YIKES on the hail storm. Old me still enjoys a good snow storm. I'm hoping I get to use my plastic toboggans someday... yes, the kiddie version
SiMuMe wrote:
Looks like fun. Nope! I narrowly missed my first snow experience in '84. When I got home, it had mostly melted but when it snowed again in '88 I had a lot of fun, walking long distance in it and being sent to the shops, etc. Never experienced it again, until September last year when it started snowing on my way to visit my folks place. Bear in mind September is Spring time, therefore, snow in September basically means it overslept. Shock awaited me when I went outside in the morning. Can't go anywhere, can't work, lines dead, mobile internet dead, can't drive back to civilisation.
Old me doesn't want any snow in my life now. A blizzard like yours will traumatise me for life. Weather's taken on a much more active aggressive posture lately. Same place just had a devastating hail storm two days ago, breaking every window in its path....Show more →
D700 got woken up for Christmas. Due to bad light I intended to use some speedlights and the Df's questionable grip wasn't going to cut it. 2 SB-R200s on the 55mm + off-camera SB-700 lighting the grass or under the flowerhead on the second, all triggered by on-camera SB-700. Total overkill but it's been a minute since I used flash. Can be fun, but it's slow going, and heavy.
SiMuMe wrote:
Looking good. There's a "coin" with a human figure in one of the trees on #2?
Thank you. Yes, it's a trail marker. Well-spotted. (If you look carefully you can see that the figure has a walking stick and a backpack and is carrying a Nikon Z9 with a manual-focus 50mm f/1.4 with a 52mm UV filter, set to f/5.6. And the left bootlace is coming untied. )
Thank you! It was just an experiment. We were walking that trail looking for birds with the 300mm, not expecting to see much. (We didn't.) Not far along the trail I thought the branches looked inviting, focused in on some a ways off into the woods and snapped a few pics. Sometimes you have just have to keep your eyes open and try things, I guess. BTW, that is unedited except for resizing.
Sage advice. Seen today with the 300mm. Light was uninteresting when I walked away from the car but you never know what you’ll see.
jimmuller wrote:
Thank you! It was just an experiment. We were walking that trail looking for birds with the 300mm, not expecting to see much. (We didn't.) Not far along the trail I thought the branches looked inviting, focused in on some a ways off into the woods and snapped a few pics. Sometimes you have just have to keep your eyes open and try things, I guess. BTW, that is unedited except for resizing.
AdaptedLenses wrote:
Sage advice. Seen today with the 300mm. Light was uninteresting when I walked away from the car but you never know what you’ll see.
AdaptedLenses wrote:
Sage advice. Seen today with the 300mm. Light was uninteresting when I walked away from the car but you never know what you’ll see.
Sunstars at f/16, Xmas tree 5m away. For this example I prefer the 6 pointed sunstars that the old 6 bladed MF lens provides.
Right: Viltrox 85/2 EVO at f/2
Left: Nikon 85/1.8 H at f/1.8 Sunstars Comparison - Nikon 85mm lenses by Colin McIntosh, on Flickr
I hope the non MF content of these images doesn't offend anybody.
Ooowee, that's a lot of color! I'm not sure how to interpret it. (But I like the 6-pointers too.) If round bokeh balls are really that important then it looks like the Vitrox wins, followed by the G. I'm not sure I'd have an opinion about the aesthetic effect on a picture.
The new-to-me 55mm f/3.5 arrived yesterday. I wanted to give it a test run today, compare it to my old 50mm f/1.4. Of course we got a bit of snow last night so all of today's pics are snowy. I did only one shot with the 50mm to compare to the 55mm (both at f/4), but then didn't feel like standing around in the cold swapping lenses. So all the rest were shot with the 55mm and there is no real comparison yet. From that one shot I'd say the 55 was marginally sharper but I didn't spend much time setting it up. The 55 may produce more subtle shading than I expected but in such bright light I'm not sure how much was the camera's treatment. After all that, here are some pics from today. All with the 55mm.
), at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. 
