DeltaSigma wrote:
Chris,
Cost is relative to one's disposable income. An ongoing kitchen refurbishment and two children at university in London is killing me at the moment.
I did deliberate on a D6x0 but they are £200-250 pounds more expensive than a D7100. The FX filter is twice the price of a DX filter and that puts it into a bracket where I would need to pay tax on the import from the USA. I want to stick with a filter supplier I have used before. I do the conversion myself to save further cost. So, all in all, an DX solution will be about half the cost of FX. Decision made.
Staying with DX allows continued use of the wonderful 16-85VR lens that handles IR perfectly. (Oops - AF plug)
When I upgrade my D610 it is destined to become my next IR donor body. I also considered going down that route but am sitting tight to see what Nikon might offer in mirrorless.
Any idea how much it would cost for conversion? My D40 turns 10 year this September and I can think of converting since it doesnt have much resale value.
gbohannon wrote: You have a head start on this race. Mine was a false start after being shipped a dead camera from KEH. So going back and regrouping. Not sure if lens hotspots are different with a front filter mounted or in body filter, but my old rangefinder lenses perform better with a lens filter than the native Fuji lenses. The 3 Fuji lenses I have hotspot with a lens filter mounted. So I am not committed to Fuji for the X mount.
So now I am considering my options. DSLR converted to use my F mount glass or Fuji and even Sony for my M/LTM/S rangefinder glass as well as F mount. The Sony would even give me full frame and in body stabilization.
Lensrentals has the converted Sonys so I may rent one for a week before I take the full plunge into the IR waters.
Re: the Kolari filter, are you getting the AR coating added to the filter? Minimizes hotspots, or so it says. I may consider doing the conversion myself if I do something different than the X-Pro1. From what I read the X-Pro is a bear to DIY.
No, I was not planning to go for the AR coating since I have a bunch of MF lenses that I know are very good with a Kolari non-AR 720nm filter. (16/3.5, 24/2.8 NC , 28/2.8 AI-S, 85/1.8 H are superb). The 55mm f/2.8 micro hot spots like crazy.
ramkumar999 wrote:
Any idea how much it would cost for conversion? My D40 turns 10 year this September and I can think of converting since it doesnt have much resale value.
Ram,
If you are handy with a screwdriver, and can follow instructions, then the lowest cost of entry is $99 for the internal filter - otherwise it is about $275 which, in my opinion, is way too high a cost for a D40.
Colin
Stokesey wrote:
Perhaps an Alfa Romeo - 24v 3.2ltr
Just my take ......
Steve
Steve - Alfa Romeo, now you're talking....!!
Peter - you and I clearly have very different ideas of what 'simple' means. So - according to you - I'm panning at SPEED, moving my body while keeping the car in frame and while I'm doing this, at SPEED, I'm lining this up with the grid lines in my viewfinder?? And that's the simple part?? No, no, no.......I could maybe, maybe, manage the panning part, but those cars are going very very fast, so I'd imagine it would take pretty much all I've got to do that and press the shutter at anywhere near an appropriate time, how the hell am I going to calibrate that with gridlines in my viewfinder?? Are you kidding? I struggle finding the gridlines with stationary subjects. No, no, no......my idea of simple would be to take a very fast camera like a D500 (preferably with an AF lens), put it on a monopod, press shutter while it machine gun fires 50 or 100 shots and hope like hell that one of them is well framed and in focus.
Anyway, as usual, those shots great. Love the deep greens in that first one.
Ram - you're pretending? who are you pretending to be? I love that NYC pic but it doesn't remind me of Philippe, but for the vignette, god knows he likes his vignette.(btw lens, camera on that pic?)
bruni wrote:
Steve - Alfa Romeo, now you're talking....!!
