Telephoto Time: Nikon 55-200mm

So I've once again lapsed in my output of blog posts... But now my internship is over for all intents and purposes (is it bad that I wanted to write all intensive purposes?) and all I have is one more session of housekeeping, so hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more often... Well, I promised a review of my 55-200mm zoom and here it is! 

I'll be completely honest, I was a little disappointed with it. It's autofocus is a bit slow and takes awhile to figure out what you want. It can be blurry when hand held unless you take extra care to keep completely still. Also, important to keep in mind is that you have to be at least 2 or 3 ft away from the subject for it to work... I kept making the mistake of stepping up really close to whatever I was trying to photograph and becoming extremely frustrated that it wouldn't take the picture! With that said, when it does work, it works very well. The pictures are crisp and the zoom is GREAT! You probably wouldn't need to go to a much higher-end mm, and for the price of $179, I'm not really complaining. Here are some shots I took with it when out by the lake!

These dragonflies were extremely good-natured and didn't mind a strange girl trying to get closer to them. This was the huge benefit of this lens. I realized my issue was that I was trying to use the lens as a macro-lens (a lens which can really magnify the subject from close up) and that instead, I should have focused on the fact that this is a really good zoom and can get close to subjects that might be a bit more antsy were I try to get right next to them. 

I think I would recommend this lens with the caveat that you shouldn't expect too much from it. It thrives best in the outdoors and can get some terrific action shots. 

I just got a wide-angle, a sigma 11-20mm lens so I'll put that up next! Hope you enjoyed the update =)

Lens Playtime: Pro-Optic 8mm Fish-Eye Lens

I hope I'm keeping you on your toes about when I'm going to post next. Now that I've got some new lenses, I figure that I might as well demonstrate what they can do! As a refresher, I have purchased a refurbished Nikon 55-200mm 1.4-5.6 f and a Pro-Optic 8mm fish eye lens (I also picked up a new carrying pack as well as a flash!).

I might as well start with the fish eye because it's so much fun! I have to admit when I first received it, I was a tad bit disappointed... I forgot that it only works on manual setting with my D5000 DX camera (I've heard that it works fine with the full-frame FX cameras like the D700). I was panicking because with every single setting, e.g. S (shutter priority), A (aperture priority), the no flash, the auto, etc, my very intelligent and fickle machine calmly informed me that there was no lens attached to its body. It was blinking at me that the very real and tangible lens that was supposedly locked in place was really a figment of my foolish imagination. Needless to say, I was disconcerted. However, in my frantic switching of settings, I finally saw that when it was on the M (complete manual) the coded message ceased its relentless blinking. Finally I was able to snap a photo! Unfortunately, I was unaware that at night, the interior of the apartment resembles a dark cave to the lens. No matter how much I fiddled with increasing the ISO and the exposure compensation, the camera obstinately refused to lighten the scene. This is the second problem with the fish eye. In my shame as a failed photographer, I deleted the incriminating dark photos so I am unable to present them for your viewing pleasure.

After this horrendous night, I was almost positive that I had just thrown $289 right down the toilet and that the only thing to do was to return the confounded object from Hades. However, I decided to give the beast a second chance (luckily for me) and try again in the daylight. IT. IS AMAZING. Despite its limitations, it is so much fun and without anything to distort it in the foreground, it works more as a ridiculously awesome wide angle. I've found that at times I actually have to work at distorting the world! Here are some takes from the camera on my wilderness romp today.

You can actually adjust the f-stops and the amount of light entering the photo with a handy little adjustment ring. Look at the difference between the picture above and the one below:

This was actually really difficult to get because it wouldn't focus and even though I was literally standing about 6 inches from the flowers, this was the view through the lens

The car shot worked a little better but there's ghosting in this shot and I heard that was a problem with this lens so I had to be very careful whenever the sun was around (which was a lot of the time, the way I found around it is just to keep aiming down).

Again, difficult to focus on the foreground when it's too close...

Doesn't the pond look a little like the actual lens?

Since it's after midnight and I have to get up early (well for me at least) tomorrow morning to drive to DC for father's day, I'll just finish up my telephoto 55-200mm tomorrow evening!

Lens Shopping! *Warning, a bit dry if you're not interested in this*

So, I lied. The whole one-a-day didn't happen this week. I'm going to go ahead and blame the photography internship! Time well-spent and fun but not conducive to dedicating time to the blog... But I am currently chock-full of new information regarding lens shopping for my D5000. Awesome AWESOME camera although it doesn't pair with some lenses because it doesn't have an auto-focus (AF) motor in the actual body and so in order for auto focus to work, it needs to have a lens that has an AF motor built into the lens. This has been a pain trying to figure out, it'd be nice if people just stated it clearly rather than requiring me to wade through a ton of useless and unclear articles...

