Oosty wrote:
A great deal has ahppened since i last logged on to this thread,
Ingrid and I left Knysna on Sunday 4 june for a long awaited and carefully planned trip to the Kruger National Park about 1200 miles away. At our stage in life we no longer hurry and break the trip into about 4-500 mile daily bites so that we can take in the scenery and explore the small towns that we visit. The trip north was lovely, cold clear winter weather and delight that we were leaving behind a threatened cold front and the first winter storm. To our horror we heard of devastating fires in our area on Wednesday.
It got worse, Knysna was ablaze and in our estate everyone was evacuated. We kept listening for phone pings and Whats app updates. We didn't sleep at all and woke like zombies on Thursday wondering if our house had been razed as we expected. Amazingly we had got away lightly - only a deck , some outdoor furniture were burnt. 30 of our estate community lost everything and about 300 houses in the town were lost. 10 000 residents were affected.
We will get home tomorrow to our beautiful town now resembling a moonscape. Friends have offered accommodation until we get services restored and we are totally apprehensive but are prepared. We are grateful to have been spared the trauma of watching the flames and not knowing.
No pics tonight but just a chat to my very good friends in the Nikon MF thread with whom I feel such a sense of community. Thanks for being there even though I haven't met any of you personally....Show more →
Horrible times Peter, luckily you and your wife are safe.
Good luck rebuilding your town.
gbohannon wrote:
Rafael, sorry for the delay in posting. Here are some shots with that same lens and adapters for the Fuji. Sony and others have adapters available as well. I just like how these lenses match the X-Pro2.
First one is with the lens and the two step adapter I use. The M39/LTM to Leica M ring is on top of the M to Fuji X adapter. LTM to M is very thin.
Second is showing the lens with these adapters attached.
Third one self explanatory (lens mounted)
Fourth - is with the LTM 3.5cm f3.5 to show how small it really is adapted. I love shooting with this lens combo.
Oosty wrote:
A great deal has ahppened since i last logged on to this thread,
Ingrid and I left Knysna on Sunday 4 june for a long awaited and carefully planned trip to the Kruger National Park about 1200 miles away. At our stage in life we no longer hurry and break the trip into about 4-500 mile daily bites so that we can take in the scenery and explore the small towns that we visit. The trip north was lovely, cold clear winter weather and delight that we were leaving behind a threatened cold front and the first winter storm. To our horror we heard of devastating fires in our area on Wednesday.
It got worse, Knysna was ablaze and in our estate everyone was evacuated. We kept listening for phone pings and Whats app updates. We didn't sleep at all and woke like zombies on Thursday wondering if our house had been razed as we expected. Amazingly we had got away lightly - only a deck , some outdoor furniture were burnt. 30 of our estate community lost everything and about 300 houses in the town were lost. 10 000 residents were affected.
We will get home tomorrow to our beautiful town now resembling a moonscape. Friends have offered accommodation until we get services restored and we are totally apprehensive but are prepared. We are grateful to have been spared the trauma of watching the flames and not knowing.
No pics tonight but just a chat to my very good friends in the Nikon MF thread with whom I feel such a sense of community. Thanks for being there even though I haven't met any of you personally....Show more →
Things can be replaced. So glad to hear that you made it through okay. Having gone through an apartment fire some years ago, I know how devastating it can be...even with minimal damage. Take care!
gbohannon wrote:
Rafael, sorry for the delay in posting. Here are some shots with that same lens and adapters for the Fuji. Sony and others have adapters available as well. I just like how these lenses match the X-Pro2.
First one is with the lens and the two step adapter I use. The M39/LTM to Leica M ring is on top of the M to Fuji X adapter. LTM to M is very thin.
Second is showing the lens with these adapters attached.
Third one self explanatory (lens mounted)
Fourth - is with the LTM 3.5cm f3.5 to show how small it really is adapted. I love shooting with this lens combo.
You can add me to your will at any time. Every time I see this setup of yours... Stirs me. Very old glass, modern body, EVF with focus peaking... What's not to love?!
Glad to hear from you Peter, and thanks to Siphiwe, we had a heads up as to what happened there. Glad you were lucky to lose so little property.
Oosty wrote:
A great deal has ahppened since i last logged on to this thread,
Ingrid and I left Knysna on Sunday 4 june for a long awaited and carefully planned trip to the Kruger National Park about 1200 miles away. At our stage in life we no longer hurry and break the trip into about 4-500 mile daily bites so that we can take in the scenery and explore the small towns that we visit. The trip north was lovely, cold clear winter weather and delight that we were leaving behind a threatened cold front and the first winter storm. To our horror we heard of devastating fires in our area on Wednesday.
