OntheRez Offline Upload & Sell: On
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Gregory,
Not sure how I missed this thread, but I appreciate you putting on such a spectacular display of what is undoubtedly a special lens. I've wiggled and faniggled and squirmed trying to come up with the cash to buy a 200 f/1.8L or even a 200 f/2.0. Even severely used they run at $3KUSD. That is a lot scratch. Maybe someday.
Weighing in on the "snapshot, I don't like your framing, your cat is ugly" responses, all I can say is if you don't like the way the man takes a pix, don't look at them. I find that you have a remarkable eye for the ordinary. Actually, I think you have repeatedly demonstrated that there really is no "ordinary" if one can truly see. Way back on I think the 2 page you have a shot of what I think is an eastbound CP diesel with what I believe is the CN Tower in Toronto. (Not sure, as I missed the "Big Smoke" the couple of times I hitched across Canada back - well a long time ago.) The clarity, utterly crisp outrageous redness of the locomotive with the tower looming on the horizon - well once again, you demonstrate there is no ordinary.
The combination of narrow DOF, the reach of the lens, and something about the glass itself creates - as far as I'm concerned - a signature for want of a better term. As for someone suggesting that you could get the same pix with say an 85mm f/1.8, well you can't. Much as I use and appreciate my 85mm, it can't even begin to compress time and space like the a 200mm lens at the same aperture does. And yes that narrow DOF can cut both ways. Sometimes it just doesn't work. No big deal. What I don't understand is why some feel it is necessary to launch very personal attacks on another photographer's work. Ah, okay, you don't like it. Fine. One can opine that it's just a snapshot. Okay. That pretty much takes care of Cartier-Bresson. Nothing but snapshots. When one can find the extraordinary in the mundane as you have often done, then I think you are doing something rather nice.
Now, so you don't get a swelled head or anything. You note that your girlfriend(?) has a 3 second tolerance for you to get a shot. Hate to tell you this, pal, but your cat is flipping you off every time you point the lens at it. But then you probably already knew that cause that's how cats are. Hope you keep sharing your pix with us.
As for the wrist pain thing. I'm a semi-retired carpenter (mostly because no one is building anything) with two really lousy wrists and elbows. I also shoot all the high school sports for the local paper. (Small town, small paper.) I've been using a CottonCarrier to hold the camera and lens (In my case a 70-200 f/2.8L II and a 1DIV) when I'm not going for a shot. It helps and is very quick on the draw. I also wrap my wrists before a shoot. Gets hot (I live deep in the Sonoran desert where even at 7:00PM game time it is still well over 100F). And of course, eat ibuprofen. What can I say? Hurts more not to shoot than it does to keep shooting.
Anyhow, thanks for showing your stuff and who knows, maybe someday I'll get my hands on such a lovely lens.
Robert
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