CGrindahl wrote:
Reminds me of my trip years ago to Indiana where my former wife's parents lived and visits to Amish communities there. Amazing that buggies like this are still being used in some parts of the country. I don't think the Amish have quite the pride of ownership the rest of us can have about our wheels. I'm still very happy with my Toyota Camry... so I guess at least some of my pride has dissipated... You're probably still driving a truck... right Leighton?
Yes, still have a truck. But we only use it to take trash to the dump these days.
My left eye cataract was done two weeks ago, the procedure went well but there was inner bleeding from a eye pressure procedure that obscured by vision and rendered me useless for a while.
The good news is that the blood cleared as expected and my left eye vision is already much better than before, particularly for colors, and no longer need glasses for far distance.
I can already manually focus better than before, the Z finders look a lot sharper, the F finders clear as glass.
Most important!!!, now I can see the S2/S3 rangefinders perfectly, my better color perception and sharpness is letting me see the yellow rangefinder section really well! maybe I will do film finally!
My right eye surgery is this Wednesday, will be happy if it turns out as good as the left!
Glad to see Curtis, my most expensive friend - he has cost me thousands and thousands of dollars!!
Thanks for mentioning the closeup filters... Got me thinking about the limitations of 3 feet MFD of these rangefinder lenses...
(sounds of scratching around in a storage box)... Found No1 and No2 Nikon closeup filters in 52mm... (more scratching noises). Bingo, a 43mm to 52mm stepup ring. 3' limitation overcome for use on Z body
Owe you a beer Alan
Oh yeah, you mentioned getting a M to Z adapter. I recommend a Rayqual adapter. Cost more than most, but cheaper than a Novoflex. Made in Japan, rear baffle, great construction. I also use their Nikon S to Z and F to Z adapters. I get them through Japan Hobby Tool, but CameraQuest may have them too.
huddy wrote:
The 55/2.8 is wonderful. I bought one back in ~2012 and really liked it at the time but needed f/1.2-2 much too often to justify keeping both at the time. The micro lens is a great walkabout prime, be it for markets, woods, etc. Granted with many of these lovely MF lenses, you can always reverse the lenses and have a functional micro lens or add something like a 5T closeup in front of the filter.
Thinking about cars and about lenses... the 25-50 f/ AI-s to be exact. I used that lens while wandering through a car show in downtown San Rafael. They call the event May Madness...
Clearly, I didn't know about your health journey Rafael... anything to do with eyes is disturbing, especially for someone interested in turning the focusing ring on a lens. And you're welcome for all the encouragement I gave you as you built your kit. Of course, we ALL KNOW it didn't take much to get you going. I think you have a genetic defect that can only be satisfied by the arrival of a PERFECT lens...
Clearly you are among those on this thread who have moved toward older and more exotic gear. I started this thread to talk about lenses, without an appreciation of how deep that conversation can go. But I've been shown the way by those among us who know a great deal more than I do.
Glad things are going well with your recovery my friend. I was explaining to a friend who knew nothing about my fascination with old camera lenses what this thread is all about and I mentioned you as one of the members who inspire me to buy ONLY the best when I make a purchase. So I guess the encouragement goes both ways!
Before I launch into my day of preparations for surgery tomorrow I thought I'd share two more recent photos taken with the 135 f/3.5 Q AI. I inadvertently bought two of those lenses one evening when I perhaps had had one to many classes of single malt Scotch whisky. Of course, I was pretty swept away when I found pristine copies of both lenses with caps and hood at such a low price... one was $51 and the other $65.
Here's a photo of one of the lenses mounted on the Df.
And the photos I took at Marin Stables... one of the trailheads I will no longer be using... though I could wander a bit on the trail before it gets too squirely...
All the best tomorrow Curtis. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. 🤞🏻
CGrindahl wrote:
Before I launch into my day of preparations for surgery tomorrow I thought I'd share two more recent photos taken with the 135 f/3.5 Q AI. I inadvertently bought two of those lenses one evening when I perhaps had had one to many classes of single malt Scotch whisky. Of course, I was pretty swept away when I found pristine copies of both lenses with caps and hood at such a low price... one was $51 and the other $65.
Here's a photo of one of the lenses mounted on the Df.
And the photos I took at Marin Stables... one of the trailheads I will no longer be using... though I could wander a bit on the trail before it gets too squirely...
CGrindahl wrote:
Before I launch into my day of preparations for surgery tomorrow I thought I'd share two more recent photos taken with the 135 f/3.5 Q AI. I inadvertently bought two of those lenses one evening when I perhaps had had one to many classes of single malt Scotch whisky. Of course, I was pretty swept away when I found pristine copies of both lenses with caps and hood at such a low price... one was $51 and the other $65.