It got worse, Knysna was ablaze and in our estate everyone was evacuated. We kept listening for phone pings and Whats app updates. We didn't sleep at all and woke like zombies on Thursday wondering if our house had been razed as we expected. Amazingly we had got away lightly - only a deck , some outdoor furniture were burnt. 30 of our estate community lost everything and about 300 houses in the town were lost. 10 000 residents were affected.
We will get home tomorrow to our beautiful town now resembling a moonscape. Friends have offered accommodation until we get services restored and we are totally apprehensive but are prepared. We are grateful to have been spared the trauma of watching the flames and not knowing.
No pics tonight but just a chat to my very good friends in the Nikon MF thread with whom I feel such a sense of community. Thanks for being there even though I haven't met any of you personally....Show more →
George, I meant to respond to your comments, but got sidetracked. I managed to walk the length of a woodland lake and back - about a mile. Coming back was arduous due to edema in my legs, but I took many breaks to catch my breathe. It is well worth the effort (getting out for walks) - to smell the humus, the new growth, flowers, wildlife, and yes, even the bugs. I was packing two cameras - the D800 and the 5D mkII. A buck met me in a meadow, and mercifully held still long enough for me to acquire focus, control my breathing, and snap a few shots Linked HERE. I'm so grateful to be able to even muddle about in the bush, and find something to shoot.
gbohannon wrote:
James - enjoyed your walk in the woods with your 28/2.8. Nice job on the pano shot too. Outstanding shots of the Poplar flowers. We have a very large Poplar in our backyard. My son and I can't get our arms around it. It is way too tall to get any shots like you have.
kwoodard wrote:
You can add me to your will at any time. Every time I see this setup of yours... Stirs me. Very old glass, modern body, EVF with focus peaking... What's not to love?!
Don't forget optical viewfinder overlaid with frame lines based on the focal length that you enter in the menu too
The icing on the cake would be if it were full frame. Kipon/Baveyes announced a Leica M to Fuji X focal reducer last November. Similar to the Metabones Speed Booster in that it would reduce to give equivalent 35mm format focal length adapted. But so far no release date.
James Markus wrote:
George, I meant to respond to your comments, but got sidetracked. I managed to walk the length of a woodland lake and back - about a mile. Coming back was arduous due to edema in my legs, but I took many breaks to catch my breathe. It is well worth the effort (getting out for walks) - to smell the humus, the new growth, flowers, wildlife, and yes, even the bugs. I was packing two cameras - the D800 and the 5D mkII. A buck met me in a meadow, and mercifully held still long enough for me to acquire focus, control my breathing, and snap a few shots Linked HERE. I'm so grateful to be able to even muddle about in the bush, and find something to shoot.
Oosty wrote:
A great deal has ahppened since i last logged on to this thread,
Ingrid and I left Knysna on Sunday 4 june for a long awaited and carefully planned trip to the Kruger National Park about 1200 miles away. At our stage in life we no longer hurry and break the trip into about 4-500 mile daily bites so that we can take in the scenery and explore the small towns that we visit. The trip north was lovely, cold clear winter weather and delight that we were leaving behind a threatened cold front and the first winter storm. To our horror we heard of devastating fires in our area on Wednesday.
It got worse, Knysna was ablaze and in our estate everyone was evacuated. We kept listening for phone pings and Whats app updates. We didn't sleep at all and woke like zombies on Thursday wondering if our house had been razed as we expected. Amazingly we had got away lightly - only a deck , some outdoor furniture were burnt. 30 of our estate community lost everything and about 300 houses in the town were lost. 10 000 residents were affected.
We will get home tomorrow to our beautiful town now resembling a moonscape. Friends have offered accommodation until we get services restored and we are totally apprehensive but are prepared. We are grateful to have been spared the trauma of watching the flames and not knowing.
No pics tonight but just a chat to my very good friends in the Nikon MF thread with whom I feel such a sense of community. Thanks for being there even though I haven't met any of you personally....Show more →
I am truly sorry to hear so many of your neighbours were affected by the fire, but glad to hear you and your wife were spared, and on return you found your home more or less the way you left it (minus the exterior bits that is)
I hope the stay with your friends will be a pleasant one, and pray that you can return to your home soon. Lots of work ahead I guess to get the community back up in shape
gbohannon wrote:
Don't forget optical viewfinder overlaid with frame lines based on the focal length that you enter in the menu too
The icing on the cake would be if it were full frame. Kipon/Baveyes announced a Leica M to Fuji X focal reducer last November. Similar to the Metabones Speed Booster in that it would reduce to give equivalent 35mm format focal length adapted. But so far no release date.
