doctorbabaguy

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<p>Thanks much! I appreciate!</p>

<p>Nikon F3HP, 28mm f/2 AIS Nikkor, Kodak Tri-X.</p><div></div>

<p>With a 20 or 28mm lens for night photography, intending to capture sharp star trails and some foreground silhouette, you really don't need to worry about dof much. Get a hefty tripod, use aperture 8, focus at inifinity, point the lens to the north pole, have some stationary ground object in the field for perspective, and keep the lens open for a few hours. Just make sure there isn't an accidental car headlight or a flashlight shining into the lens. You can't go wrong in this.</p>

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<p>Nikon d300,18-55mm zoom.</p><div></div>

<p>The article indeed exists at that site, evidently written by Mike Johnston.</p>

<p>Hasselblad X-PAN with 45mm and 90mm</p>

<p>I am going to take this question in the spirit that it was asked and answer it objectively.<br>

I have been shooting Tri-X, HP-5, Kodachrome-64, Kodachrome-200, various Ektachromes, and Fujis through Leicas and Nikons for over 35 years. For the past two years I have been experimenting with d300, mostly with a single manual focus prime lens. Like many, I have been lamenting the demise of Kodachromes. However, recently I have come to the conclusion that d300 at 400ASA, shooting in RAW at -1.7 to -2.5x underexposure in bright sun, with aperture priority auto, comes closest to Kodachrome 64 on Leica M6.<br>

Humbly...</p>

<p>Wow! What a collection this week...</p>

<p>"do rationalisations limit creativity, or is it a different kind of creativity with different results? Is creativity a pure instinct, or a (consciously) developed skill?"<br>

---There is no conflict between rationality and creativity, nor is there one between the process of conducting art and science. Art is self expression in the sense of expressing how one's own mind responds to the external world; science (here I mean an individual's 'doing' of science, as in the process of 'discovery') is the internalization of the external world in the sense of creating a mental abstraction of the observed reality (here of course I do not exclude the 'science of mind' from the 'science of the external world', because in this special case mind itself becomes the 'external world'). Both processes, as they occur within the mind of the creator (the artist or the scientist) may involve intuitive leaps as well as reasoned analysis. In contrast to the process taking place within the practitioner's mind, the 'exposition of scientific discovery' is all about the clarity of analysis and reasoning once a 'truth' has been perceived; art, like poetry, is most effective when it is oblique.</p>

<p>All the time on my M6. What else can I do? On my d300, after sundown and before sunrise. Never use flash.</p>

<p>To really fit your budget and your needs, I suggest d300s (~$1699 new from B&H), nikkor 28mm f/2 AIS manual focus (~$450 on ebay), AFS Micro-Nikkor 60 mm f/2.8 ED G N (~$500 new). The 28mm will give you an effective 42mm "normal" lens equivalent with a pleasant bokeh, and the 60mm will give you crisp 90mm equivalent portrait/macro lens which will be equally good for long shots of landscapes.</p>

<p>In order of preference (highest top):<br>

Summicron 50mm f/2<br>

Summicron 35m f.2 ASPH<br>

Nikkor 28mm f/2<br>

Nikkor 105mm f/2.5<br>

Pentax SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 (screw mount)</p>

 

Taken in the Melbourne Cricket Ground stadium, 1981. Pentax SV

(without exposure meter), 135mm f/2.8 Mamiya Sekor, Tri-X<div></div>

<p>I had faced a similar dilemma recently. I have been a film shooter, with only two manual Nikkor lenses (28mm/f2, 105mm/f2.5). I rarely use the tele range but I always found 28mm to be a bit too wide for me...I tended to use either 35mm or a 50mm Summicron on a Leica M6 more often than the 28mm nikkor on my F3HP. Ultimately I decided to go for a d300 and I think it has turned out to be ideal for me because it gives me a very nice focal length (~42mm) with the dof of a 28mm. Now I don't have to focus (even at f/2) because I can estimate close distance quite well. I don't even have to look through the view finder quite often because from practice I know both 35mm and 50mm view areas instinctively, so 42mm is just half-way between the two. ISO1600 on d300 is way more than my standard ISO 400 on tri-X, giving me the ability to handhold the 28mm at 1/30s at f/2, which from previous experience I found I can use even in the dimmest light to get the effect that I want in 99% of occasions. Moreover, I can now even shoot some occasional birds with the 105mm at effective 150mm cropped area. Finally, I am $1000 fatter in the bank.</p>

"light areas shine a bit into the adjacent darker areas"

 

I believe that is how lens flare is defined. Not glow.

 

I think glow is an arrangement of luminosity that tricks the eye into thinking it is 3D while it is really 2D.

Natural depth perception uses many different visual cues (including for e.g., occlusion, linear perspective,

chromatic shifts etc), of which differential texture gradient and shading/shadowing may be the two most important

optical properties relevant here. Under certain conditions some lens/film combinations may render a particular

quality of texture gradient and shading that we possibly associate with a 3D molding of sorts, and the luminosity

associated with such a rendering might be the 'glow' we speak of here.

 

I agree that not all of the effects illustrated above would qualify as glow in my opinion. But then this is a

rather subjective matter, so opinions would likely differ.

I think for glow on negative films (bw or color), a tad over-exposure is helpful, perhaps even necessary.

No noise ninja. So far as I remember, no noise reduction of any sort. The negative was a bit over-exposed. Scanned on Coolscan IV. Only global adjustments: level, brightness, contrast etc. No selective manipulation.

Here is a glow example, I think. with Summicron ASPH<div></div>

Another correction: HCB's photos from Mexico and USA were from mid to late 1930s not from late 1940s. I mis-typed.

I stand corrected on several points: I did not realize Matt was using a digital APS-C format. That changes

everything, and I would recommend taking along a prime ~28mm lens instead of a 50mm.

 

HCB did use a short tele occasionally but very rarely. But he even more rarely used a 35mm, if at all, for

nearly all of his more renowned work. 50mm on the 35mm film format sometimes looks as if it is a wide angle. A

little tilt off the vertical axis gives that illusion, especially with non-ASPH lenses.

 

I might have implied by my words that HCB never used any other lens, but that is not what I wrote. HCB did

travel the world some of the time with only 50mm. All his wartime Europe, and his late 1940s Mexico and USA

photos were taken with a 50mm. But most likely he did use a short tele in India in the 1950s (I am guessing from

the optical perspectives in some of his photos). He evidently did carry a short tele during his coverage of

communist China's ascendancy, because one photo of him in action shows a Leica with a short tele hanging off his

shoulder.

 

But I do stand by my figurative statement, that `there is nothing you cannot do with it (50mm in 35mm format)`.

It is all in the choice of composition to go for, just as William quotes, as an "extension of the eye".

Originality missing? How's this for a unique vision?

 

http://www.lightstalkers.org/images/show/598672

Just stick to your 50mm lens. There is nothing that you cannot do with it. People like Cartier-Bresson traveled the world with just 50mm in the bag. It will force you to "see" composition rather than wishing that you had this lens or that on the camera and miss the crucial moment.

 

Whatever you decide, enjoy your trip!

Go with the biogon and start shooting. You will figure out how to wrestle the best images out of it soon enough,

and will surely experiment with other lenses in the future, but it is important to start.