Tech Friday: Rethinking old wives tales………

Is there any advantage to being a 64 year old shooter? Well, for one thing you can remember all kinds of things that people have always said. The longer, and more often we hear something the more we just assume it’s true. An old saw was, “A zoom lens that goes from wide angle to long telephoto can’t be any good…..” Well time passes, the optical engineers learn more, and more and guess what, you can throw that old wives tale out the window. Nikon just introduced several new lenses that will be wonderful, “if” they really are sharp. The 24-120 AF- S VR f4 G is on the way to me now, so I’ll save talking about that one until after I get a chance to run it through the paces. The 28-300 AFS VR II f 3.5-5.6 G arrived yesterday, and I went straight into the field to give it a try. In fairness, I already had a great feeling about it since I saw a lot of great work from it that Bill Pekala did in Reno, they were tack sharp, great images. But would my sample equal his?

First here is the lens:

The lens is nicely balanced and seems heavier made to me. The zoom is very smooth and I found it easy to use in the field. It is supplied with a good bayonet hood that protects it from flare well. Of special note is the close focus distance of just 1.6 feet at all focal lengths. I found it to work great in close. The close up ratio is 1:3.2, pretty impressive…….

I found the lens very sharp whether focused close at 300mm like above or in the wide angle range
28mm, below.

Backlit subjects show very little sign of flare and the contrast and sharpness were stellar. The lens has both ED and Aspherical elements which have helped make the lens a great optical performer.
This lens is a FX lens so it really is 28-300 on D700 – D3 – D3s & D3x. On DX it’s a 42-450 equiv.

As a walk around lens for travel and general use it’s hard to find any fault with this new lens. It
certainly will have me rethinking what to carry, when. I will take it out west for the Moab trip and really wring it out. I’m expecting great results……..

One thing is for sure, you can pretty much throw the old thought that a lens of this range of focal lengths can’t possibly be any good, out the window! It buries that old saying for good………

I’m so thankful to live in a time when photography can be so much fun and the gear so good.
I look forward to sharing more thoughts as things play out, now I can’t wait to shoot that
new 24-120!

Father thanks again for this great life and your Son’s sacrifice for me………….

the pilgrim

*Photo note: all images made with the D3s and the new 28-300 AF-S VR II f 3.5-5.6 G lens.

And now a weekend assignment. If you would like to get a tremendous blessing, run out to the video store or Walmart, (where I got mine), and rent or buy this film. It was produced by of some of the same people that made Facing the Giants and Fireproof. This is an incredible film about God’s love and our mission for Him. I promise you, it will bless your life.