180mm

All posts tagged 180mm

For Sale: 180mm/300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED!

Posted by Matthew Durr on June 13, 2014
Posted in: For Sale. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

[UPDATE: Both lenses sold!]I am still getting caught up with the changes Summer has brought to both my scheduling and to the outside world. Though this has kept personal photography a bit stifled, I have set up a plan for the next few weeks to get everything back on track. The first order of business is clearing out a couple lenses from my workhorse collection that I no longer need.

Because eBay selling fees are no fun for buyer and seller, feel free to shoot me an email if you want to set up a purchase on either/both of these lenses outside of eBay to get a lower price.

180mm f/2.8

(UPDATE: Sold!) Up first is my compact 180mm f/2.8 AI-s ED, a personal favorite that I sell only because I never need the compactness it affords when I need the focal length. At the same time, I often need the extra speed my 200mm f/2 AI-s ED provides when the lights get low. eBay item listing here.

300mm f/2.8

(UPDATE: SOLD!!!) Next is my oldest workhorse, the 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED. This tank of a lens has been with me for so long it will be hard to see it go, but with the cropability my 200mm f/2 provides, and the extra reach I will have with a 400mm f/2.8, my fast 300mm no longer has a use in my assignments and events. eBay item listing here.

Fun things to come, thanks for dropping by!

HUGE Weekend Update: Light-Painting, Macro, Sports, Squirrels, and a Panorama!

Posted by Matthew Durr on March 24, 2013
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments
Blooming105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640

Blooming
105mm, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/640
Now that plants are starting to bloom (though this technically is a weed), I will be able to get much more sample shots for when I can make time for the 105mm f/2.8 Micro AI-s review.

To make a long story short, I am in a bittersweet mood about my NEX-7 finally being back in my hands. I’m happy I finally have a “real” camera again, but am a little disappointed that A)The sensor cleaning function still doesn’t seem to work and B)The rear LCD turned out to be peeling when I took the plastic off (when I sent it in, the rear LCD was immaculate). I believe Sony has sent me a refurbished NEX-7, instead of my own camera. Not too keen on getting back a camera in worse shape than when I sent it in for repair, so I’ll be contacting them this week to see what the deal is.

But in the meantime, I’ve been busy! I photographed everything from tiny flowers to the sky this past week and managed to shake off my “camera blues” from not having my NEX-7 for over three weeks.

First up, I learned a little bit more about light painting in my photography class. Though I feel this genre is overdone and cliqué in many ways, I tried to be as original as possible Continue Reading

Weekend Update: CMA Portraits, Food, and Cabaret!

Posted by Matthew Durr on February 3, 2013
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Winter’s chilly grasp has taken hold recently. Combined with my sickness (which I’m almost out of the woods with), any photography outside of assignments has been mostly a wash this week. However! I did want to at least get one photograph with that 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor. Before I move on to the rest of the post, I’m working on a project 52 (speaking of which, I will share all of them upon its completion), and this week’s theme was “Still Life”. Being a college student, I do not have the luxury of drapes, wooden bowls, and picture perfect fruit at my disposal. Looking into the meaning of still life photography–that is, the depiction of inanimate subject matter usually as a small grouping of objects–I glanced around my room and got as creative as I could. I had one banana, a few chocolate turtles, and some paper.

Let’s combine them all. 🙂

Choco-Banana Sandwich105mm, ISO 100, f/8, 8 Seconds

Choco-Banana Sandwich
105mm, ISO 100, f/8, 8 Seconds

Continue Reading

Weekend Update: MLKJr Day of Service, Fish-Face Fun, and the Art of Chinese Calligraphy!

Posted by Matthew Durr on January 27, 2013
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

Another week has come and gone and I still haven’t had the chance to take a close look at my Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AI-s Micro. Though I attribute that mostly to being sick with laryngitis and the busyness of school, that macro has just been breathing down my neck for a long time now. Hopefully soon, we’ll see. 🙂

In other news, despite my sickness and schoolwork, I still had many photo assignments to take care of, all of which were enjoyable to photograph. First up, this past Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which my university participated in as the MLKJr. Day of Service. Around campus we had multiple stations with service projects for students and community members to volunteer to help out the community. These ranged from areas to make Valentine’s cards for veterans…

35mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/40

35mm, ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/40

Continue Reading

Weekend Update: Ice, Blacklight Volleyball, Campus Forum, and more!

