Category : Pilgrim’s Chronicles

* Since Friday of this week will be Christmas Eve and I want to hold that spot for a very special Christmas message, I’m moving the tech update to today.

As a photographer I’ve seen a lot of my life looking through a viewfinder, through a lens. In many ways those lenses have become an extension of my eye. So much of what I have tried to express in my photographic career has come down to which lens will best help me capture that moment.
Always remember, it is the “glass” that matters, sharp lenses are one of the critical parts of the formula to make sharp images.

I’ve often been asked what lenses I own besides the ones I’ve illustrated as my current go to lenses.
First let me make one thing clear, I truly believe that the optical quality of today’s lenses are superior to most everything made in the past, and that is why a few lenses are the ones I use day to day. Once again quickly here are my current go to lenses: FX lenses; 14-24 AFS f 2.8, 17-35 AFS f 2.8, 24-70 AFS f 2.8, 70-300 AFS VR f 4.5-5.6 (all these lenses by the way are Nikkors – Nikon lenses.) DX lenses; 12-24 AFS f4, 16-85 AFS VR f 3.5-5.6 and the same 70-300 AFS VR f 4.5-5.6.

Now those are the everyday get it done lenses. Why would I own anything else? Well it’s kind like the old shoe box on your closet shelf that has your marriage license, a toy airplane from when you were five, those tickets from when Dad took you to the big game, a tattered picture of your wife when you first met, you know that personal stuff. I think if you took our our secret boxes down from the shelf, and got an explanation about why that stuff is in the box, you would learn a lot about each of us. Old lenses are kinda like that for me, for instance I have a very old, circa early 70’s, Nikkor 105 f 2.5 lens. In the early days any serious photographer that shot Nikon, and back then it was almost everyone, those that didn’t own a classic 105 were considered crazy. It’s not only that this lens is one of the best ever, I photographed 3 presidents with that lens. If I sold it it would only bring about $100. no way, partner. I still use it ever once in a while and I still love the way it feels on a camera and the sweet images it makes. What else have I held onto for old time sake. I’ve got an old manual Nikkor 24mm f 2.8 AI which still is a stellar performer. One really special lens I held onto is the 50-135 f 3.5 a very, very sharp short range zoom that is great for aerial work. In fact it was the lens I used a lot in my first book with Wesley, great memories for sure. One zoom lens that I loaned to my kids and I don’t know what ever happened to it, is the 70-150 Series E zoom, made famous when the late Galen Rowell raved about it in Outdoor Photogapher’s Magazine. One of the really interesting sets of lenses is my collection of 80-200’s. I have the original, legendary 80-200 f4.5 and it’s predecessor the 80-200 f4. The first hand holdable 80-200 AF f 2.8 and two of the sweet little 70-210 AF f 4-5.6 push pull lenses, all still great lenses. The original 70-300 f 4.5-5.6 push pull with a tripod collar, almost all metal, still a very good field lens. A lens I still use a lot for special work is the incomparable 200mm Micro Nikkor f4.

A lens that I still love and use from time to time is the 300mm f 4.5 IF-ED, it is manual focus but oh so sharp. Other Micro Nikkors that I love and still use form time to time are the 55mm Micro Nikkor f 2.8, the 60mm Micro Nikkor f 2.8 AF, and the legendary 105 f 2.8 Micro Nikkor. the last lens was a gift from my dear friend Dr. Charles Stanley, even if weren’t a incredibly sharp lens, that would make it a life long keeper. I also lucked up on a 35-70 AF-D f 2.8 push pull zoom
a couple of years ago and it is still a favorite when you want that range and what to carry less weight, it’s optically wonderful. I have a set of fast AF glass that I use for available light shooting;
35mm f2 AF, 50mm f1.4 AF, 85mm f 1.4 AF and the 180mm f 2.8 AF lenses, all very, very sharp and very, very fast.

When I retire someday, I will pick up the 12-24 and the 16-85 and probably the new 28-300 AFS VR f 3.5-5.6 which I don’t own. Believe it or not I don’t own any camera bodies, why should I, I’m using Nikon’s until I decide which ones I want to ride in to the sunset with, then I’ll purchase those.

Well that is my little tale of gluttony. I guess I keep all this old glass because as a Nikon shooter they are all still usable on all my pro cameras, even today, and well, they have sentimental value to me. This year has been a personal celebration of 40 years as working pro, and those lenses, at least some of them, have been with me every step of the way. You don’t throw away an old friend just because they have gotten older.

