More Photos From the New Camera
Posted on March 23, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 27 Comments
When I got the new camera, I skipped the kit lens that came with it and bought two specific lenses instead: a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens (which doesn’t zoom), and a 28-300mm f/3.5 – 5.6 zoom lens (which zooms rather a lot) which comes with vibration dampening, so presumably at full zoom you won’t get too much shake.
The pictures yesterday were with the 50mm lens, which I like a lot — it works fantastically in low light, which is great because I dislike using flash and try to avoid it whenever possible. Today I went outside and shot with the zoom, to see how it does. The results are below. All the pictures are zoomed in to some amount or another (the picture of the dude on the bike was at full zoom; I was roughly 800 feet from him when I took the photo).
Not bad at all for a general purpose lens. I suspect I’ll be using the 50mm most of the time when I’m shooting indoor or shooting portraits, but it’s nice to know this lens will fit my needs if I’m going to be in a variety of situations.
The black and white cat looks so much like mine. Is she/he a haughty cat, as well?
The 50 is a lovely lens, but it does have a habit of making the nose a bit big when doing a full frame portrait. Nikon makes an absolutely beautiful lens that’s quite reasonably priced, 85 mm F1 .8, that really does justice to faces. Additionally as the focus is silent it makes a great video lens for doing interviews.
Zeus looks (less than) thrilled that you’re taking his picture. Lovely cat!
:-)
Eric Smith:
Fortunately Photoshop has a lens correction profile for the particular 50mm I have, which helps with that (it also has one for the 28-300mm lens, too, which in fact I used on these photos).
I Loved my 50mm prime lens, I learned a lot from it–until the day it died on the steps of the Kansas State Capitol.
OTOH, I have three other primes (the new 28mm, a 40mm and the newest 100mm macro). so yeah, I’m a prime lens convert.
Nice stuff. You have a good eye, which is the important part of photography.
@Paul: Yeah, I’m pretty much the same way with my Micro 4/3 setup. My most-used lens is the 20mm f/1.7 Panasonic, second probably the 14mm f/2.5 Panasonic, and I have the Rokinon 12mm f/2, Olympus 45mm/1.8 and Sigma 60mm/2.8 as well.
RE: First photo.
Happy International Puppy Day.
Also, Concrete Athena is the name of my next band.
The “nifty fifty” is fine, but not that useful. Basically, it works for two people in the frame.
When I was shooting for my college newspaper (The Rice Thresher, a fun pun), I carried a 35/2, an 85/1.8, and a 200/2.8. That pretty much covered everything. Outside of sports, the 35mm was nearly 100% of my photos.
That was all film, shooting over 10,000 exposures in two semesters. That’s a lot of time in the darkroom.
Now I’m worried that the Weeping Angel is going to come for you in your sleep.
Actually, no, now I’m worried it’s going to come for me. Crap.
Yes, here Photoshop is such a boon. I was a purist for a while, until I watched the making bits of Lord of the Rings where Peter Jackson in the cutting room needed a shoot, picks up a camera, disregards the lighting and shot the scene he needed for the film, post production did the rest of the work. It was then that I realized that a camera is a f$%#”ing tool to do photography and not a fetish for photography.
That’s a good photo of Zeus. Really nicely framed, good composition, focus, color balance.
Scalzi: 28-300mm
jeebus.
Beautiful. Loved the tree.
Impressively Crisp . . .
You’ll start loving that 300mm for long distance. When I bought my D3200 it came with an 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm. I quickly traded the later for a 55-300mm lens and never looked back. I’m assuming yours is a Nikor? If so, the VR (image stabilization) will help a lot, especially with handheld shots.
From a bit over 400 feet I snapped a picture of a catcher at baseball practice just as the ball hit his mitt. I got enough detail when I enlarged his mitt that you can see the seams and stitching on the ball itself. In another case I took a photo of one of our local dams from about 1000 feet away and after I got home and started looking at it full-res I noticed a bird sitting on some of the rocks just below the dam.
So my advice young sir is to get your butt outdoors and zoom to your heart’s content.
The fiddy is a great all-purpose lens. I had one for my Canon (f1.8) that I didn’t take off for a solid year! My new favorite is my 30mm (f1.4). It’s heavier but takes gorgeous photos!
Nikon have what looks like a nice 24-85 zoom, which covers the working range I found most useful. OTOH that was then – I was using a pair of Nikon FMs with fixed-focus lenses, with a 35mm as the spare. I wanted to use a 35 / 105 pairing, but the 105 was too long for indoor work.
(35 was always my standard lens.)
C W Rose
Hey, your swamp maples are blooming, sweet! And I love the composition of the guy on the bike.
Ah, you have what This Week in Photo‘s Fredrick Van Johnson calls a “fast 50”, which seems to be the Prime Lens everybody encourages you to get with camera that has removable lenses.
Long time Canon photog here – my first SLR was a Canon A-1 my dad bought me when I was in college, mid 1970s. In my experience, I find a 80mm prime to be a great choice for portraits. My favorite all-in-one lens is a 22 to 300 mm, rather like yours, with image stabilization. (I currently shot with either a Canon 350D or 60D; also have a PowerShot that has a built in zoom lens (in lens magnification) of 25 – 800 mm) that I use a lot, especially on the water or the beach – not quite as sharp in enlargements as the SLRs, but I don’t have to worry about sand and salt air getting in the camera body as I’m not changing out the lens. For the SLRs, I also have a 500mm cadetropic (I’m sure I spelled that wrong, but it’s basically a reflector / mirror telescope adapted to use as a camera lens) that works pretty well; it has limitations but if you know how to work inside those limits it is a really nice lens. Add in a wide angle lens (I think 11 or 12mm but don’t remember exactly at the moment) and a 200mm macro, and I’m normally a happy camper (aside from drooling over Canon’s 400mm telephoto lens… much too rich for the current state of my bank account!)
Lovely photos of Daisy and Zeus.
Though I’m not sure in the photo of Zeus, he and the ‘welcome’ mat conCATenate very well. :)
Looks to me like Zeus has shoulder to door . . . holding it open . . . thinking “If I can keep this door open, maybe those two scampering nuisances will bolt out and I’ll have my peace back . . . where ARE they, they’re always scampering about until I want them to . . . ”
Have you taken the scamperbeasts outdoors yet? or were they in safe confinement in this photo?
All hail the prime lens! I have always found that nothing makes you think more as a photographer than when you need to zoom and compose with your feet. Have you ever considered going to back to some shooting on film? A rangefinder or viewfinder REALLY requires you to think before clicking the shutter. Enjoy the D750!
Don’t start collecting Nikon super-telephotos. The new ones with auto-focus and VR are expensive (800 mm 5.6 for only $17K!) and I don’t need any more competition for the old, manual focus versions. If you’re ever in Seattle get in touch and you can strap on my 400mm 2.8. Weight training along with photography.
I like your prime lens a lot. The other one is fine for most people, but doesn’t get as sharp as the really good (read expensive) lenses. I’m slowly collecting them. My first, cost about $1,500 and goes down to about 2.8. It’s a pro lens. If you get a chance to shoot with one, try it out. The sharpness is stunning.
The pro lens I have (my first, but not my last) was this one: Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED Zoom Lens