clive_murray_white

<p>Shun: your details are correct</p>

<p>this thread keeps taking me back to a very unpleasant experience, in 2008 I had to do a presentation in a government office in our capital city, an 8 hour drive from where I live. Parked the 4x4 in the carpark near the offices and when I come out from our presentation I see that a rear side window has been smashed and all my photo stuff had been stolen.</p> <p>A passer-by said it happens all the time, the thieves are watching virtually every vehicle with different state plates.</p> <p>Its made me very wary of how much stuff I take anywhere now and how securely it is stored.</p>

<p>Another "senior" joins the post, with the same kind manual focus prime lens of story dating back to about 1960 - I was a kid then.</p> <p>I don't know if I find manual focus particularly pleasurable but for my product photography (bottles of wine) I use my D800 + 45 PC-E, tethered and manual everything, and even if there is a better way I can't use it because the key to kind of work is consistency of image style.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Threads like this are always suck-ins, my photography falls into 3 distinct categories, business, pleasure (a very narrow fine art landscape interest) and holiday. Of these "holiday" has always been the most problematic, even though I know in advance that taking photos, most usually, of Australian coastal towns and their inhabitants isn't something that interests me much I'm often tempted to load the vehicle up with tons of gear. I have become far more disciplined in recent years and all I take D800, with 24-85 + Fuji X100 (gets used most - fits in my pocket). All that said, I think I should probably use holidays to have a rest from photography; my wife has a natural aptitude with her phone and clearly enjoys it.</p> <p>For my landscape interest, which is centered on a couple of small areas of forest/bush within 20kms of my home, I have found it far more productive to put one prime lens (in the 50 - 85 range) on the camera and take no others and give it a real work out to see if it can reveal the things I'm trying to expose.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Ah! the memories of Vaseline on lens filters</p>

<p>http://www.kenko-pi.co.jp/horseman/e/digital/LD.html</p> <p>Turn your DSLR into Large format, I've never seen enough pictures of Landscapes or architecture taken with this kind of set up to get really interested. And blatantly limited in terms of portablity.</p> <p>With post processing for a stitch I've found it helpful to apply Lens Profile in Light room to all the pictures I'm going to use, then once exported, in Photoshop I've found you can only go so far with the horizontal and vertical sliders, with far to much of the image going beyond it's borders, my work around for this is to enlarge the canvas size quite bit so nothing can be lost, mask the image and use the "distort" function in "edit" to manually pull the picture into something I find acceptable, and crop to a final rectangle.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Ralph - I've found that having a few crazy lenses in the kit can be very useful, I've used D800 + Lensbaby Plastic Optic wide open on quite a few occasions, you can"t get much lower fidelity "glass" than that! all the same it is a handy, pretty trippy, creative tool, though I tend to use the Double Optic and Edge 80 far more.</p> <p>I got interested in this after seeing the effects of a lens called "The Dreamagon" with Nikon mount, Petzvals, and lurking in my memory, is a set of Fun lenses, I think made by Nikon but could have been a third party maker</p>

<p><em>The quality of the images knocks spots off any other lens.</em> +1 <br> <br> I use the 45 PC-E extensively, shift far more than tilt and often with neither just because of its image quality, some stitching but not a lot.</p>

<p>Interesting article Joe, for a split second I thought you may have a point, I know a great deal about perspective and am very careful about how I use the word - distance was the word I used and you change it to perspective, with that in mind if you re-read the article you will see that the author agrees with me. </p>

<p>No sooner had I posted the previous another idea came into my head - I'm suspecting that the real answer to this landscape issue isn't necessarily a longer telephoto but the ability to alter the foreground, middle ground and distant quantities/proportions. Telephotos as we all know condense distance and sort of tilt the horizon closer to the viewer, and the bigger/longer you go the more extreme this gets which may not be desirable.</p> <p>Changing the height from which a picture is taken may solve the problem quite effectively - but ladders can be a real pain to carry around! after that you go into tilt/shift territory or maybe focus stacking.</p>

