Here's a picture taken 2009 with a Nikkor-S 50/1.4 wide open (or SC, have both and don't recall which version was used). I like how the plane of focus is defined on the frozen water.

D700, Ai'd Nikkor S (or SC) 50/1.4 wide open, found the file from 2009 while looking for another image

Leighton, cool shot !
Great shot Peter
Great shot Georg



Nikkor 135mm f/2 Ai-s by Ronny Olsson, on Flickr

Nikkor 135mm f/2 Ai-s by Ronny Olsson, on Flickr

georgms wrote:
Thanks for the comments on the tilted photogs-image! Sorry about the CxxxN-strap;-)

Leighton, lately I shoot most of my assignments as RAW. Exceptions are most team-sports like soccer and handball. Boxing is JPG-terrain too. Large portrait-series and similar high volume-shootings in controlled lighting with minimal shot-to-shot changes are candidates for JPGs too.
Some of my best shots from the past are done as a JPG (medium size and normal compression to save harddrive-space). Now I could kick myself in the back for doing so

Yea, I would think that sports would be jpegs because you have to fire off so many shots. I know what you mean about images from the past. I wish I would have gotten into LR when it first came out. Thanks for commenting on the beer!

georgms wrote:
Here's a picture taken 2009 with a Nikkor-S 50/1.4 wide open (or SC, have both and don't recall which version was used). I like how the plane of focus is defined on the frozen water.

D700, Ai'd Nikkor S (or SC) 50/1.4 wide open, found the file from 2009 while looking for another image

I love how it focused on the water too! Is the bokeh normally that busy with this lens?

Thanks Ronny! I love the second Seagull of yours and the blue in the background.

leighton w wrote:
Since it's so gold outside, I decided to have a cold one! 55mm f2.8.


I don't know why you don't have your own micro brewery or a still
Barbara could take care of that also after she works all day on the farm

Reagan

leighton w wrote:
Thanks Ronny! I love the second Seagull of yours and the blue in the background.


+1

Reagan

Reagan wrote:
leighton w wrote:
Since it's so gold outside, I decided to have a cold one! 55mm f2.8.


I don't know why you don't have your own micro brewery or a still
Barbara could take care of that also after she works all day on the farm

Reagan

Hey man, thanks for the idea! I hope she won't mind.

Actually, small batch brewing would be a breeze for you Leighton. Here's everything you need to know...

How to Make Beer

I had a friend who was eternally asking me to pass along the Grolsch glass beer bottles with a flip top that I quite regularly emptied. He shared the finished product, of course, and it was remarkably good. It would make a wonderful project for cold winter days...

georgms wrote:
Leighton, cool shot, love the play with the background-color!

The best part of the shot, however, is the fact the bottle is EMPTY!

I'm feeling a bit like Monty with his pumpkin for last winter, but the evolution of this plant as it reaches the end of last year's cycle is endlessly fascinating for me. This was shot wide open with the 105 f/2.5 P AI'd.

Ronny, love to see my feathered friends are taking a sun-bath in Sweden! The second image is my fav too.

Curtis, is this the same plant pictured with the diagonal framing before? Interesting progress. It looks a bit like a modern sculpture.

Leighton, the bokeh above of the 50/1.4 S or SC is a wee bit enhanced by the SEP-treatment.
But this lens can literally "kill" a picture with it's bokeh. Here's a shocking example from early 2010 - a staged shot in the school (dreaming about the coming holidays). Please note the rendering of the kids in the background.
I hate to have admit this, but the modern AF-S 50/1.4G or 50/1.8G are much better in this regard.

horrible background rendering: Ai'd Nikkor S or SC 50/1.4 wide-open on a D700, bounced flash, staged shot

There are a number of leaves from the plant that I've shot from different angles. I'm not certain if it is the same leaf, but it is definitely the same plant. Here is another shot yesterday with the same lens of another leaf.

Definitely not a lovely bokeh in that shot Georg. No doubt some of the older lenses with funky bokeh don't measure up to more recent lenses. I appreciate that for someone making his or her living with camera gear has to make the best decision about which lens will deliver the shot needed. I'll not likely be experimenting with the latest and greatest since I can tolerate those aberrations, but I understand the cost. Before I dove into MF lenses, I was sorely tempted by the newly released Sigma 50 f/1.4. We now have folks raving about the Sigma 35 f/1.4 and the 85 f/1.4 got great reviews as well. I, of course, developed my bokeh fetish while shooting Canon. I adored the EF 85 f/1.2L and the EF 135 f/2L. But that feels like another lifetime after three years with Nikon. I don't regret my decision...

I had to take a shot with the 300 f/4.5 AI-s ED-IF, a lens that Scott has on the market. It remains one of my favorites. It is small enough to hand hold with ease but gives me fair reach. This is the leaf I shot above with the 105 f/2.5 P AI'd


And here is a closer crop...


This was shot close to minimum focusing distance.

Some more from my Medical-Nikkor.C AUTO 200mm f/5.6

niXer wrote:
Some more from my Medical-Nikkor.C AUTO 200mm f/5.6



Thanks for sharing these! Very cool stuff taken with a pretty cool too camera-lens-combo - I've found a picture of your setup on your flickr-page. I like especially the last two images from the set above.

CGrindahl wrote:
Definitely not a lovely bokeh in that shot Georg. No doubt some of the older lenses with funky bokeh don't measure up to more recent lenses. I appreciate that for someone making his or her living with camera gear has to make the best decision about which lens will deliver the shot needed. I'll not likely be experimenting with the latest and greatest since I can tolerate those aberrations, but I understand the cost. Before I dove into MF lenses, I was sorely tempted by the newly released Sigma 50 f/1.4. We now have folks raving about the Sigma 35 f/1.4 and the 85 f/1.4 got great reviews as well. I, of course, developed my bokeh fetish while shooting Canon. I adored the EF 85 f/1.2L and the EF 135 f/2L. But that feels like another lifetime after three years with Nikon. I don't regret my decision...

Curtis, while I was disappointed, maybe even shocked by the background-rendering in the shot above, I've found that the nervous bokeh of some older MF-Nikkor's can be used to "break up" a too uniform background in some cases (think half-body-portraits with foliage in the background).
Some lenses with a buttery-smooth bokeh would render the background in a too creamy fashion. The old 50/1.4 S/SC, the 35/1.4 or the fast 24's and 28's can bring some life into the otherwise smooth, but boring clean background ;-)
Btw, the AF-S 50/1.4G isn't flawless - I'm shocked by the amount of distortion - way too much for a modern 50mm-lens. My biggest commercially printed image so far was shot with the AF-S 50/1.4 G at f/1.6 on a D700, but I have just submitted an image taken with the old Nikkor-S or SC Auto 50/1.4 for an even bigger print. I'm not talking about billboard-size, but a pretty large print. So the oldies in Nikon's line-up still have a special place in my heart and camera-bag.

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