I do have a godsend though: Ken Rockwell D5000. Ken Rockwell is amazing. The only drawback is that since he reviews so much, he can't cover EVERYTHING and so there's still quite a bit of independent research to be done. So the goals I had this week were to find a super wide angle (wide angle appears to only be 18mm to 30-ish mm and I definitely wanted to go wider which means have a lower mm), a telephoto (not quite sure where the mm of the telephoto begins but I'm guessing 55mm and up), and a standard 35mm portrait lens. I have thus far purchased the telephoto and a fisheye (it just kinda crept into my shopping cart...). With limited funds, I have found the 35mm and will wait to purchase it until later, when I actually have money. This likewise applies to the super wide angle which is surprisingly pricey.

So, to begin. The telephoto was almost the easiest to decide on. I ended up opting for the 55-200mm Nikon lens because the lens that the D5000 comes with is 18-55mm and so I thought that it might make a better coverage. The sites that I've gone for have been: B&H Photo Video, Cameta Camera, Newegg.com, Amazon.com, and Adorama.com. Cameta and Newegg aren't that helpful. I bought mine refurbished by Nikon so I'm not too worried and it was cheaper! Always to be appreciated.

B&H Photo Video Nikon 55-200mm

There was a 70-300mm that was tempting me but from the reviews that Ken Rockwell gave, it wasn't entirely necessary. Eventually I'll upgrade to the 300mm but the 200mm is ample for now! The tip that I had to figure out after some research is that the D5000 is a DX camera meaning it is not a full-frame FX camera (these are the high end pro Nikon cameras and the film cameras).  Also, with a telephoto, vibration reduction (VR) is extremely important because with such a high zoom, it is noticeable when the camera is not held completely still. I don't have a tripod, so it will all be hand held shooting for me! 

Now, after doing preliminary research on the super/ultra wide angle, I found it too confusing and too depressing with the high prices sooooo I started looking up fisheyes! Fisheye lenses are awesome and fun, and while others may say they can be difficult or get boring easily, I beg to differ. Here is an example:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4456330924_96568f7a21.jpg

The Nikon AF DX Fisheye-NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED is the really expensive one. It goes for around $650 to $750. I don't have the funds for that soooo, I have opted for my first non-Nikon brand lens! Now this was, not to put too fine a point on it, a pain in the @$$. There are so many off-brands and it's hard to compare them. Also, having grown up overseas, I have an extreme paranoia of knockoff items (fine for clothes, not so fine for electronics). After hours upon hours of research I finally narrowed my choice down to the Pro-Optic 8mm fisheye ($289.99) and the Rokinon 8mm fisheye ($284.85):

Pro-Optic 8mm f3.5 Fish-Eye lens

Rokinon Aspherical Fisheye

I finally figured out that the Rokinon brand is the same as Bower, Opteka, and Samyang. The Pro-Optic is a version of this exact same lens although apparently it is the Adorama house brand. I went for the Pro-Optic because Ken Rockwell gave an exact review of it and there didn't seem to be a difference. Both don't autofocus or meter (this has something to do with exposure) with my D5000, the only ones that do are the pricier models. I sucked it up since it's not such a big deal with a fish eye since the photos taken with this lens are for long distance and don't need as much fine tuning.

They look almost exactly the same don't they? The difference between the two seem to be that the Pro-Optic takes more of a wide angle view as opposed the more extreme distortion of a traditional fisheye.

Okay, so now that I finally figured out two of these lenses, I finally turned my attention back to the ultra/super wide angle lens. Again, after hours of searching I think I've decided on getting the Sigma 10mm-20mm ($479)! It is one of the cheapest out there and is pretty good quality:

Sigma 10-20mm f4.5

I was torn between the Tokina 11mm-16mm, the Tamron 11mm-18mm, and this Sigma. The Nikon 12mm-24mm DX was right out ($900 and up). While Ken Rockwell gives a favorable review of the Tokina, it isn't autofocus compatible with the D5000:

Ken Rockwell Wide Zooms Comparison

Plus, the Sigma is 1mm less, which probably isn't THAT important but it makes me feel better =) Here is an example of what this kind of ultra/super wide angle can do:

http://cache.foxsaver.com/thumbnails/2008/04/10/392993651l.jpg

As a helpful guide to what is compatible with the D5000, here is a great site:

Nikonians Compatibility

None of the photos are mine since I haven't received the new lenses and I haven't really gotten to shoot my own pictures recently but soon soon soon!

Ohhh! Here is something cool that I finally figured out: people kept referring to ghosts in the photos and I had no idea what that meant but now I do =) When you point the camera at a bright light or there is a strong light source nearby, small little circles can appear on the screen and those are ghosts:

http://www.angelsghosts.com/images/lens_flare_ghost_picture_112008a.jpg

That's it for now! I'll be sure to post what these lenses can actually do when I receive them =)

Faulty ISO Information

*Note! Some (all) of this information is incorrect, look at the comments to see the corrections!*

Dear reader(s),

I apologize for the absurd amount of time it has taken me to post another entry and I promise that I will attempt to do the one-a-day posting from now on! If I don't...then there's not much that could really punish me at this point unless one or all of the existing pantheons decide to strike me down. However, to make up for my hiatus I will impart what little gems of knowledge that I have garnered from my fruitful week-long internship!

