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Those cloud pics are neat.
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The Good Lord certainly gives us neat stuff to photograph!
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dang, what a fine crop of photos! Mine for the weekend are based on my semi-usual farmer's market shoot,
and a pool party I went to over the weekend. i had to be on Daiquiri and photography detail, enjoyed both,
kicked a55 in the drink making job.

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man when I look at those photos above, I can't believe how I let the focus point get away from me.
The fiddle one was just an error, you can SEE the focus point clearly on the fiddle. The singer
that was just me being stupid. BLAZING sunlight and I bet I was near wide open in aperture.
Yep, I checked it and it was f/5, so at that zoom level, that was wide open. I continue to do the
same things again and again, too 'busy' to stop and think about how I am set up. In the film days,
there would be none of that. You were throwing away money for shooting stupid. On a day like Saturday,
I should have been at f/11. I guess I wanted some dramatically shallow DOF since the singer was excited
that a photographer was coming to shoot the party, lol. I wonder if he ever showed up, lolol.

In my defense, the 35-135 can be a little soft, it was hand held, and I was screwing up the settings.
but again, the camera was allowed to find it's own favorite point of high contrast to focus on, in that
case, the MIC and her MOUTH. And I can't necessarily holler, the D70 only has 5 focus points, and
I USED the right one. I just needed to be in f/8 or f/11.

Since Justin died, I guess I have to carry on around here. Pulled out the oldest DSLR I have, my old D100.
I wanted to test some lenses while I walked, and thought it would be best to go ahead and pull out some of
the oldies to have a variety of pics from all the bodies. I find it ironic that this old camera takes such a great
photo, and the D70 with a 'similar' lens could cough up such crap. In it's defense, the 70-210 is a better lens
than the 35-135, but not by much. They are almost identical in period. And the D70 is not a whole lot older
than a D100. The Nikkor 35-135 AF (shots above) is not all that different from the Nikkor 70-210 AF, which
was what shot this Day Lily today. That said, I find the 70-210mm 4-5.6 to be an excellent lens. It is thirsty
for light, but if you give it what it wants, it will reward you. But stop paying attention to your surroundings and
how they will affect your settings, you can have the best lenses there are, and you can get crap.

And in my defense, when I put on better glasses, the pics are not that bad, lol. but still TOO much light
to be wide open.

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I was messing with a couple of the cloud shots in Photoshop for various effects. It was near sunset and there they were, a huge bank of cumulus clouds right there catching the light. I was surprised the AF caught the detail so well
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When you think about it, its not a surprise. Once you focus on clouds, you are pretty much at infinity.
Same for flying planes, birds, ships, etc. They are also mostly immune from the localized haze you get
when you focus on a ship or something on the same plane as you. The lens can work better on clouds
than a ship or a far away building. That and you bought the best damn Nikon under $500.
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Once again, everything old is definitely new again. Thankfully prices on all these old lenses have gone down,
I think there was a real rush when the D700 came out, and maybe when the D200 came out before it, to buy
up a lot of manual focus lenses that could stand in for the $1000-$2000 lenses that Nikon was selling to go
with their new FX cameras. The real stars are still priced pretty high, but it would seem that there are a lot of
hidden stars that people have already forgotten about or satiated themselves on, with everyone who wanted one
already having one. I have been very lucky, in my crazy desire to read everything I can about some of this stuff,
to have found a few real dandys for a crazy low price, at least in terms of the quality for the money.

The Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 AI was one, man what a great lens....not cheap, but for $99, I really think the images
are worth it.

The Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 ED AIS was CERTAINLY one, although I think I paid $184 for that one, so it was no 'bargain'.
My favorite lens so far in life. I'd say that $184 for the best lens you own is a good trade.

The one I am on and on about today is this Nikkor 200mm f/4 AI. I have had it for a month or better, and haven't put
it on a camera yet. I thought maybe the good times might end. Boy was I wrong. This is a KILLER LENS. Not sure yet
until I go to the zoo what I REALLY have on my hands, but the pics from my walk tonight seem to indicate it will give the
180mm a run for it's money. As ever, hand-held in fading early evening light. One thing I wanted to do but really couldn't,
was to shoot at f/8. But I at least stopped down to 5.6. These pics showed me good things.....sorry, the usual subject matter.
My hand-holding kind of softened them up a bit, for this is certainly a LONG lens, but the color and contrast are really
impressive to me. As similar as these look from the 70-210 stuff from yesterday, these are all new pics today. Not a whole
lot of variety on my walk....I like color.

With this lens, I see insects where others see only flowers...

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Check out the bee on the upper left.....

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This one really got me with the DEPTH it showed, in addition to the color and crispness.

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Shark, are you using a tripod there?? Those pics are sweet.
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Ehh, the pics I took don't look very good on my work computer, lol. In fact the 70-210
looks better than the 200mm I was going on about. But still BOTH lenses were $40-$44
so I am still happy, lol.
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No, I had the camera set up on a railing for the train shot. 1/2.5 sec., f5.6, ISO 1000 +0.7EV
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One of my favorites from the game Monday....(noisey, but it is, what it is)

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