Thanks Chris and Regina. It has taken me a long time to understand I don't need to go through life's challenges on my own... it is okay to say I NEED help and to accept it when it is offered. This thread has always been a very generous place in many ways. How else could one describe what happened with the Great Nikon Lens Adventure. As Chin explained when he related telling friends about what we were doing. They came up will all kinds of horror stories. We didn't really know one another well but we succeeded. Here's the card I found when I opened the box with Nikki...
I don't think about this community when considering the support I need around health related issues... and yet, I recall difficult moments that came in many forms and how generous people here were. So thanks for the support in this moment. I'm reminding what a very special place this is in cyberspace.
CGrindahl wrote:
Before I launch into my day of preparations for surgery tomorrow I thought I'd share two more recent photos taken with the 135 f/3.5 Q AI. I inadvertently bought two of those lenses one evening when I perhaps had had one to many classes of single malt Scotch whisky. Of course, I was pretty swept away when I found pristine copies of both lenses with caps and hood at such a low price... one was $51 and the other $65.
Here's a photo of one of the lenses mounted on the Df.
And the photos I took at Marin Stables... one of the trailheads I will no longer be using... though I could wander a bit on the trail before it gets too squirely...
Just a little story about a Nikkor 600mm f5.6 photo. A year ago June I shot the moon with the D7200. I imaged and cropped the photo and posted it on another website. After a year there were 22 views. I thought it was a pretty good photo - so I decided to be more critical and re-image the photo. At the time, frame xxx7154 looked the best - this time frame xxx7155 looked best. Literally a fraction of a second later and virtually identical. I threw away the first post, and posted the re-imaged photo in June of this year. In less than 2 months it had won two awards, and had 266 views. This is quite literally a gray ball on a black background. I cropped it differently, and worked on noise, toning, and sharpening. It can be worth the effort to invest time in your processing.
Original post @ 1280 pixels wide (That is what I was posting at back then)
Yes... the second image is an improvement, doubtless because of the effort you put in as you re-processed it. I really appreciate the shift toward brown but clearly the work you did with sharpening makes a difference. Very sweet image Jim... captured by a very old lens. We like that!
Which version of that lens are you using? Inquiring minds want to know...
Curtis,
I forgot to use lens tagger on the photo. The Photosynthesis site says it is the "Ai-S 600/5.6 IF-ED New".
Though it looks better than it's example photo - particularly the badge. Good luck on your upcoming procedure.
Jim
James Markus wrote:
Curtis,
I forgot to use lens tagger on the photo. The Photosynthesis site says it is the "Ai-S 600/5.6 IF-ED New".
Though it looks better than it's example photo - particularly the badge. Good luck on your upcoming procedure.
Jim
That's top of the line. I know you were a pro in your working life. Is this a lens you've owned for some time or a more recent purchase. I'm surprised how reasonable the price is for an AI-s ED-IF version of this lens. I'm not drawn to shooting long but I certainly appreciate these gorgeous lenses...
No, this was a recent, about 16 months ago, acquisition. I use to own a 500mm f4 afs, but in 2012 I
sold it because the neuropathy in my feet. was so bad that i was afraid I would fall over on walkabout.
It ended up being lucky timing as Nikon came out with newer long lenses at about 200% more than
the previous super teles. Owned it for about 5 years, and made almost 2k selling it - that fueled some
NMFAS for quite awhile.
Now I think I see the picture clearly. It takes two blabbermouths to light the thread on fire, does not matter the topic.
Netherlands, MF lenses, cars, devil temptations, Apples, and unfortunately advanced citizen ailments. All part of a wonderful place to hang out. I don't have as long of a history here as others, but it continues to be fun.
And then the old timers come from behind the keyboards, so variously, good to hear from Ken, Peter, Alan, Kevin, and Chris.(hope I did not miss anyone).
At this clip thank goodness for the Like button.
Beautiful Nikon S twins, Rafael, great news about the left eye. Wishing you the same for the right eye.
Congrats on the 3.5cm f/1.8 George. Smaller than a the Z 40mm even with the requisite adapter, wow.
leighton w wrote:
With all the wonderful car pics of late, I thought I would post one as well. 55mm f2.8 ais.
James Markus wrote:
Barb picked tomatoes recently, and I imaged this shot from the RAW file using software that I own, but disliked on Windows. Luminar v4 has the same problem on both platforms - the DAM is useless. However, as a light-weight editor it worked well. (As did Aftershot pro v3 that I got for some linux work) What was impressive - the mini is twice as fast on some imaging operations than one of my ten year old tricked out PCs