First of all, I have come to the realization that in every field and profession, there comes a point that individuals achieve a certain level of mastery after which the basics are taken for granted. This morphs into the assumption that every single human being was born with knowledge of what an arhat is, what ISO means and does, and at what point should a meat thermometer be inserted into the meat (it actually depends on whether or not it was an oven built thermometer or one that is an instant read and should only be inserted at the end to get a gauge of internal meat temperatures).  Since I will (hopefully) achieve this mastery in photography, I should probably start writing down now everything that I have struggled to learn before I too succumb to the allure of smugness. The following hints are for manual operation on DSLR cameras.

Lets see, so ISO stands for...okay, I don't actually know what it stands for BUT I do know that the lower the ISO, e.g. 200, the more light is let into an image which makes it brighter. If you are taking pictures on a DSLR camera and do not have it on an automatic setting, you'll have to manually adjust the ISO smaller or larger depending on how bright the photo is. If it's too bright, raise the ISO. I don't really have a cheat sheet yet for what are typical numbers, I'm still getting a feel for it myself, but that's the basic premise. I had the opportunity to play with a Nikon D700 this week (it is AWESOME) and this professional type of camera actually allows ISO change and manipulation right in the toggles and buttons on the camera. My awesome D5000, beginning more of a starting point and a good transition into professional cameras, only allows ISO change through the menu. A little more time consuming but once a setting is done, you shouldn't have to change it too much unless you're moving around a lot between well-lit and dark areas.

Also in line with how much brightness is in the shot is the F-stop (aka relative aperture, focal ratio according to wikipedia). I'll spare you the wading that I had to do through convoluted explanations of what this does and give you the easy answer: the lower the f-stop, the larger the aperture, the more light that enters the camera! So, if the picture is too dark, then just lower the f-stop and it should lighten up. Conversely, if the picture is too light, adjust the f-stop higher and it should darken.  Watch out if you fiddle too much with both the ISO and the f-stop or you could end up with a ridiculously light photo even at night.

                                                                 before

                                                      after

White balance is another way to lighten or darken photos by adjusting it higher or lower depending on how much light you want. Shutter speed I'm still figuring out...through some sort of finagling I managed to get the shutter speed to 1/6000 of a second which contributed to the lightness of the above photo. When I know more, I'll be sure to post!

Well, that's it for now. I'll write something soon comparing Picasa (the google free editing software) and Lightroom (adobe's pricey version).

 Adieu!

Evolution Redux: A Story of Moldy Bread

Since I'm waiting for some statistics to download for my perceptions of Africa paper, I thought I'd take this opportunity to write my entry for the day. Not much of humorous note has taken place within the last 24 hour period, so I'll just focus some more on photography! I've been experimenting with filters and different settings on the camera and in order to make this process a little more interesting, I'll tell a little story alongside the pretty pictures. Here are a series of shots of the growing world that sprang from a single loaf of bread:

Notice that there are basically two main spheres of growth. From a distance they look like googly eyes! I imagine that were we to shrink, they would either be giant whirlpools of a churning maelstrom or bogs and forests filled with varieties of woodland sprites. Notice that the majority of the world is brown and would likely be deserts and giant canyons. The plastic enclosing the bread-world is the atmosphere. As the maelstrom rages and the forests and bogs continue to grow and produce liquid, cloud formations begin to form, further fermenting the living organisms within. Thus far, the only gods that exist are pagan, and centered around natural formations such as water and earth and green growth, e.g. the woodland sprites.

Now, fast forward two weeks our time (a few million years bread-world time) and see the changes that have taken place. The atmosphere is now fully formed with traces of regular rain storms and climate cycles seen in the droplets of water.  The world is now completely green and prosperous, without arid land to hinder agricultural growth. However, as seen from the first picture, an evil force has taken over the land, and that being's name is Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. You can see his evil yellow eye staring malignantly out from the beleaguered world. He has clearly claimed the entire world as his own and harnessed the woodland sprites to his bidding.

Alas that this world rest beyond both hope and redemption. It grows worse daily, the pure green now diluted and warped by a sulfurous yellow that chokes the life from the once bountiful land. There is only one way to handle this situation: put this world out of its misery and destroy Sauron once and for all. So, a hero was called forth from among the dying masses. It was she, the magnificent mistress of trash, who took control of her fate and the fate of all the worlds. She banished the evil being and exiled her own land into the gaping, stinking abyss in which they would be trapped for all eternity.

Through her sacrifice, the rest of the universe is now safe.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my story, I got a nice chunk of procrastination out of the way!