28mm

All posts tagged 28mm

First Wedding Shoot! Brandon and Hannah Ransdell

Posted by Matthew Durr on May 18, 2014
Posted in: Portraiture, Wedding/Engagement. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Field Embrace

Some time, sooner or later, I knew I would get into wedding photography. With my experience the past few years shooting events and sports primarily from a candid perspective, the pursuit of more freelance work with portraiture and weddings was the next natural step.

So, when presented the opportunity to be the primary photographer for a country wedding, I jumped at the chance, despite the fact that at the time I was preparing a musically intense senior recital for my undergraduate degree in music education. But hey, I do love a good challenge, and this one was no exception—with time management a chief concern.

Regardless, after much research on wedding photography articles and ensuring I had the proper gear to take on anything an outdoor wedding could throw at me, I felt more and more confident as the wedding day grew nearer. Along with backup photographer and lighting assistant Chase Bullock, we were set for a successful day of shooting.

And succeed we did! All in all, I whittled down a large batch of files from three cameras in Lightroom 5 to a solid pool of 500 images. Obviously I don’t have the bandwidth on this site to post them all (and I would not expect any reader to want to look through the whole set!), so below are 42 selections from this pool that span the course of the wedding day. Continue Reading

Nikon’s Series-E Lenses Compared

Posted by Matthew Durr on July 20, 2012
Posted in: Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 32 Comments

There are 8 lenses total in the “consumer” lineup of Nikon’s Series-E’s. You can take this post as a bit of a guide for help choosing which lens may be right for your photography. Lenses are arranged from wide-angle to telephoto. Links to the full reviews are located in the headings. Also, below two pictures are in a much bigger size than they are displayed here. Click on them to see more detail. First up, the 5 primes in the series:

Left to right: 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 100mm, 135mm

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Lens Review–Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Series-E

Posted by Matthew Durr on July 15, 2012
Posted in: Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 30 Comments

For a detailed comparison of all of Nikon’s Series-E lenses, click here!

Completing my exploration of the prime lenses in Nikon’s “consumer-rated” Series-E’s, the 28mm E fills the last focal length hole: wide angle. When used on a film or full-frame camera, this lens behaves similar to how an 18mm lens would on APS-C, or a 14mm on m4/3. Unfortunately, due to the crop factors of smaller sensors, this lens instead performs like a short normal (42mm FoV on APS-C) or a long normal (56mm on m4/3). This presents a bit of a challenge in use, as on the NEX-7, the 28mm E isn’t wide enough to normally “get everything in”, nor is it long enough to have any reach. However, the 35mm-50mm general FoV is rather useful for a “walk-around” perspective such as in street photography, so there are still applications for an odd-man-out like this.

There is GREAT news for those still wanting to get wide-angle performance out of this lens: when used with the NEX-7’s built in “sweep panorama” feature (or when shots are manually stitched), a noticeably wider view is obtained, both in vertical and horizontal orientation. More on that at the end. Is the 28mm E a lens I can recommend? Let’s find out!

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(Late!) First Impressions–Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Series-E

Posted by Matthew Durr on July 10, 2012
Posted in: Lens/Camera Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Well, first off, apologies for being two days late. To make a long story short, I have had some crazy work hours the past 5 days. Each day essentially went eat–>work–>eat–>sleep–>repeat, with no free time in-between. I’ll make up for the wait with some great photographs at the end. 🙂

Regardless, I’m back now, and ready to continue my exploration of the Series-E lenses. What you see above is the final prime in the “consumer-rated” series Nikon made accompanying their much more expensive AI-s counterparts. With a semi-wide (more like a short normal) field of view and not-so-fast maximum aperture on APS-C cameras, the 28mm E doesn’t seem to be a lens to write home about. Its close focus is about the same as the 35mm E, but with the wider angle, this lens doesn’t make as good as a “poor-man’s macro”. Unfortunately it also isn’t a very cheap lens either, most copies on eBay go for $100/€82 or more (though, the AI-s version usually sells for at least $250/€204).

What the 28mm E does do, is take pictures with a wider field of view than I’m used to. My previous widest lens was the aforementioned 35mm E, but this new personal record-holder gives photographs a completely different perspective. As some may know, shallow depth of field photography is something I love, but with this lens, getting that shallowness is only possible at, or near, close-focus. As such, framing is crucial. Any objects in normal distances better be appealing, I can’t blur them out even wide open!

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Happy 4th of July to America and Fireworks Lovers Everywhere!

Posted by Matthew Durr on July 5, 2012
Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Keeping this short and sweet, because it seems everyone now has the capability to do fireworks pictures (especially around this holiday!).

So…short version: all shot last night with NEX-7 and Nikon 28mm f/2.8 E at ISO 100 as close as the police would allow me, with apertures ranging from f/5.6-11, and exposure time ranging from .8-3.2 seconds (tripod and remote release used). Some are captioned, some aren’t. Will have first impressions of this last prime in the Series-E line-up from Nikon sometime this weekend. Now…PICTURES!

P.S. I uploaded the following 12 at a slightly higher resolution than normal to try to share better detail of the streams. 🙂

Starting Salute, look how small the people are in the bottom right

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