Posted by Matthew Durr on January 20, 2013
Posted in: General Photography, Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Now that school is back in full swing I will have to go back to my weekly update format for the near future. This way, I can have at the very least have a quality post every week filling you all in on my photography happenings. Special events and subjects (such as intermittent lens reviews and the like) will usually warrant their own post. For instance, in a couple weeks I’ll be doing a non-profit portrait session for a local organization that I will most likely be reporting back on here. Photos here and there (many of which will make it into these weekly posts) will be posted to my Google+ and Facebook pages, if you just can’t stand to go without photos from me every day. 😉

But back to the update, I’ve used the 35mm f/1.8 OSS a little more now, and am still enjoying it thoroughly. I’m starting to be able to catch where the aberrations wide-open are, but for the most part I can edit them out, so it’s no big deal. The lens can work for full-body portraits if there is substantial distance between the subject and background, but you still won’t get near the subject separation like a 50mm f/1.4 will provide on a full-frame camera:

Clay35mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250

Clay
35mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250

Continue Reading

Weekend Update: Noktor HyperPrime First Impressions, Comedy on Broadway, and Division I Basketball with the Sony NEX-7!

Posted by Matthew Durr on November 11, 2012
Posted in: General Photography, Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 7 Comments

Let’s get this show on the road.

First up, some more thoughts on the Noktor Hyperprime 50mm f/.95 by SLR Magic. So far this lens seems to be a toss-up for me. The build is certainly impeccable, the operation is smooth, and hey! The amazing subject separation possible at f/.95 gives images that “full-frame” look along with supreme low-light capabilities!  That comes at a cost, though. Detail is only fair in the center wide-open. As a subject moves away from the center of the frame, the total loss in sharpness is noticeable even at the image level. Throw in what appears to be pronounced field curvature, and the corners almost always look awful with this lens. Icing on the cake, contrast at f/.95 is pretty low (though, this can be helped somewhat in post-processing).

I haven’t really stopped it down that much to see how much the image improves at f/1.4 and f/2 (beyond that, what’s the point?), but if I don’t really see a marked improvement, I won’t see this lens getting a good recommendation from me. That said, I don’t tend to let technical issues get in the way of photography; I have taken it along with me the last couple of days to see how it fares in making images, wide-open for the most part. First up, at an art gallery:


50mm, ISO 100, f/.95, 1/80

Continue Reading

Weekend Update—Professors, Soccer, and Fire!

Posted by Matthew Durr on November 4, 2012
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

For my second weekly round-up, allow me to get you caught up on my happenings. This time, it’s a very picture-heavy post, rather than a narrative-guided one. 🙂 All of the following were taken with the Sony NEX-7.

First up, I’ve been tasked with taking “Environmental Photos” of the professors at my university. The goal here is to capture a professor while teaching:

50mm, ISO 400, f/2, 1/80

105mm, ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/200

Continue Reading

Reader Inspiration–Jason Chein

Posted by Matthew Durr on October 31, 2012
Posted in: Reader Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Now that my website has been around for a fairly long amount of time, it has started to become a worldwide resource for manual-focus lens reviews—specifically when used on today’s mirrorless cameras. Though I have slowed down recently, thanks to an overload of school-work which will surely last me until Christmas, my fairly good list of reviews still keeps many coming back to compare affordable and amazing legacy optics to slap onto their digital camera. One such reader has followed my lead on going back to manual focus for sports photography (albeit with a DSLR with those awful flapping mirror boxes!). I’m glad to see the results he’s getting, they remind me of the first time I took my Tokina 80-200 f/2.8 AT-X on a d300. At the time I had NO IDEA what I was doing (compared to now, anyway), but I remember the few shots I nailed focus on through that tiny viewfinder were like magic:

Hi Matt,

Until recently, I had been looking for a solution to indoor sports photography on a budget.  Then I found your website.  Your use of affordable Nikon manual lenses for sports photography inspired me to consider trying such lenses.  Initially, I was somewhat reluctant because I shoot with a Nikon D7000, which as you know, does not have the much praised focus peaking technology for manual focus lenses.  Still, your sports photos were so sharp, so I acquired my first manual lens, a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 Ai-S.

