New Camera!

Spider on the back deck taken with 105 mm Macro lens on Nikon D750 camera

Earlier this summer Nikon announced the D810 digital SLR as a follow on to their D800.  This camera lists for $3300 and is second on the Nikon product line behind the D4S that costs almost twice as much.

Early test picture. 105mm Macro @ ISO 12,800

Color Original. 50mm at f5.0 ISO 800

The changes made to the 810 over the 800 were not enough to wow me at that price point and I figured I was in for another long wait for a full frame camera from Nikon that I was willing buy to replace my D300 with Dx crop sensor.  To my surprise, rumors started to come out in mid-August of a new full frame DSLR from Nikon that would sit between the D610 and the new D810 and would be announced at Photokina (a photography trade show in Cologne Germany that I'm only too familiar with due to work).  Sure enough, the  Nikon D750 was announced and with the minor exception of not offering built-in GPS (it doesn't look like Nikon is ever going to add this to their high end DSLRs) it had everything I was looking for and the early word on the internet about the camera was all extremely positive.  The camera went on sale on September 23 and our local Best Buy had them in stock so I picked one up on Thursday.

High key B&W

Now, going from a DX cropped camera to a full frame camera has a lot of benefits but one draw back could be in the lenses you've accumulated over the years for your DX camera body.  I always knew that some day I would get a full frame camera and tried to take this into consideration when purchasing lenses.  I did, however, make a couple of significant lens choices that are DX only lenses. My Nikkor 17-55 mm zoom that I keep on my D300 almost all the time is a key example and the Tokina 12-24 wide angle zoom (my only non-Nikon lens) is another.  So the wide to normal range is where my current zoom lenses are DX only.  What this situation has prompted me to do is to revisit a couple of prime lenses that I've owned for over 10 years but have hardly ever used.  One is a 50 mm f1.8 lens I bought for a trip to NY City with my sister Becky in November of 2003.  I was hoping to use it for some night time city shots with my then
new D100.  The other is a  24 mm f2.8 lens that I obtained through a unique set of circumstances that I won't go into but the cost to me for this lens was nothing.  So with a relatively wide prime, a normal prime and the full frame capable 105mm macro lens I obtained recently (see my second post in this blog), I decide to go sans-zoom for a while to see how things work out.  Besides, the two full frame zoom lenses I have my eyes on to round out my full frame lens collection, the Nikkor 17-35 and the Nikkor 24-70, are both quite expensive and my credit card needs to cool a bit after getting the camera itself.

Taken in NY City Nov 26, 2003.
50mm 1/80 sec @ f5.0 ISO 400 Nikon D100

So onto this week's pictures that were (mostly) taken with my new Nikon D750 and a prime lens of one sort or another.  Each picture is captioned with the lens used.  One of the promises of a newer camera (I've had the D300 since January 2008) is the advances in technology and one such advancement is in the ability to shoot at high ISO with less noise.  The D750 boasts an in camera ISO upper end of 12,800 and will allow you to set it for two stops above this for an effective ISO of 51,200.  So once I charged the battery and put it into the camera and attached the 50mm f1.8 lens to it I took a couple shots of a medallion I had on my desk.  I quickly learned that I could not get as close as I wanted to with the 50 mm so I put on the 105 mm macro and took the shot here at ISO 12,800.

On Friday night I drove to Hamlin Beach state park to try and shoot some star pictures with the 24 mm lens.  I arrived at the park shortly after sunset and while I waited for it to get dark I took some shots of these trees growing on a short peninsula.  For some reason I can't explain I thought they might look good as a B&W conversion.  I settled on a high key conversion that I think looks pretty neat but in second thought I think the color original is more compelling.  What do you think?

Big Dipper over lake Ontario.  24mm 8 sec, f2.8 ISO 200

The star shots did not turn out so good.  I think the lens did not stay focused at infinity and things are just a little soft and the stars themselves ended up being little ringlets of light and not spots of light (a sure sign that focus was off).  I'll have to return and try again.  I am sharing one shot here of the Big Dipper with some light painting to bring in the trees.  Too bad it is slightly out of focus.

24mm @f5.0 ISO 100

I intended to get up early on Saturday and drive to an area along the canal a few miles from my house to see if I can get low fog on the water with early morning light.  Unfortunately I over slept and did not get to the location until after 8:00 AM.  I still used the opportunity to check out these prime lenses some more and shot the calm waters with reflected trees.  I'll have to return here soon as the leaves continue to change in our area.
In the afternoon, while cooking some chicken in the smoker for dinner, I decided to try and get a good picture of this spider we've been watching for almost 2 weeks.  I ended up moving some stuff around on the deck so that I could get to the other side of his (or is it her?) web in order to get the top side of the spider and, more importantly, get the green of the trees as background instead of our grey house.  The results were pretty decent (and a bit scary) and is this week's featured picture.

Links to discussions on prime lenses vs zoom lenses
http://digital-photography-school.com/prime-vs-zoom-lenses-which-are-best/
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/fixed-lenses-take-better-pictures.htm
http://photographylife.com/prime-vs-zoom-lenses
http://www.colesclassroom.com/prime-vs-zoom-lenses-top-7-reasons-to-use-primes/