One question I’m asked often is why don’t own any really long lenses? Actually with a DX body my 300’s give the equivalent cropping of a 450, which is all the focal length I need for the kind of work I do. If you do specialized work like sports or wildlife those lenses are essential. I just don’t do very much of that kind of photography anymore.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, I feel better, confession is good for the soul. I promise to “try” not
to buy anymore lenses, I’m just not sure “how” hard I will try though…….

the pilgrim

The little camera in the upper left hand corner? My first good camera bought in college, a Minolta
Autopak 500, ( with a 38mm Rokkor f 2.8 lens – zone focusable). After graduating, while teaching and coaching high school football, I got my first Nikon, a Nikkormat FTN with Nikkor 50mm f2 lens!
My first four lenses were the 50mm f2, 105mm f 2.5, the 24mm f 2.8, and the 200mm f4.

O.K. I’ve owned and shot the following Nikon bodies; Nikkormat FTN, Nikon Photomic FTN,
Nikon F2, Nikon FM, FM2, and FM2-T, Nikon FE2, Nikon F3, F3T, Nikon F4, and Nikon F5.
Digital: Nikon D1, D1x, D1h, D100, D70, D2h, D200, D300, D300s, D700, D3, D3s, D3x
D7000 (all consigned by Nikon)
Plus a number of 2 1/4, 6X4.5, 6X7, and 4X5’s.

Anyone who read this far must love lenses……………………..

Nikon just announced a joint contest with National Geographic and I’ve provided the link below;

http://nationalgeographic.promo.eprize.com/nikonaspire/

You can go to that web address and enter every day from now until January 26th, 2011. Worth a try, you might just win a Nikon D7000 and a shooting trip with a Nation al Geographic photographer.

Not to brag, but of the three images illustrating the contest above, two are mine. The middle shot and the shot to the right. Both cropped tighter than the original image, but hey, that’s what editors do. Makes you feel good when your company uses your images. Now the challenge is not feel good all day patting myself on the back. Dr. Charles Stanley once told me when I asked him how he kept from getting the big head, since everyone we walked past know him, he said, “When someone compliments you say thank you and enjoy it for that moment, but when they walk away, let them take their compliment with them.” In other words don’t continue to replay that kind word allowing yourself to make more of it than it deserves. So, I will be walking away now………..

Have a great weekend,

the pilgrim

Please allow me to start out with a really, silly example. For many years one of my hobbies was audio equipment, I guess I was an audiophile. I loved and still do love music and I always had a really good stereo system. I’ve owned a lot of different speakers, including; Bose, AR, Advent,
Boston Acoustic, Polk, and many others. My amplifiers and receivers were always top of the line units, I even built a few myself. Back in those days (60’s through the late 70’s) you used to buy audio gear by the pound, will not really, but it seemed if it was good, it weighed a ton. Today that is less true. It is certainly less true with camera gear.

My job for Nikon involves advising a lot of photographers about what gear will best suit their needs to do a particular job. I’ve been obsessed with the subject for many years, long before I went to work as a Nikon tech rep. In the last decade and a half, I’ve had a turn about on what gear to cary and use. I’ve gone smaller and lighter. In the past I would have thought that this was sacrificing something to loose that weight. With a few caveats, I don’t think that anymore.
FX sensors (Nikon’s name for 35mm size sensors / 24 X 36mm), are great for working in very low light at High ISO. Because the actual pixels are larger they do not need to be amplified as much to increase their sensitivity in low light, therefore noise is greatly reduced. Because the sensor is larger, so is the viewfinder, so it is bigger and brighter. Today (12/17/10) in my opinion the very finest camera in existence for general photographic use, the kinds things you and I shoot, is the Nikon D3s. This 12 .1 mega pixel, $5,000.+ camera has the best overall image quality of any camera I have ever used, period. That is the ratio of noise to resolution to color quality.

I believe the new D7000 might just be in 2nd place. The D7000 is a DX sensor camera meaning the sensor is 23.6 X 15.8mm. Packed into that sensor are 16.2 mega pixels. In terms of resolution the D7000 is now Nikon’s highest resolution camera. But the D3x is 24 mega pixels you say. That’s true but remember the D7000’s smaller sensors packs those pixels into a smaller space, thus higher pixel density and, wallah, more resolution. The noise, while very very low, is not up to the standard of the D3s, but for many of us, it is more than adequate. Add to that, DX lenses are lighter and easier to carry, and your FX (or old film lenses) are “effectively” 1.5 times longer when used on a DX sensor camera, thus more lens range. Add to that since the FX lenses are made for larger sensors, when used with DX size sensors they are actually only using the very center part of the lens for imaging. The center part is by far the sharpest and best corrected. The bonus is with FX lenses on a DX sensor camera even though the lenses are heavier they work spectacularly with the smaller sensor.

O.K. pilgrim what’s your point?????? This is my advise as of today, remembering that with each new camera the whole game changes again.

If you are a working pro in a specialized arena, like photojournalism, sports, wedding, portrait, wildlife/nature, forensic, medical, scientific, etc. etc. Have a long sit down with your pro tech rep from what ever company whose gear you use. They are trained and qualified to help you select the equipment that will best help you take the kinds of images you must in your profession. That’s what they do 365 days a year.

