Once I did get back into the swing of things I started looking for ways to make money or gain recognition as a photographer. One day I was reading the Parade section of our Sunday newspaper and saw a photo contest. They paid $500 or something like that for first place, and $100 for each of the runner-up selections. That looked like a possible way to make a bit of money.

Then I read the fine print and realized that the $500 prize was a drop in the bucket compared to what the contest folks could get for my photograph. By entering the contest I was allowing them to do whatever they wanted with my photograph… essentially I was transferring ownership of the picture to the contest company. It wasn’t worth $500 then, and it isn’t now either.

I flashed back to this memory when I read this blog post about how various web sites are using the same technique (or something similar) today. Same scam, new audience.

Just be careful where you post your images. Read the fine print. Make sure you retain the rights you want to retain, because once they’re gone there probably isn’t a way to get them back.

The Micro Nikkor lenses have become legendary for their sharpness. I own an older manual 200mm Micro Nikkor as well, and it has given me some really nice shots. But being a full manual lens I can’t use it on my D-70 very easily. And since our venerable Nikon FG body has finally given up the ghost it seemed like a good opportunity to upgrade.

This is the biggest Micro Nikkor made by Nikon at this time. (They also offer 60mm and 105mm micro lenses.) There are also other lenses with a “macro” feature, but this is a designed as a dedicated macro lens. At 200mm it can really pull in the image; it gives you a 1:1 reproduction of the image. That means that once you view the resulting digital (or film) image at normal size you are effectively enlarging whatever you just shot. You would be amazed at the things you find when you do that.

The extra focal length (200mm versus 60mm) comes in handy when you’re working with animals or insects. Since you can stay further back it is a little easier to get the shot without disturbing the subject. With plants or inanimate objects you can get really close. Almost obscenely close. The front of the lens can be about 10 inches from the subject and you can still focus.

Sample Image: Garden Iris

Here is a picture of an iris that I took recently with this new lens.

There was no sun and there was a bit of a breeze. As a result I could not open up the lens (f-stop) as far as I wanted. This image was taken at 1/30^th of a second, and was one of several images that I shot trying to capture the flower. I really like the green leaves as the out-of-focus backdrop for the purple and yellow iris.

Composition Tip: This blog post is more about the lens than photography technique, but as a brief aside here is a quick tip. Notice how the flower runs off of the edge of the image? This sort of frame “touch” can give you the feeling of being closer to the image since the flower is extending outside of the frame rather than being fully contained within it.

The full-frame image shown above has been reduced in size and resolution for this blog post. The interesting detail is there in the larger source image, but minimized. To show the detail I have cropped the original image and presented it at the full resolution. I like how sharp the center petals are, as that area is where I was setting my focus. (Because macro lenses have such a shallow depth of field the focal point becomes really important.) As I mentioned earlier I took this image at f6.3 so the depth of field is not as deep as I would like.

Size and Weight

This lens is bigger and heavier (about 50% heavier) than my original 200mm macro. Here is a picture of the two lenses next to each other. The older lens is on the left:

Despite the extra weight I don’t find the lens to be uncomfortable to use at all. The size and balance is very natural. Since most macro shots are likely to be shot from a tripod the weight is probably not the most important factor to consider when evaluating this lens. One of the things that I do like better about the older lens is that the lens hood is built in; it slides out and covers the lens very effectively. The newer lens does not even come with a lens shade; you have to purchase it separately.

Focus Controls

I tend to keep my camera body set on auto focus. This lens has an auto-focus override that is very nice. That means that I can keep the lens in manual focus (more typical for macro shots) without having to change my camera setting. The switch is located conveniently on the top of the lens barrel, and it has a locking mechanism so you don’t slip into (or out of) your chosen mode accidentally. When I did some brief experimentation with autofocus it was quick and fast as it has the AF-S technology found in many newer Nikon lenses.

Final Thoughts

I like macro photography; I find it a great way to spend the middle of the day when I’m out shooting landscapes. I think this lens is excellent and look forward to the close-up capabilities that it provides. In a pinch it also works just fine as a 200mm lens. I think it should come with a lens hood (even if I end up leaving it at home.) It does come with a hard case. I have some more experiments that I have done with this lens, but will post them later.

Stay tuned.

Image Data
All images were captured with a Nikon D70 on a Sandisk Extreme III compact flash card. I used aperture priority mode to help control the depth of field, which is very important with macro lenses.