On the topic of my getting astray and selling my D3 in favor of an X-T2, it's not going to happen. I managed to get a PJ using an X-T2 in his daily line of work to make me a coffee and lend me his X-T2 for the best part of 2 hours and I was very positively impressed by the camera and all it had to offer. The information and impressions gathered in that meeting took a few days to sink in.
But with every passing hour, realisation dawned on me that I can never et used to taking pictures outdoors with an EVF or live view. In order to experience my environment and sense the photograph, I need to look through an optical viewfinder, unfiltered. So the first thing I thought of was to buy a Nikon varifocal zoom finder attachment to solve this problem. (I might still buy one of those, just to absorb my surroundings while my camera is still in the bag)
But that would have been a compromise on a camera that tries very hard to not be a compromise. A paradox like that would have me thinking about the identity of my camera more then on picture making
I had an extensive telephone conversation with another professional photographer today, who uses a D3 and D500 in his line of work, and we agreed to meet and have me kidnap his D500 for an afternoon. After that call, I placed a call at the camera shop where we buy most of our new gear. They happened to have a Fuji representative there today, so we enbarked on the 60 mile trip to get to the store and ask a few questions I still had not found the answer to. About half a mile in, I caused an accident and hit another car head on. Fortunately at a very moderate pace, so after we had the police there and changed insurance details, we still drove to the camera store for my answers.
We're back, and I got almost all of my answers. What I learned is that the X-T2 is a very capable camera, but it is not for me. The X-Pro 2 on the other hand, is the camera I'm leaning to, to replace my D3. It ticks almost all the boxes for me. Optical viewfinder, that will show me a nice frame and has a million different options I can all switch off to stop them from distracting me. It has modern focusing aids and a fast overlay that shows me a 100% view of what the sensor sees (adjustable in brightness and color temperature to meet the preferences of my eyes). The most important lenses work without gimmicks, and even with Metabones adapter, they do not block my view. It has controls thar I do not need to think about. It really does look like it will be able to get the job done.
The possible only disadvantage is that I need to do some math to convert the focal lengths to fit the frame guide (all full frame lengths x0,71 to adjust for the focal reducer that will get me full frame like angles of view with my beloved Nikkors.
There will be some lenses that do block my view, or offer such small angles of view that I will voluntarily revert to EVF mode when using these. The optical viewfinder is linearectar so the fish eye requires using the EVF. The UD Nikkor blocks a lot of the optical viewfinder and the 200 f4 Nikkor-Q.C and 80-200 f4 Ai-S are so long the guiding frame would be too small to conveniently operate. These are compromises I can accept though, as trade-off for the smaller camera
Regarding the size of images we upload, I only use a 15" laptop but to avoid having to pan left/right up/down I just click on the image, it gets automatically resized in the "Lights Out" view. As a bonus, you can if you like just hit the left/right arrow keys to view all the images that are on that page in the various posts. This is a Win 10 laptop running MS Edge browser.
Love the Lancia Steve, best rally car EVA !
Peter - glad to hear you are safe and that damage to your place was minimal.
Buddy - that was definitely the main issue for me with my brief time owning the X-T1, the EVF was just not the same as an OVF. I'm not convinced that having a screen half an inch from your eye is a good idea either, didn't our mothers tell us not to sit too close to the TV when we were kids ?
Phillippe - loved your last series too. The use of shallow DOF emphasizes why we all love / use fast glass.
D800
Rokinon 14/2.8
16/2.8 fishy
20UD
28/2 NC
Sigma 105/2.8 OS macro
180/2.8 ED
Plus a TC200 in case of wildlife with the 180
Set of PK extension tubes for use with 180 for flowers
Induro AT-413 tripod with Sirui K-40X BH - take up far too much room / weight of my 20kg luggage allowance but the 2 travel tripods I have just don't cut it when it's windy or in a creek with water flowing past the legs, even with weight hanging off the centre column.
Landscape, astro, macro is the plan. I know I have a massive gap in the middle there but I just don't shoot the normal FL, and I know I have too many wides but the 20UD and 28 are my landscape/walk arounds, the fishy is a why not as it's so small, and the Rok is just so good at astro, sharp, minimal coma, doesn't take filters but don't need filters for astro.
Andy, this might be of interest to you. I also made a rather succesfull macro and micro photographer promise me to make me a cup of coffee. Will meet him, in his house, this Wednesday.
He uses a super micro Nikkor on a Sony camera for is work. Maybe you seen some of his work.
Oosty wrote:
A great deal has ahppened since i last logged on to this thread,
Ingrid and I left Knysna on Sunday 4 june for a long awaited and carefully planned trip to the Kruger National Park about 1200 miles away. At our stage in life we no longer hurry and break the trip into about 4-500 mile daily bites so that we can take in the scenery and explore the small towns that we visit. The trip north was lovely, cold clear winter weather and delight that we were leaving behind a threatened cold front and the first winter storm. To our horror we heard of devastating fires in our area on Wednesday.
