the solitaire wrote:
Slow going lately, so I was able to ketchup on what has been written nd posted these past few days.
Something else I have been pondering about, was the lens hood on the 300 mm lens. It's really short, and when I was photographing a backlit image a few weeks ago, I found that the lens did not handle direct sunlight all that well. So I needed a deeper lens hood. At this angle of view, not much of a problem, or so I thought.
The amount of aftermarket solutions was limited, to say it kindly. So I decided to go the DIY route. My first thought was to pick up a metal pipe, but the weight quickly made me decide otherwise. Instead I picked up this:
A 6" PVC connection for sewage systems. To make it fit on the lens, I ordered a 1/4" self adhesive rubber seal as used in car doors. A simple D profile worked well enough. Th ebenefits in this approach, it doesn't add a signficant amount of weight, and does not take a lot of space. If lost, it's easy to replace as I still have 6ft of the seal left
jhinkey wrote:
Almost didn't take the camera bag with me this morning. But glad I did after I saw this happening.
300/4.5 ED-AI @ f/5.6
Nice catch John, looks like you did a good job bookending my harvest moonrise. I was even thinking that night, "I wish I had a 300 4.5 ED right now... 105 isn't enough compression!"
Wow! The moon, the little gang with the 200 2 AIS, Mark's secret shelf of unlimited goodies, and Jeff's "wall". Even the slow moving page is full of lots of interesting scenes.
Here's a glimpse of the "Ben made me get it" lens. (yes Ben, don't blame Curtis for this one, he's not even into RF!) Complete with a tacky "for Nikon" strap, to keep the Nikon purists happy.
The LTM Nikkor 5cm f2 H on its native Leica IIIf. Both were made somewhere in the early/mid fifties. These RF Nikkors for the Leica thread mount caught the eye of David Douglas Duncan just as the Korean War was getting started in 1950. He and his fellow photographers dumped their Leica and Contax lenses when they accompanied American troops into the war. His book "This is War" has photos that really immerse one into what it might have been like in the middle of the battles (as much as one can be reading a hard cover book with shiny pages on the kitchen counter). He also writes about the war. I have only gone through the beginning of the book so far; he describes the war both with the ground level view of an embedded photographer and a strategic look at what all machinations among the key leaders at that time (both political and military) led to such a destructive outcome.
Back to the story of the Nikkors in the book. The photographers didn't take the 5cm f2, which had been in manufacture since 1948. They took the 5cm 1.5 instead, which I presume was to pull as much light in as they could onto the Kodak XX film they had with them. The 5cm 1.5 was quickly superceded by the 5cm 1.4 S, which then lasted throughout the Nikon RF era but must not have been available at the start of the war. They also had the 8.5cm f 2 and the 13.5cm f3.5 (that second one Ben's sporting now on his M10). The Barnack Leicas of that era would have needed accessory viewfinders for the longer lenses,since the built in viewfinder's frameline only covers the 50mm view. Focusing and accounting for parallax correction with those longer lenses couldn't have been easy to say the least. I think I already mentioned how tiny the separate rangefinder on these Barnack Leicas is, with its little patch for focusing.
Given all those challenges, the quality of the photos on this book, which was first published soon after the war, are just amazing. Really tells you "This is War".
Mark - thank you so much for that pic of your secret stash. I thought I had it bad but after seeing that I think I might be OK after all (but just between you and me....it is breathtaking...and there are some real gems in that collection. Breathtaking)
Samy - very interesting anecdote about the 5cm. Judging by all that research you did and the fact you bought the Leica I'd say your purchase of the 5cm had nothing to do with me - you did that all yourself my friend - it's all you.
And as you know there were other camera brands with the Leica Screw Mount - like the Nicca. My 5cm has a Nicca cap so I'm guessing it's native camera was the Nicca (I'm just saying this not to rile the purists). But I've got to say, that is a beautiful kit you have there - wish they made a digital version of that.