Peter - you and I clearly have very different ideas of what 'simple' means. So - according to you - I'm panning at SPEED, moving my body while keeping the car in frame and while I'm doing this, at SPEED, I'm lining this up with the grid lines in my viewfinder?? And that's the simple part?? No, no, no.......I could maybe, maybe, manage the panning part, but those cars are going very very fast, so I'd imagine it would take pretty much all I've got to do that and press the shutter at anywhere near an appropriate time, how the hell am I going to calibrate that with gridlines in my viewfinder?? Are you kidding? I struggle finding the gridlines with stationary subjects. No, no, no......my idea of simple would be to take a very fast camera like a D500 (preferably with an AF lens), put it on a monopod, press shutter while it machine gun fires 50 or 100 shots and hope like hell that one of them is well framed and in focus.
Anyway, as usual, those shots great. Love the deep greens in that first one.
Ram - you're pretending? who are you pretending to be? I love that NYC pic but it doesn't remind me of Philippe, but for the vignette, god knows he likes his vignette.(btw lens, camera on that pic?)
ben ...Show more →
Hi Ben. I was trying for the more than 50% black like your style rather than Phillipe
ramkumar999 wrote:
Hi Ben. I was trying for the more than 50% black like your style rather than Phillipe
ha ha ...really?, well I'm flattered....very flattered....but what I like about your pic is that it's nothing like those black Ben pics....so that's really funny.
I don't know if you saw last week that Leighton linked an video on photography where he talked about foreground, mid ground and background. I agreed with that photographer that good photos need to integrate those elements but it occurred to me that when I'm shooting those very dark pics such factors don't operate but it doesn't make them "bad" pics.
In those dark pics the subject, usually a person or a part of a person, is illuminated while everything else is black or near black. It's a dramatic effect and it certainly forces the viewers attention to whatever is illuminated - but that's done at the expense of all the features of the scene. There's really no foreground, midground, background, in a sense, there's just the subject and blackness (why do I like that style again??).
In one sense it's quintessentially photographic because It's a purely photographic effect and it's also quite abstract, our eyes don't see that way. When I'm shooting people walking into slivers of light, I can still see the rest of the scene. Our eyes see details. Our brains want particulars. But in photography, the "background" gets blacked out because most sensors can't handle really really bright light and dark darks (other than playing around with HDR and trying to bring everything up).
So it's dramatic - which I love - but it also restricts the view of the scene - which I hate (but I keep doing it anyway). I also hate that it affects what you shoot because it requires shooting specific points of light - pretty much at the expense of everything else (knowing that that will produce an image where only that point of light is seen).
So that's my quandary - and what I liked about your pic is that it's a street scene showing lots of elements (foreground, midground, background) - the particular appeal to me is it's foreignness, it's Americanness, because we don't really have those wide streets with big buildings like that. If that were a dark Ben shot - and god forbid it were - it would have a shaft of direct sun coming from one of those cross streets and the people crossing into that shaft of light would be shown and everything else would be black. The buildings would just be silhouettes. Now that would be dramatic, but then it could be anywhere . The picture would lose its specificity.
Sorry....I forgotten what the point of that rant was.......other than, don't copy me, I'm trying to stop being me, I'm trying to be Philippe. If I could manage to pan and shoot at high speed I'd be Peter except I'd probably shoot cyclists. And if I knew anything about gardening I'd be Curtis and shoot flowers.
bruni wrote:
Glen - "polymorphically pure of gender? what does that mean? is polymorphically a word? "Lens gendering" was pretty crazy but I fear we may have drifted into the twilight zone.
Hi Ben; here's an explanation of my cryptic little play on words (Note: I worry when my attempts at humour require explanation; it seems to suggest that I'm living in my own little twilight zone ... again. ).
1. Yes, "polymorphically" is a legitimate adverb.
2. In biology "polymorphism" means "the occurrence of more than one form in the same population of a species" [from Wikipedia].
3. Thus "polymorphically pure" is a self-contradictory phrase and, along with the wet noodle comment, was meant as an application of irony to say that this is not a place where José will be rebuked for manually focusing an AF-capable lens.
