Slowly but surely I'm venturing out of my sports photography comfort zone and trying some new venues and subjects....and this lens has inspired me to do so.
With that - had a quick session where I combined the 58mm along with a 85mm f1.4D for a majority of my shots. Really enjoyed both results and actually was surprised I had a few OOF on the 58mm due to the thin DOF....so the lesson learned, and an obvious one after the fact, is that subjects need to be on line with the focus plane versus tagged.
Anyways - a lot of personnel lessons learned and looking forward to improving.
Tried the 58 out for some landscapes and long exposures this weekend.
Chasing the light, early morning sunrises like this are worth it. Mt Mitchell State park above the clouds. I drove up Blueridge parkway starting at 5 am looking on both sides for a good spot. I kept driving watching the time creep up knowing sunrise was at 7:14am. around 6:45 i told myself got to get above the clouds and hope to get lucky.
I saw this spot to my right and knew it was going to be awesome. the sun was cresting as I setup my tripod and gear and I was able to pull this 30 second exposure off.
iamjoenish wrote:
I have to agree with this. While shooting DX, body or crop mode, you essentially lose a big portion of the lens' character. While the examples below lack a good showcasing of what I am trying to say, I believe that it is still easy to differentiate the two by simply observing the way the image is rendered overall.
Thank you for that example. The differences are subtle to my eye, but illustrate the point that you and Jason are making. I do appreciate your taking the time to do this.
nextelbuddy wrote:
Tried the 58 out for some landscapes and long exposures this weekend.
Chasing the light, early morning sunrises like this are worth it. Mt Mitchell State park above the clouds. I drove up Blueridge parkway starting at 5 am looking on both sides for a good spot. I kept driving watching the time creep up knowing sunrise was at 7:14am. around 6:45 i told myself got to get above the clouds and hope to get lucky.
I saw this spot to my right and knew it was going to be awesome. the sun was cresting as I setup my tripod and gear and I was able to pull this 30 second exposure off.
After months and months of thinking my DF was messed up, I've determined that it's the 58. It gets in moods where it massively back or front focuses; can't tune it because as soon as I do, it decides to behave and needs 0 tune. There's also a veiling flare in almost every single shot except for close ups.
Jason_Brook wrote:
After months and months of thinking my DF was messed up, I've determined that it's the 58. It gets in moods where it massively back or front focuses; can't tune it because as soon as I do, it decides to behave and needs 0 tune. There's also a veiling flare in almost every single shot except for close ups.
Think I knocked an element loose
That is a serious bummer. I was wondering why we were seeing so much more of your 610 and so little of your Df on here and flickr. Thought maybe you were in a high resolution kind of mood.
Trip to Melville? Consider sending your Df with it to get back a tuned-up combo.
Jason_Brook wrote:
After months and months of thinking my DF was messed up, I've determined that it's the 58. It gets in moods where it massively back or front focuses; can't tune it because as soon as I do, it decides to behave and needs 0 tune. There's also a veiling flare in almost every single shot except for close ups.
Think I knocked an element loose
That's a serious drag and I might be dealing with something similar. I returned the rental I'd been using and bought a refurb, which arrived on Monday. The rental had some cosmetic dings but was functionally perfect. The refurb is cosmetically perfect but the focus is all over the place. Same as you mention - front or back focus on lots of shots, but not nearly consistent enough for a fine tuning to help. And some are dead solid perfect. Doesn't seem to be an issue with distant focus, but anything between MFD and about 6-8 feet is a problem. Haven't noticed any flare. But I think this one's going back. I'm glad I'd shot with a consistent copy first or I might have given up on this lens... Here are a few shots from a foggy walk, where it DID focus on the intended object...
Jason_Brook wrote:
After months and months of thinking my DF was messed up, I've determined that it's the 58. It gets in moods where it massively back or front focuses; can't tune it because as soon as I do, it decides to behave and needs 0 tune. There's also a veiling flare in almost every single shot except for close ups.
Think I knocked an element loose
hmm...I'm wondering if I'm experiencing the same thing with my DF. Some days, the focus seems off and I have to add some "+" to the AF fine tune. Then for other days, I need to add "-" fine tune. We're talking increments of 5 and 10 so it's not minor.
I don't have any odd flare. Pictures look fine..just out of focus. I need to shoot the 58mm more on my d3s to compare.
chuhsi1 wrote:
hmm...I'm wondering if I'm experiencing the same thing with my DF. Some days, the focus seems off and I have to add some "+" to the AF fine tune. Then for other days, I need to add "-" fine tune. We're talking increments of 5 and 10 so it's not minor.
I don't have any odd flare. Pictures look fine..just out of focus. I need to shoot the 58mm more on my d3s to compare.
Good luck with your resolution!
Same, which is why I suspected the DF.
I put the 58 away for a while and used the 35/85, DF did fine. Threw the 58 on the D610 long enough for me to see it do the tune jump, from 0 to +15 back to 0. The high resolution of the 610 hides the problem more than the DF.
My 58 was razor sharp, arguably one of the sharpest in here. Back in June it got hit HARD while mounted to the DF. I ran over a golf hole flagpole thing in a golf cart, it sprung out from under the cart and smashed the lens/camera which was dangling off the side of me. Insta-karma lol
aut0maticdan wrote:
That is a serious bummer. I was wondering why we were seeing so much more of your 610 and so little of your Df on here and flickr. Thought maybe you were in a high resolution kind of mood.
Trip to Melville? Consider sending your Df with it to get back a tuned-up combo.
Probably tax return time it'll get sent out. Has to be before wedding season. I'll definitely be sending the DF with it. My 58 needed 0 tune on both bodies before.
Well, I ordered and just received a used lens from the rental place I'd had the rental from for the last couple of weeks. it's not quite perfect cosmetically, but the optics and AF are dead solid perfect. Well, not quite perfect, it took a really small correction of -3 to make it perfect, but now it's consistently great throughout the range of distances. So very very close to perfect and off in a consistent manner that I could easily correct for. And I paid $100 less than for the refurb, which is now heading back to from whence it came. So now I'm an owner and looking forward to shooting with this lens for years to come... I did spend $15 on an extended warranty. I never do that but this lens is expensive enough and with it's own AF motor on board, it seemed like a good idea...
used the 58 for some more landscapes. I have some more single shots @ w.4 that gives it a very cool ethereal feel I think. Ill be posting more as I finish them.
236 MP Pano with the 58 1.4G and D800e. 5 sets of 9 bracketed shots merged together.
I haven't been here in a while, I have been VERY busy with renovating my newly acquired house two months ago. But I have lots of stuff to catch up on and post them on here!