<p><em>Yes, the 180 f/2.8. Lovely lens. Cheap alternative: Series E 70-150 f/3.5</em>. +1<br> <br> </p>

<p>Jason, one of the joys back when I had a Fourthirds system was trying out all sorts of legacy lenses, Minolta, Leica R, M42, Contax/Yashica, there was a purpose behind this, as a sculptor I'm obliged to supply pictures of my work for all sorts of purposes, I'd developed a personal view that virtually every sculpture seen on the net was being photographed by either Canons or Nikons and there was sameness to the images, I wanted mine to be subtly different hence trying these lenses out. There is no quicker way of getting to see the philosophies of each different company, I found Pentax to be a bit harsh and hard for my taste, I got to appreciate the differences between Zeiss and Leica etc.</p> <p>Where you say, "it seemed that the new bodies amplified the flaws in the lens" I'd probably say amplified the lens' character - of course there are many lenses that were never any good to start with. And you can't expect a 1980's lens to take a 2016 picture or visa versa for that matter. </p>

<p>I know that when I moved over to Nikon D800 everything I read about lenses made me very nervous, even Nikon only had a small list of lenses that they were prepared to recommend for use with it. When contemplating an addition to my kit I nearly always add D800 + the lens into my search title, but there was one notable exception the AFS 24-85 3.5-4.5 G bought as a cheap, light, general purpose "holiday" lens, meaning that I was prepared to accept its limitations, but, I'm very pleasantly surprised. It is however a contemporary lens designed for FX.</p> <p>I think I've become a bit skeptical about resolution being the problem, my take on this is that our views on what makes a good looking image subtlety change over time, manufacturers seem to be aware of this and modify lenses to match our prevailing values - I only own one old Nikon lens a 75-150, and even on a D800 it always makes me smile because it images always take me straight back to the 80's.</p>

<p>Agreed Jason: re fringe removal, but it does lead to a whole bunch of different issues, in a sense, implicit in your search for a better performing mid tele are all your own photographic values, some of which must be subjective, I like my 85 1.8G because it renders my view the world pretty as I like to see it (much of the time) I'd call it a generous and friendly lens and in complete contrast the 45 PC-E is mean spirited, overly objective and ultra high fidelity - which is perfect for a line of work that I do.</p> <p>I think, in effect, you looking for an 85ish lens that matches your own photographic ideals, which is how it should be.</p>

<p>I bought 85 1.8G based on the advice of this forum when I bought my first digital Nikon, a D800 - I like it very much.</p> <p>I am a little puzzled by all the talk about fringing now that it is so easy to manage, I use Lightroom and probably fret a little too much at what I can find at 100% on a huge file. I nearly died when I found quite a lot of fringing from my 45 PC-E at 100%.</p> <p>I think I've realised that the old mantra of "a camera is only as good as the lens on it" is a bit short of the mark, because in truth we should really acknowledge the importance of processing, so its really: camera, lens, darkroom .... digital or otherwise.</p>

<p>Interesting, I'm from Australia and as far as I know directory photography isn't a big thing here but a very quick web search led me to believe that this is a very competitive activity in US and Canada. My gut feeling is that you are substantially under powered with equipment, I'd question the wisdom of working from home instead of setting up in the church or associated room.</p> <p>I'd put a lot more time into studying this on the net if I was you, looking at your own capabilities very objectively, whilst I would know that I could take the pictures virtually with my eyes closed I'd worry a great deal about my people skills and my ability to be continually, consistently and exceptionally efficient. </p> <p>Again from an Australian perspective, I'd suggest that this kind of photographic activity is always under threat these days from well meaning enthusiasts with top quality gear who are happy to do it all for free.</p>

<p>As with all lenses it's probably a good idea to experiment to find where it is happiest in these sort of situations or you like the best - rather than preconceiving what you expect from it .</p>

<p>In terms of the picture's narrative, I think you have to decide what you story you are intending to tell, a tack-sharp picture of a player, on his own, picked out from an unimportant background (f2.8) or as could have happened here (as is implied by the composition) player + coach? against a background of very animated sports fans (telling their story) maybe as much as f8.</p>