4. So you see, I clearly am living in my own little twilight zone. Oh well, at least it's familiar to me.
On a more photographic note: Parksville beach, just north of Nanaimo, hosts an annual sand sculpting competition that attracts competitors from all over the world. The sculptures are created in mid-July and remain on display until late August, and my wife and I visited during the first weekend, when the sculptures were being created. This year is Canada's 150th birthday, and all of the sculptures reflected that theme in varying ways.
Captured by the 55 f/1.2 SC, the first photo below clearly expresses the birthday party theme.
When Leighton told us how much he missed having internet access for a while, I thought of a line from Big Yellow Taxi by a famous Canadian, Joni Mitchell: "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone." As it happened, there was a sand sculpture celebrating that song's environmental theme, and especially the lyrical line, "They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum." The second photo below -- also courtesy of the 55 f/1.2 SC -- shows a sculptor building that very tree museum.
In the third photo -- brought to you by the 105 f/2.5 P -- a sculpture captures the likeness of Neil Young, another Canadian celebrity, contemporary of Joni Mitchell, and environmental activist who has loudly protested the impact of the Alberta tar sands on First Nations land.
bruni wrote:
Peter - you and I clearly have very different ideas of what 'simple' means. So - according to you - I'm panning at SPEED, moving my body while keeping the car in frame and while I'm doing this, at SPEED, I'm lining this up with the grid lines in my viewfinder?? And that's the simple part?? ben
it's simple - see, here's another one. Make it easy on you - 1/80s here. Piece of cake.
and this is what it looks like at 1/500s f/8.0 - a setting I use when I have to get the shot. Tires are blurry, but the car looks slow. It is actually a lot faster in that turn than the Lotus above
De Krijtberg Kerk is a Roman Catholic church. The church was designed by Alfred Tepe and was opened in 1883. The church is dedicated to St Francis Xavier and is one of the rectorates within the Roman Catholic parish of St Nicholas, and is recognised by its two pointed towers (from Wikipedia).
I tried to make an HDR, but I only needed one image.
GroWeb wrote:
Hi Ben; here's an explanation of my cryptic little play on words .
Hi Glen - thank you for that very detailed response. I suspect we're all in our own little twilight zones, me more than most I fear. But the joke was not lost on me, I got it, I understood "polymorphically pure". My response was an attempt at the same satirical humour - and now, see - I'm explaining it too , so I haven't done too well either.
But I was genuinely surprised that putting nikon lenses on other bodies was described as "lens gendering" and then became "polymorphous perversity". And yes, I knew "polymorphically" was a word (I googled to check) but it is the less commonly used form, so the joke was supposed to be that not only were we casting ourselves into the absurd with all this talk, but our usage was getting more and more unusual in doing it - but clearly that fell flat.
Love the Canada centric post (and Joni Mitchell and Neil Young).
Andy - great night sky.
Peter - you say 1/80s but above the pic you say 1/8s - I'm assuming you mean 1/80s - not that it matters, I'm never too comfortable below 1/100s. I can do it - and it often works - but I'm more secure at higher speeds - and that's with stationary subjects. So OK, you're gloating now, it's fine, I'm in awe of these shots (especially that first one) so keep saying how easy it is.....and keep posting.
Joseph. wrote:
Hey Chris! we get some pretty intense summer sun here in CA. I think it actually cleared up in 3 days, but I left it in there for a week to be sure.
.......
Probably not enough sun over here.
Same processing
Thank you all for the likes and comments on me road trip shots. I'll also add that the banter is at a higher level than usual. Good stuff indeed!
Escanaba Michigan is on Lake Michigan and it's struggling to survive via tourism attracted to it's beautiful scenery. It's downtown no longer has great shopping, just antiques and small stores and restaurants. It's peninsula into Lake Michigan bears an old lighthouse.
You have a head start on this race. Mine was a false start after being shipped a dead camera from KEH. So going back and regrouping. Not sure if lens hotspots are different with a front filter mounted or in body filter, but my old rangefinder lenses perform better with a lens filter than the native Fuji lenses. The 3 Fuji lenses I have hotspot with a lens filter mounted. So I am not committed to Fuji for the X mount.
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