It got worse, Knysna was ablaze and in our estate everyone was evacuated. We kept listening for phone pings and Whats app updates. We didn't sleep at all and woke like zombies on Thursday wondering if our house had been razed as we expected. Amazingly we had got away lightly - only a deck , some outdoor furniture were burnt. 30 of our estate community lost everything and about 300 houses in the town were lost. 10 000 residents were affected.
We will get home tomorrow to our beautiful town now resembling a moonscape. Friends have offered accommodation until we get services restored and we are totally apprehensive but are prepared. We are grateful to have been spared the trauma of watching the flames and not knowing.
No pics tonight but just a chat to my very good friends in the Nikon MF thread with whom I feel such a sense of community. Thanks for being there even though I haven't met any of you personally....Show more →
I'm so sorry for your loss and the loss of your neighbors. You don't mention anyone being injured, or worse, so there's that to be thankful for. Praying for you and your community.
the solitaire wrote:
Andy, this might be of interest to you. I also made a rather succesfull macro and micro photographer promise me to make me a cup of coffee. Will meet him, in his house, this Wednesday.
He uses a super micro Nikkor on a Sony camera for is work. Maybe you seen some of his work.
gbohannon wrote:
Rafael, sorry for the delay in posting. Here are some shots with that same lens and adapters for the Fuji. Sony and others have adapters available as well. I just like how these lenses match the X-Pro2.
First one is with the lens and the two step adapter I use. The M39/LTM to Leica M ring is on top of the M to Fuji X adapter. LTM to M is very thin.
Second is showing the lens with these adapters attached.
Third one self explanatory (lens mounted)
Fourth - is with the LTM 3.5cm f3.5 to show how small it really is adapted. I love shooting with this lens combo.
the solitaire wrote:
On the topic of my getting astray and selling my D3 in favor of an X-T2, it's not going to happen. I managed to get a PJ using an X-T2 in his daily line of work to make me a coffee and lend me his X-T2 for the best part of 2 hours and I was very positively impressed by the camera and all it had to offer. The information and impressions gathered in that meeting took a few days to sink in.
But with every passing hour, realisation dawned on me that I can never et used to taking pictures outdoors with an EVF or live view. In order to experience my environment and sense the photograph, I need to look through an optical viewfinder, unfiltered. So the first thing I thought of was to buy a Nikon varifocal zoom finder attachment to solve this problem. (I might still buy one of those, just to absorb my surroundings while my camera is still in the bag)
But that would have been a compromise on a camera that tries very hard to not be a compromise. A paradox like that would have me thinking about the identity of my camera more then on picture making
I had an extensive telephone conversation with another professional photographer today, who uses a D3 and D500 in his line of work, and we agreed to meet and have me kidnap his D500 for an afternoon. After that call, I placed a call at the camera shop where we buy most of our new gear. They happened to have a Fuji representative there today, so we enbarked on the 60 mile trip to get to the store and ask a few questions I still had not found the answer to. About half a mile in, I caused an accident and hit another car head on. Fortunately at a very moderate pace, so after we had the police there and changed insurance details, we still drove to the camera store for my answers.
We're back, and I got almost all of my answers. What I learned is that the X-T2 is a very capable camera, but it is not for me. The X-Pro 2 on the other hand, is the camera I'm leaning to, to replace my D3. It ticks almost all the boxes for me. Optical viewfinder, that will show me a nice frame and has a million different options I can all switch off to stop them from distracting me. It has modern focusing aids and a fast overlay that shows me a 100% view of what the sensor sees (adjustable in brightness and color temperature to meet the preferences of my eyes). The most important lenses work without gimmicks, and even with Metabones adapter, they do not block my view. It has controls thar I do not need to think about. It really does look like it will be able to get the job done.
The possible only disadvantage is that I need to do some math to convert the focal lengths to fit the frame guide (all full frame lengths x0,71 to adjust for the focal reducer that will get me full frame like angles of view with my beloved Nikkors.
There will be some lenses that do block my view, or offer such small angles of view that I will voluntarily revert to EVF mode when using these. The optical viewfinder is linearectar so the fish eye requires using the EVF. The UD Nikkor blocks a lot of the optical viewfinder and the 200 f4 Nikkor-Q.C and 80-200 f4 Ai-S are so long the guiding frame would be too small to conveniently operate. These are compromises I can accept though, as trade-off for the smaller camera...Show more →
Buddy, sorry about your accident, glad no injury came from it.