<p><img src="https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/12654708_1100424636656917_4210594619812763395_n.jpg?oh=49d93b422b69e28462cc9c9be8a7e9fe&oe=57271A37" alt="" width="850" height="491" /></p> <p>I've got a hunch that maybe the real psychological issue behind this thread is our own perceptions of<br> "body image" and what each photographer thinks is "cool". I know that when I got this little Fuji it's<br> cool retro looks had something to do with, I even thought that getting the retro leather never ready<br> case had some merit (looked cool in the ads). But as soon as I saw it I felt it looked far too new,<br> same story with the Fuji strap so I purposely distressed the case and used a genuine old strap.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Hi Kent you've just made me remember my favourite 35mm camera again the Rollei 3003 - it had interchangeable backs how could I forget that! I only had the Rollei for about a year, my wife of the time was a pro-art photographer and she didn't like the Rollei and complained bitterly that it cropped out sprocket holes in the negatives, she like many of the time liked to be able to show that she hadn't cropped an image by leaving evidence of the sprocket holes. She swapped the Rollei for a Nikon - which I didn't like for an equally nit-picking reason. I've always had to take pictures of the sculptures I make, quite often they were sitting in park like settings i.e. on grass with tress behind, the Rollei 50/1.4 rendered this exceptionally well whilst the Nikon equivalent didn't handle it at all. </p> <p>Medium and Large format still holds its own, I sold my Mamiya RB kit and Fuji GSW 670 iii when I changed over to D800.</p> <p>Many of my fine art photography mates are rusted on to their old Linhofs, Hasselblads and Mamiya 7s, real prints on real paper are pretty hard to beat.</p>

<p>I wouldn't go back to whole films with just one ISO for anything and none of my clients accept anything but digital these days. So as I see it, it's a good bit more than nostalgia, possibly it is, as memories of film slowly leach into myth, "secret men's/women's business" all enshrined in what can only be described as a <em>life used to wonderful back then</em> elitist club.</p>

<p>Ah yes Matthew - the flagellation factor, no pain no gain, I can appreciate that, my day job is stone carving.</p>

<p>Rodeo Joe, reading your last post prompted another thought that may go to the heart of this topic. There are always many people who feel the need to make things themselves and keep traditions of craft alive even when there are all sorts of machines and technologies available that have to a large extent replaced them.</p> <p>There is one thing that machines can never quite replicate and that is the human component involved in making things by "hand" - here we're talking about the photographic version of that concept.</p>

<p>nice topic - I think from a psychological perspective we visually associate retro design cameras with their analogue precedents. We also mentally add in good solid old values, like well made, long lasting and trust worthy. Because cameras (and lenses) were completely mechanical we could quite clearly see exactly how they worked - which to me was always a source of comfort and joy, they were also, in the main, the definition of good design - yes.... all that form follows function stuff.</p> <p>The definition of bad design is instructive, the washing basket is a good example, when plastics started replacing natural products, in this case woven cane used according to its natural abilities, the plastic versions replicated a <strong>mock</strong> woven appearance - so therefore bad design.</p> <p>My favourite 35mm camera was a Rollei 3003 https://www.cameraquest.com/rol3003.htm great design, beautifully made, modular and stunning set of lenses to go with it. But it was a failure in the market probably because people unthinkingly just saw it as a mini mock Hasselblad. </p> <p>In reality "retro" design is most often bad design, false design and something designed to appeal to our attraction to nostalgia. To be honest I've been sucked in a few times, first digital camera Leica Digilux 3!and the Panasonic version of it - then more recently Fuji X100 - what you notice is that the very things that made the original cameras great are very things that are missing from the new ones. Take the Fuji for example, takes great pictures, looks great but when you pick it up its so light that its an emotional disappointment, a confirmation that it is in reality a design lie. </p> <p>I too enjoy my manual focus lenses, Voigtlander 55/1.4, 45 PC-E and 75-100 but, and its a big but, I'd be foolish to claim that they're great for sporting events and similar.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Mine also - so nothing to worry about, I bought mine new.</p>