Today (as I write this, anyway) the best digital camera bodies that Nikon produces have a 12.something megapixel sensor. Sounds impressive, right? My Nikon D-70 has a 6 megapixel sensor. When shooting in jpeg mode the data files are typically somewhere between 2.5 and 3 megabytes in total size. If the images were shot in raw mode the file sizes would be higher. A 12 megapixel camera would capture even more data.

Does it matter? There are all sorts of articles available that will show you something just like this chart:

And so on up to even larger sizes of prints from larger sensors. The thing is, I’ve talked to (and read) folks that say you can get larger prints from smaller images just fine. So imagine there is a nice salt shaker sitting on that table.

It’s About Data

So here’s the thing. I use my D-70 to take lots of pictures. I love the camera. But what is the first thing I do when I want to post a picture on my family blog for grandparents to see? I shrink it. I rarely print pictures from the camera, and when I do the maximum size I really consider is probably 8×10.

But I use my D-70 for snapshots. I use slide film for photography. Why? It’s about the data.

Future-Proofing My Images

Once a digital image is captured you have all the data you will ever have for that image file. But if I use a film camera and capture a slide I can future-proof my image. The slide is my raw data. From that point I can use my Nikon Super Coolscan slide scanner to produce a digital image at 4,000 dots per inch. It will do 48bit colors. It’s awesome. When I bought it was the top-of-the-line digital slide scanner that Nikon made. I can scan a slide, tweak the resulting digital file, and have it printed as a very large print.

But I still have the original data (the slide) available for future use.

That means that when Nikon comes out with the Super Duper Ultra Coolscan Mark V in a few years, I can consider upgrading. Then I might be able to scan at 64bit color and 9,000 dots per inch. My new digital file will be even better than the last one, and it’s all because I still had the original non-digital source to start with again. Which brings me to the point I am trying to make: film images are future-proofed while digital images are not.

The Flaw In The Argument

I am basing my post on the idea that the future will bring even better options for converting negatives or slides into digital media files. It may be at some point that companies like Nikon decide that there’s no point in creating new technology in these areas because of the percentage of folks that have switched 100% to digital. It may be at some point that a company will create a program that will enlarge or enhance my current digital files in some fashion and make them bigger. I doubt that, actually, but it could happen.

But as it stands today I know what I can get from a scanned slide, and I know that it’s much better than any digital camera body made. So rather than run out and spend money on a D3 digital camera body I will continue to build my investment in lenses instead.

And I will continue to shoot film when I am on a photography trip, leaving the digital camera for snapshots of the family.

Wow, talk about alphabet soup. The title of this blog post is the way Nikon describes one of their newest lenses. It’s quite a mouthful, but each set of letters represents an important feature. I had been anticipating the release of this lens since last summer when it was first announced. It took quite a while for Nikon to ramp up production, and even today it is very difficult to find this lens in stock anywhere. I was fortunate enough to pick one up about a month ago during the few days B&H Photo Video had them in stock, and I have started taking pictures with it. So far, I am very pleased.

The lens title breaks down as follows:

• AF = Autofocus
• 200-400 = Focal length range
• f/4 = fixed maximum aperture throughout the range
• G = No manual aperture ring
• AFS = Autofocus with the Silent Wave Motor technology
• ED = Extra-low Dispersion glass
• IF = Internal focus
• VR = Vibration Reduction

I plan to write more about some of these various features in future blog posts, but for now I would like to talk about my initial impressions after using the lens instead. I have taken it to a soccer game and also for a short walk around a lake at our neighborhood greenbelt. While taking pictures at the soccer game I found that 200mm (the widest angle for this lens) was often too close, so I didn’t take too many pictures. I was really anxious to try out the VR (Vibration Reduction) feature at the game, but I think I need to change where I sit to take pictures.

The walk around the greenbelt was much more productive. Birds are (for the most part) smaller than children, so having the extra reach out to 400mm was very beneficial. I did not take a tripod on my walk and I did activate the VR (Vibration Reduction) feature. I was using my digital body (D70) for these shots.

Portability (Weight and Size)

This lens is heavy. For quite a few years I owned an older 600mm F4 prime lens. That was a great lens! It was, however, not a lens that you would take on a casual walk. It was not usable without a tripod. I hoped that this new lens would be easier to manage and therefore would get used more often. It weighs in just over 7 pounds whereas the 600mm F4 was almost double that. This lens is just over a foot long (14.1 inches). The “IF” or internal focus is really nice, because it means that the lens stays the same size during focusing rather than extended or contracting. (The zoom works the same way.) Yet even with the weight I was able to easily carry it on my walk around the park. I found that I would rest the lens on my shoulder rather than try to cradle it in my arms. After a few minutes it seemed quite natural to drop the lens down from my shoulder and go into a crouch (a “human tripod” so to speak) and snap off a few pictures.

