4 secs:
At the sharpest point, the image is sharper than the Nikkor image.










Tamron at 50mm, f/4, 1/2.5 secs:
Here, I was expecting a very sharp image but it looks fuzzier than the other two. Perhaps I shook the camera when depressing the shutter release or the subject was not in focus at all.

Tamron 17-50mm Di II VC

It's xmas season, and I'm thinking of treating myself to a new lens. I have been trying various lenses over the last couple of years and kept on returning to my expensive 18-200mm Nikkor lens. I guess it was expensive for a reason. :)

Well, I have been reading on this new lens, the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II VC. This is a nice lens with Vibration Compensation (VC) -- another term to remember -- and I am tempted to go buy it now. Instead of buying a used copy, I am thinking of buying brand new. It will hurt my wallet a bit more but at least, I'd know I can exchange it if I get a bad copy.

50mm f/1.8E, part 2

Last night, I took my D80 with me to a restaurant called The Pomegranate, on College St. just east of Bathurst. The inside of the restaurant was nicely decorated with Iranian art. The 50mm lens I decided to carry around then, was not wide enough to take pictures of the restaurant but far in the corner, there was this garment hung on the wall. It looked exquisite. I might have some trouble shooting it with my 18-200mm lens but with the 50mm it was a snap. However, it did take me a couple of shots to get the right exposure. Damn, these manual lenses are slow to work with! :)

Anyways, I am a bit surprised to see how sharp the chandelier was. These two shots were taken at f/1.8. I don't remember the shutter speed or ISO setting.