funkag

<p>Laura and Paul - thanks for the correction. They were winged queens, and the conditions here in Western PA (hot, humid, etc.) match up with descriptions I found of a queen swarm. It would also explain the eventual take-off of the queens that we witnessed - at first we thought that the "wasps" were getting chased off. </p>

<p>I didn't think I had much for this week, but this evening a few ants' nests in my front yard were invaded by some kind of wasp (ID is - of course - appreciated), turning the grass into a mini war zone. </p><div></div>

<p>Alpine Avens from the Austrian/Italian border. I finally got around (2 years late) to tentatively identifying (at least to the genus) everything from that trip - anyone is welcome to offer any corrections!</p><div></div>

<p>Some Pink Lady Slipper orchids (<em>Cypripedium acaule</em>) from Southwestern PA - they're out about a week or two early this year, like a lot of the flowers.</p><div></div>

<p>I found two pink-hued Dutchman's Breeches (<em>Dicentra cucullaria</em>) plants at our nearby Wildflower Reserve - I've never seen anything but bright white before.</p> <h3 ><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi-lvKt_arMAhWqCsAKHfToBSUQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDicentra_cucullaria&usg=AFQjCNErUlW7uBxzWGqYbrowZb0-OaaV8g&sig2=WdFiNbt7gF8_rPujByybHw&bvm=bv.120551593,d.cWw" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicentra_cucullaria"> </a></h3><div></div>

<p>Thanks everyone - I just ordered a 52mm-77mm ring. It's going to look pretty goofy, but hopefully it will eliminate the vignetting. </p>

<p>I have a chrome-nosed 28mm from the early 1960's and really like the sharpness and colors that I'm getting from it (had it ai'd by John White for my D610), but the vignetting is driving me a little crazy - I can't even use a thin 52mm polarizer on it without darkening the corners (no hood attached). </p> <p>Has anyone tried a step-up ring with this lens? I have a 62mm and 77mm polarizer - any experiences with either size? I just don't know if the step-up ring will vignette on its own...</p> <p>Thanks!<br> </p>

<p>Some alpine flowers near the Pasterzengletscher in Austria</p><div></div>

<p>An older shot of driftwood along Lake Erie:</p><div></div>

<p>Spring has arrived early in Southwestern PA! The big five early wildflowers - Harbinger of Spring, Snow Trillium, Spring Beauties, Hepatica, and the (unfairly) unloved skunk cabbage are all blooming, most of them a couple of weeks earlier than normal. Here's a shot of Harbinger of Spring from a couple of years ago:</p><div></div>

<p>A quick update to this thread: on a lark I ended up buying a $9 Vivitar 200mm f3.5 lens from the mid-1980's - it was an early autofocus lens for manual focus cameras and ran on three AAA batteries in the lens. The electronics in my sample are fried (as stated in the description), but the glass is clean and blades are clean and snappy. Everything I've read says that autofocus was accurate, but painfully slow, so no great loss.</p> <p>It makes for a great internal focusing manual focus lens - no change in length when focusing, no spinning filter rings, etc. It is really nicely weighted and balances great on my D610. Wide open certainly sees some fringing and aberrations, but stopped-down things look quite nice. A minimum focus of 8 feet certainly isn't ideal, but it is easy to work around.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone - I appreciate all of your suggestions!</p>

<p>Here's one from Hohe Tauern National Park in Austria. </p><div></div>

<p>I rarely use a focal length longer than 105mm, but every once in awhile I need something over that, mostly for compressing and pulling details out of landscapes (stopped down on a tripod). </p> <p>I really don't want to shell out for a professional 70-200mm - they're big and they're expensive for the few times I'll use them (and size and use are often inversely related with me), so I've been looking at some older manual focus lenses - the AI 80-200mm f4.5 "new" version, AIS 80-200 f4, and series E 70-210mm f4. How do any of these compare to the AI 200mm f4 lens? Anything else worthwhile out there? It will rarely be open further than f8.</p> <p>In the end, would I be better off with a new 70-300mm image stabilized lens from Tamron or Nikon? Modern coatings, exotic glass, almost 40 years of further design experience, etc. likely goes a long way, I suppose. </p> <p>My only concern with all of the zooms is how well they balance while on a tripod - how front heavy do they get at their longest focal lengths? None of them looks to have a tripod collar, and none of them zooms internally. Also, how much of a problem will loose zoom mechanisms give me?</p> <p>Thanks everyone!</p>

<p>On Sunday it looks like there will be a big camera auction in the Pittsburgh area (<a href="http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/auctionview.cgi?lid=2664500&kwd=camera&zip=15108&category=0">here</a> is a link) - claiming "hundreds" of vintage cameras from a collection. Photos don't show anything super valuable, but there are a few things on there that I have never seen before. I have my daughter's last basketball game of the year at the same time (they might break double digits for the first time all year!!), or I'd be there poking around for something new to play with. </p>

<p>I wimped out on the cold this weekend and hit up the local plant zoo (Phipps Conservatory) on one of their free days instead. Something from the cactus room:</p><div></div>

<p>Yep - it's my monitor. I'm not seeing anything on my work laptop. Maybe it's time to retire the old CRT!</p> <p>Speaking of retiring, please feel free to retire this thread as well...</p>

<p>Thanks Shun. I'm actually starting to wonder if it is my monitor more than anything else - I don't see any fringing when the photo is in the lower half of the screen, but it gets heavier as it goes up toward the top. Having the pic in the thread is the first time I've really moved it around the screen. I've going to check it out on my work laptop, too. </p> <p>Purple does seem to drive the camera crazy - I really struggle to get life-like colors on the arethusa and some of the purple-fringed (and fringeless) orchids that grow around here.</p>

<p>Shun - I'm mostly seeing it along the left-hand edge of the center petal. Th image is not cropped, just resized for photo.net. There is a larger copy of the picture in my portfolio: http://www.photo.net/photo/18053784</p> <p> </p>

<p>See the example below - some relatively heavy blue fringing, which often appears at reasonably high contrast areas. The photo was taken at f/16, but I'm seeing it at other apertures as well. Lightroom can generally take most of it out, but it seems excessive for a modern design. Does it look in need of adjustment? Thanks. </p><div></div>

<p>I think there is a Sir-Mix-a-Lot reference in here somewhere... a Marbled Orb Weaver Spider from the backyard.</p><div></div>

<p>Hi All,</p> <p>There is a local ad for a (likely throw-away) Nikon N2000 with a manual focus Promaster 28-70mm f2.8-4.5 lens attached to it. I can't find any information on the lens - I'm guessing it is a rebadged Sigma, as it advertises itself as a 1:4 macro lens, similar to some other Sigmas of 1980's (like the 24mm superwide ii), but I can't find a Sigma model that matches it - the closest thing is a Tokina, but it is autofocus and looks to have very different dimensions. </p> <p>I'm sure it is nothing special, but the price is right for piddling about with it until the flowers start blooming again in the spring. Any ideas?</p>

<p>It looks about the same as a 105mm I had a couple of years ago - I never noticed the dust until I shined a light through in the process of selling it. It wasn't too hard to open up the lens to clean it.</p> <p>Here's a link to my post and some of the suggestions I got back in 2011: <a href="/nikon-camera-forum/00ZT9l">http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00ZT9l</a></p> <p> </p>

<p>I've always wondered what built this - probably better not to have met him or her along a dark, lonely trail!</p><div></div>

<p>Southern Slender Ladies' Tresses - the ladies' tress orchids, along with Autumn Coral Root, are the last orchids of the year in Western Pennsylvania.</p><div></div>