I think that a monopod would be a perfect addition to this lens, and I plan to try one out and see. But it certainly seems to be usable without any support.

Zoom and Focus

One of the first pictures I took on my walk was this one of an Egret (image has been resized for the blog post):

I took this picture with the lens fully extended at 400mm (which is equivalent to 600mm on the D70 body) and wide open at f/4. Most images look good when they are viewed at a smaller resolution because you can’t see as many defects. So the next test was to zoom in on the digital image and take a closer look. Here is the same image cropped down to just the egret (image has been resized as well):

I think the egret still looks great even after taking a closer look. But the real proof is in the eyes. When taking pictures of wildlife I believe that the eyes are the most important aspect of the picture. If the eyes are dead, so is the image. So here is the egret face. The image has been cropped but is shown at the full resolution:

As a reminder, this picture was taken with the lens fully extended to 400mm and was being hand-held rather than mounted on a tripod. I think it’s an amazing shot. I don’t mean that it’s an award-winning picture that should be in an Audubon bird calendar. I do mean that the technology in the lens enabled me to capture a picture that would not have been possible otherwise.

Vibration Reduction

A few years ago we went on a vacation with my parents. They had picked up some Canon binoculars that used a new technology called Image Stabilization or IS. It sounded like a gimmick to me. However the technology is no gimmick, it really works and works amazingly well. From what I understand there is a processor and a gyroscope and some other stuff inside the binoculars that - when activated - will stabilize the image that you see through the binoculars. This is done by moving the physical glass elements around in the opposite direction from the movement of the binoculars themselves. It’s magic.

Canon released their first IS lens in 1995. Nikon came out with VR technology a few years later. The lens I am writing about is my first VR lens, and I expect that it won’t be my last. It works in much the same way as described earlier; there is a gyroscope and a processor that moves the internal lens elements around to stabilize the image, erm, reduce the vibration caused by camera shake. (This is why being first to market is often beneficial; you get to pick the name of the technology. IS is much more descriptive to me than VR. But I’m not switching to Canon equipment just for that. )

There are several VR settings for this lens. The first option is whether to turn it on or off, which seems natural enough. The second option is whether to use VR in “active” or “normal” mode. Normal mode is supposed to be used when panning the lens, either on a tripod or hand-held. Active mode is intended for use in more extreme cases, such as taking pictures from a moving car. I think the difference is how aggressive the processor is. During normal mode there is a certain amount of horizontal movement that is expected and therefore goes uncorrected. During active mode the processor is more aggressive and works to counteract motion in all directions. I haven’t done any formal (or informal for that matter) testing on this yet.

I can say that I saw a definite advantage to the VR feature while on my walk. Much like my Canon binoculars (yes, I did buy a set for myself after trying them out) you can hear a definite “click” when the VR starts up. The image in the camera viewfinder snaps or locks into view at the same time. This is not a placebo effect, this is real technology at work. I plan to give the VR more of a workout and will post those results later.

Summary

This lens is expensive and hard to get right now. But the combination of size, weight, and features make this a very attractive package. I expect that I will get a lot of use and hopefully many awesome images from this glass.

Image Data
All images were captured with a Nikon D70 on a Sandisk Extreme III compact flash card. I used aperture priority mode to ensure shallow depth of field.

Related Links

• How does Canon IS technology work?
• An interview with a Nikon engineer regarding their VR technology

Finally the batteries and the charger were in stock at the same time and I ordered them. Only to find out that one very important part was still missing: the Nikon BL-3 or battery cap. This cap is used to replace the battery cap for the motor drive when you switch from AA batteries to the EN-EL4a rechargeable battery pack. When I started searching for this item on the web and in local stores I found out that it, too, was chronically out of stock.

Enter eBay. I have seen several BL-3 auctions over the past few weeks, and all of them have sold for way more than I am willing to pay. It’s probably time to mention that it is a $50 part brand new, and is discounted by most online photography stores to much less. So paying $100 now for a part that I can eventually get for less than $40 is just not something I am interested in. Here is a screen shot of a listing from my favorite mail order source for camera stuff:

But I still go look on eBay just to see what shows up. Today I found this completed auction:

That particular Nikon BL-3 sold for $241.38. Yes, that’s nearly five times the retail price for a new Nikon BL-3. Yes, it’s very hard to find. (VHTF) Yes, it’s new. But paying five times retail price? Seriously, this isn’t a beanie baby we’re talking about here. I did a search and found more than ten completed auctions for this same item and the average price was a few pennies short of $100. But wait it gets better… here is the best part, at least as far as I am concerned. The feedback that the buyer left for the seller was:

My first purchase. {seller-name} really went out of his way to help.