If you just love photography and want to make the best pictures you can while having the most fun possible. I don’t see how you could go wrong with the D7000 or your camera companies equivalent type camera and a couple of lenses. For me the D7000 is the near perfect storm of features, size, weight and cost (around $1,200. body only). It has very high resolution, extremely high pixel density, and very good, low noise. It is the quietest camera I’ve ever used in an SLR. More important than anything else, it makes great images and makes it easy to do so.

What two lenses? You had to ask. I’m actually still working on that myself, but I will tell you two
combinations I really love are; the 10-24 AFS Zoom and the 28-300 AFS VR (15 to 450 equivalent), or the 16-85 AFS VR and the 70-300 AFS VR (24 to 450 equivalent). Still working on that one, but I love both of those systems. If I really didn’t mind carrying three lenses, I would do the 10-24 – 16-85 – 70-300. The new 24-120 also would work great in there (36-180).

One last category; you’re eaten up with photography and have the budget to do whatever you really want to do. Easy, own both and FX and a DX body and just enough lenses to cover what you need or want to do. Right now, my choice for FX would be the D3s. If you don’t want to carry it’s significant weight, the D700 is a close second place. For DX, I think we’ve already established the current champion, D7000. In the price vs performance category, it is unbeatable.

Of course this is all just my opinion and food for thought, the key is take pictures and enjoy it.
Select equipment that will help you do just that………….

Merry Christmas,

the pilgrim

P.S. I assume that most of the photographers that visit this blog are fairly serious and that is why I didn’t mention many of the other excellent choices in less sophisticated cameras our there today.

On these cold nights there’s nothing like a classic Christmas movie to get you in the holiday spirit.
I’m a movie lover and find a lot of pleasure in watching my favorite films, many are Christmas movies.

The four featured above with the original classic Christmas posters, courtesy of movieposters.com
are four of my very favorite. It’s a Wonderful Life, may be one of the greatest films of all time regardless of the season. This classic film, by Frank Capra, teaches a great lesson about what is truly important in life. I think it should be watched at least twice a year to drive that point home for all of us. It also was made the year I was born, 1946. A Christmas Carol, the classic book by Charles Dickens has been made into many film versions. Being a purest, I believe the 1951 version with British actor, Alstair Sim as Scrooge is the most accurate to the book and the best. Avoid the colorized version, it does not have the same impact as the Black and White, original version. Like many classic Christmas film this one is available in a deluxe re-mastered version that is well worth the price. Another re-make of the A Christmas Carol well worthing watching was the 1979 Version called An American Christmas Carol with Henry Winkler. One last version makes my Good List, Scrooged with Bill Murray. I have to admit, however, that I’ve never see a version of a Christmas Carol that I didn’t like.

Miracle on 34th Street, the original, once again, B&W is the best, a real classic that will have the most curmugeoned skeptic a believer. This is one of the best of all the, “There really is a Santa Claus films.” This classic was remade a few years ago and it was actually very well done, just not up to the standard of the original film. The Santa Clause films with Tim Allen are pretty good, getting worse at the end, but still fun to watch. White Christmas featured above is a good film, but I think the film that predated it, Holiday Inn, is my favorite. Bing Crosby and Fred Astair steal the show in this one which is a true classic featuring the wonderful music of Irving Berlin.

One of my favorites which runs non-stop through out the season is A Christmas Story, featuring Darren McGavin and Peter Billingsly is one of the funniest films looking back at Christmas in the 1950’s. The film is taken from the classic book by Jean Shepherd, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. I guess being about to turn 65, this film takes me back to a much simpler time.

Falling in the same catagory of mid 40’s & 50’s throw back films would be three classics, The Bishop’s Wife, Going My Way, and the Bells of Saint Marys. Featuring such classic actors as Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, and Bing Crosby.

The most important thing about Christmas is lost on many main-stream films, the Birth of Christ. My two favorite films focused on the real Christmas story are; The Nativity Story and Mr. Krueger’s Christmas. The latter one of Jimmy Stewart’s best performances, near the end of his life.

Of course lots of movies can be listed that are just good old Christmas fun ,for a good laugh or two; Home Alone and Home Alone 2 (forget 3), Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase, Polar Express, and the new Christmas Carol from Disney featuring Jim Carey, thankfully without his usual vulgarities.

Of course when the grandchildren come over we watch all the old animated Christmas movies like;
Frosty The Snow Man, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and The Grinch That Stole Christmas.

One last favorite, Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas, has long been a family favorite.

I’m sure you have great suggestions too, that I’ve left out. Please feel free to share your recommendations here.

Surround yourself with family and friends, pop some popcorn, and light the fire in the fire place
and enjoy the movies.

Just don’t forget the Reason for the Season…………

the pilgrim

P.S. Just got the movies Mrs. Miracle (2009), good family fare……..