I’ve attached a few jpeg photos from a recent swim meet, straight out of the camera with only crop edits.  All of these were shot at 1/500 sec iso1600, so the noise is definitely appreciable.  In addition, the Nikon manual focus “dot” was not the easiest to use. Nevertheless, I was able to capture a few action shots in focus using various prefocusing  strategies.

Using a manual focus lens for sports photography has injected a new challenge into my sports photography.  I can honestly say that this is now my favorite lens for short-course (25 yard) swimming photography.  I have already acquired the 180mm sibling of this lens, which I cannot wait to use for long-course (50 meter) swimming photography.  Thank you so much for using your website to breath new life into manual focus lenses.  It is a basic photographic skill that one can still enjoy and hone in this era of high tech photography.

Keep up the great website!

Best,

Jason Chien

Here are three of his attached photos I found particularly great:

Through skill, luck, or a bit of both, Jason has got “the eye” needed for eye-popping sports photography—capturing the action and the emotions of the athletes is done well in these examples. I’m flattered to hear his story as a result of coming across my own sports photography experiences. Jason, I wish you well on your manual-focus sports photography endeavors, keep up the great work! Keep in mind that some cameras, *cough* NEX-7 *cough*, handle these old optics like a charm. 😀

So, the question remains, have YOU been inspired by some of the happenings on this photography website? If so, I’d love to hear your story and see some of your work. Drop me a line at my email, I’ll get back to you real quick. 🙂

Now…Onto Volleyball!

Posted by Matthew Durr on September 22, 2012
Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 10 Comments

What better way to finish up my return to sports photography than a true test of both my manual focusing skills and the capabilities of my camera than indoor volleyball? Sure, soccer was much more difficult to chase focus, and field hockey didn’t fall too far behind in the challenge department, but both of those sports are generally played outside; where there is a lot of sunlight. Shutter speeds can top out very fast and ISOs can stay at a cool low thanks to the abundance of natural light.

Not so for indoor sports!

Save for professional arenas well-lit by tons of floodlights or corner-mounted room strobes, getting high shutter speeds with low ISOs under artificial light is pretty much impossible. Staying around ISO 1600-3200 with a shutter speed of at least 1/500 will stop most motion in sports such as basketball and volleyball (and should have controllable noise with modern cameras). Only problem for this situation, a fast aperture is needed to get what little light there is to the sensor. If a lens isn’t at least f/2.8, forget about it, and if the optic doesn’t perform well at this aperture, consider it a nail in the coffin for trying effective indoor sports photography.

But I came prepared. Enter the 180mm f/2.8, 105mm f/1.8, and 50mm f/1.8 E (not used this time, but I brought it just in case), three lenses that perform very well at f/2.8. With these I get the light, I get the shutter speed, and I also get the “pop” from the large aperture allowing subject separation. In other words, no worries. 🙂

All of the following captured with the NEX-7. I decided to not apply any noise reduction to maintain as much detail as possible. Pretend it’s just like old-timey film grain. 😀

Pre-Bump

Pre-Bump
105mm, ISO 1600, f/2, 1/500

Continue Reading

Field Hockey? Sure!

Posted by Matthew Durr on September 19, 2012
Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments

I guess my first excursions into sports photography this year will all be trials-by-fire. Following up my first time shooting soccer last week, I shot my first field hockey game this past weekend, and will be photographing indoor volleyball for the first time later this week!

I won’t lie, field hockey is a strange sport. It’s essentially ice hockey (which is interesting enough by itself), but with shorter sticks, a ball instead of a puck, and it’s played on short grass. Oh, and there’s no real pads or helmets, so players feel every push and shove from their adversaries. It isn’t as fast-paced as soccer, but when the ball gets in-between two players, chaos ensues—what I try to capture, in other words.

Conditions were bright and sunny for this match, helping keep ISOs low and shutter speeds very high. Harsh shadows are no match for Lightroom 4’s excellent shadow recovery tools. All the following taken with the NEX-7 and Nikon 180mm f/2.8 AI-s ED and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED, two lenses I love more and more every day.

Digging Deep

Digging Deep
300mm, ISO 200, f/3.5, 1/1250

Continue Reading