I should hope so. Being willing to pay five times retail for an item should get you exemplary service from anyone.

I also have two boys, aged 5 and 6 at the moment. They’re both playing soccer in a kids league. It has been an interesting experience trying to adapt to sports photography. Kids rarely stop moving.

We have had three games so far. Two of them have been daytime games, and one was a night game. I tried taking pictures at the night game but could not get my speed fast enough. And this is with f2.8 lenses. I could have bumped the ISO setting (I was shooting digital for the game) but I didn’t think about that in time.

On the last daytime game I shot over 100 pictures (again, digital ) trying to practice. After the first game I figured out that rather than trying to focus on the kids playing, I should focus on the ball instead. So this time I set my focal area to the lower part of the sensor, popped on my 80-200mm zoom lens, and started tracking the ball. It worked okay; I got some shots I am quite happy with. I also got shots like this one:

If you look closely at the image you can see what the name of our team is. I got several shots of feet and a ball, or just feet, or just a ball. But the strategy seemed to work as I also got some good shots like this one:

And this one is my favorite:

I have a few more games to practice. Since I am doing all of this with my digital camera, I had hoped to be able to post a large selection of team action shots and let parents download them and print them at their favorite discount store. So far it seems that I’ve taken mostly pictures of my own kids.

You can understand that, right?

Image Data
All images were captured with a Nikon D70 on a Sandisk Extreme III compact flash card. I used aperture priority mode to ensure shallow depth of field.

The DX lenses from Nikon are intended to be used with their digital cameras. In a nutshell it means that the lens is designed for the smaller focal area found in most current digital camera bodies. Until now I have always decided to get the full-featured “film” lens because they work just fine on my film cameras. The will also work on the digiital cameras but the focal length is effectively increased due to the smaller sensor. This is great for longer lenses (a 300mm becomes a 450mm on a digital camera with the smaller sensor) and stinks for wide angle lenses.

So why would I even consider it for the fisheye? It’s because the fisheye lens geometry is so precise that it will only work properly on one type of camera or the other. Decisions, decisions… what to do?

Experimental DX

Ultimately I decided to get the DX fisheye lens. Why? Mainly because I felt like I would get more use out of it (at least initially) since I carry my digital camera with me almost all the time. I wasn’t sure how much use I would really make of it. The fisheye look is certainly fun and interesting, but it gets old after a while. I would not want to have this lens as my only lens, or even my second (or possibly third) lens. There are so many other choices that are much more useful for a wider range of subjects.

So I decided that getting a lens that I would use more often would allow me to decide whether this particular technique was interesting to me or not. After that I would decide if I wanted to purchase a film fisheye as well.

It turns out that I didn’t even last a month before I decided to pick up the film version of the fisheye lens. If I could only get one of the two, I think I would say that getting the digital would be the better choice. The main reason is what I mentioned earlier: I would use it more often.

Today I am still a bit of a film snob. Or at least that’s the way I like to put it. I use my digital camera for taking pictures. I use my film camera for photography. I don’t envision that changing for another couple of years. In fact, I just bought two more film cameras last year as well. But I’ll tell you more about them in another post.

It took six months just to figure out what the domain name was going to be. I approached the problem from several different directions. I tried various combinations of my name and keywords like “photography” and “pictures” and other options along those lines. I even found a latin dictionary on the Internet that I used to try to come up with something creative! Nothing worked… and by that I mean that nothing “clicked” for me. I started thinking about what photography was really about, at least to me, and by this time I had been taking pictures for about 3 years. I had learned the hard way that it really didn’t matter how you composed the shot, or how amazing the subject matter was… if you didn’t have that magical moment of light the picture didn’t have the same spark.

Hm. Moment of light. That sounded intresting. A quick search of the Network Solutions database (at the time they were just about the only one allowed to register domains) showed that unlike many of my other ideas, this one was available.

I registered it for ten years and moved my AOL member pages over to the domain name. The site has grown over the years (less in recent years due to other projects taking a large percentage of my time) and today I launch the blog component in order to provide a more interactive format.

Oh, and the domain name? It was only a few months after the registration when we got our first phone call from someone looking for the business Moments of Light. Imagine our surprise, since we had not advertised anything and in fact were still getting the initial web site put together.

Turned out the guy was looking for a company to sell him some lightbulbs.