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!!

Action camera/camcorder

I have been joking with friends we should be wearing a camera while traveling to record our experience from a first-person perspective. Well, here is a camera/camcorder that can go wherever you're going:

http://gopro.com/products/

It can shoot 5mp photos and can do HD video (there is a cheaper Standard Definition video version) and the case is waterproof up to 50m deep.

Sensor cleaning

So, after a trip down to Ecuador, my D7000 needed some cleaning. I did not realize how much dust came into contact with the low pass filter. It was dirty! I tried my trusty Artic Buttefly to wipe the dust away but to no avail. It only smeared the dust spots even more. I gave up on the Butterfly and decided it needed a wet cleaning. I was going to take it to a store or to Nikon to have it cleaned. I read somewhere that Nikon would clean it for about $80. Know however that Nikon would give one complimentary cleaning within the first 31 days of your purchase of the camera, but unfortunately, I've had my camera for about two months already. I could have taken my camera to Vistek and they will clean it for $30-40 I believe.

Either that or you can do it yourself. I have the swabs for wet cleaning but had no more of the cleaning solution so I went to Aden Camera the other day and got myself a $25 tiny little bottle from Visible Dust. It's expensive but then again, you need only a couple of drops per job. So, I figured it costed me maybe about $2 for this cleaning job I just performed.

D7000 mode dial

I wish Nikon has something like this:

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras/eos_7d?pageKeyCode=prdAdvDetail&docId=0901e02480245968

D7000

The D7000 is truly amazing. I have been shooting at ISO 3200 and pictures turned out great! In fact, one of my friends printed a photo I shot of his baby girl. I would not have known it was shot at ISO 3200 if I did not look at the photo EXIF data.

The D7000 is quite a camera but there is one design feature that just sucks. It is too easy to accidentally change the shooting mode dialer in the top left. If you don't pay attention to your settings you can easily shoot with the wrong settings for a whole batch of photos. It happened a couple of times already to me. This is the same problem I had with the D80. Why could Nikon not use the design of the D300 on the D7000 body!

Three new flashes

So I got trigger-happy. I ended up bidding and winning three eBay items this past week. I won a Nikon SB-25, a Metz 32 MZ-3, and a Canon Speedlight 199A, all of these for $110 USD + tax. In addition to my SB-800 I will have four flash guns in total! Ok, that is a little too much, but I guess this will give me more freedom to play with lights now, although I have only three remote flash RF triggers. I knew I should have bought four triggers! I wonder if I could set my SB-800 as a IR slave to my new D7000 that will arrive in a couple of weeks and then use the remote RF triggers for the other three.

You may wonder why I am buying all these equipments all of a sudden. Well, I am building a mobile home studio. I still need some umbrellas, stands, a light meter, and a back drop. More money to spend. Hey, the xmas season!

... In fact, I'm still bidding on eBay for a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens. :)