300mm

All posts tagged 300mm

For Sale: 180mm/300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED!

Posted by Matthew Durr on June 13, 2014

Posted in: For Sale. Tagged: 180mm, 300mm, AI-s, ebay, ED, f/2.8, For Sale, Nikkor, Nikon, Super Telephoto, telephoto. 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.

(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.

(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!

2014 Project 52, First Quarter

Posted by Matthew Durr on January 20, 2014

Posted in: 2014 Project 52. Tagged: 200mm, 300mm, 32mm, 85mm, Action, AI-s, Blurry, Clouds, Colorful, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, HDR, Landscape, Nature, NEX-7, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, photography, Project 52, Sony, Sports, Sports Photography, Sunset, Swimming, Transylvania University, Zeiss, Zeiss Touit 32mm f/1.8. 6 Comments

Structured photo challenges are a great way to focus a photographer’s creativity towards specific subjects or assignments. Last years’ Project 52 with a local photography group was my first foray into this year-long event, and I did not want it to be my last! In fact, I considered to undergo a project 365 this year, but my semester of student teaching kept me indoors and working almost all day, every day. But I could manage one photograph a week, of course. After all, there are weekends to enjoy! As such, this is the first of four quarters of my most recent project 52 that will span most of 2014. These photographs span from early November to just a few days ago, and since I am not sharing an entire year, I can elaborate on each photograph’s theme and backstory a bit more.

So let’s kick it off with week one. All photographs captured with the Sony NEX-7. Click on each photograph for a larger 2000×1333 size:

#1-Autumn

Warm Feeling
Nikon 85mm, ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/2000

The first topic for my project was typical for the season, asking for an autumn photograph right when most of the foliage in Kentucky was at peak color. Oak trees have a particularly warm color when they begin to change, and when they are backlit by an equally-warm sunset, the overall aesthetic is pretty cozy. The f/2.8 aperture helps blur out the rest of the sky and treeline in the background just enough to give the subject leaves the necessary “pop”. Continue Reading

Site Update, FF-NEX Thoughts, and a Project 52!

Posted by Matthew Durr on September 24, 2013

Posted in: General News, General Photography. Tagged: 105mm, 300mm, 32mm, 35mm, 36-72mm, 50mm, 85mm, a3000, Action, AI-s, f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8, FF-NEX, Flower, HDR, Landscape, Long Exposure, macro, Nature, NEX-7, NEX-9, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, Panorama, photography, Portraits, Project 52, Series-E, Sony, Sports Photography, Street Photography, Sunset, Touit, Update, Zeiss. 4 Comments

Not so hot-on-the-heels of my last post over a month-and-a-half ago, here I am making some time to address my blatant inactivity on the site. As it turns out, student teaching and photography don’t happen to mix very well. My particular placement and accompanying assignments give me next to zero free time for anything else. Seeing as the essentials—sleep, eating, and physical activity—take up the majority of that time, finding a slot to simply “go out” and make photographs is a near impossibility. This busyness has also forced me to cancel my anticipated pre-order of the new Zeiss 16-70mm f/4 OSS, a popular lens that I would have loved to review. That’s the bad news.

However, every now and then I still take photography assignments from my university for sports and other campus events. This, at the very least, helps keep my shutter finger trained and my manual-focus skills honed. Per the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, my student teaching will go only until this end of this calendar year. So in theory, next year I will be able to get back to my usual updating with photo-walks and all manner of lens reviews for you loyal readers to enjoy (many thanks for the recent subscriptions despite my absence). That’s the good news.

In…other news…if you have been living under a rock for the past couple months, there’s been a lot of buzz around the near-future of Sony’s E-mount. Some rumors are claiming Sony to introduce a whopping three E-mount cameras, all with a full-frame 35mm sensor! One is a supposed “NEX-9”—a camera I’ve dreamed about ever since the first time I shot with my beloved NEX-7—while another may be an ILC-9 or a9000 (a full-frame version of the already available a3000). Since that one will be relatively bulky with its pointless DSLR shape, it appeals less to me (well, the added grip of that shape gives it some relevance). Regardless, come mid-October, Sony has the very real chance of taking the mirrorless photography world by storm, and I’ll be watching avidly for pre-orders. 😉

Now, time for some photographs, right? Over the past year, I’ve taken part in my own Project 52, submitting one quality photograph for every week of the year under a supplied theme. My “supervisor” for the project is a local photography group that I’ve joined on Meetup.com, and the ability to see multiple other photographers’ work as the project progressed made the entire process more enjoyable.

All the following (52 in all, so yes, there’s quite a bit of scrolling ahead) photographs below are downsized to a web-friendly 2000×1333 ratio or similar to keep the site’s bandwidth from filling up. Most here are captured with the NEX-7, though a few captured with other cameras found their way into the project. A good number of these photographs have been featured elsewhere on my website in lens reviews or other photographic posts. Also, all photographs are in the ProPhotoRGB colorspace to get correct yellow saturation levels, so depending on your browser and viewing device (I recommend Google Chrome on a desktop computer), these photographs may have odd saturation levels on your screen.

Enjoy!

#1-Upside-Down

50mm, ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/640

#2-Dream

36-42mm, ISO 800, f/8, .8 Seconds

#3-Hidden

105mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/200, 1:.88 Magnification

#4-Sweet

105mm, ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/1000

#5-Inspiration

105mm, ISO 100, f/2, 30 Seconds

#6-Fall

75mm, ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/1600

#7-Angle

50mm, ISO 100, f/16, 5 Seconds

Wrapping Up Sports

Posted by Matthew Durr on June 3, 2013

Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: 300mm, 85mm, Action, AI-s, Baseball, baseball game, ED, f/1.4, f/2.8, NEX-7, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, photography, Player, Portraits, Runner, Sony, Sports, Sports Photography, tennis match, Transylvania University. 4 Comments

As I get settled in to the relatively low-stress time of summer, my very nearly-full hard drive beckons me to do some housecleaning. Don’t get me wrong here, 24-megapixels of RAW imaging make for a great file to chew through in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4; the problem is file size! At nearly 25 megabytes a pop (more or less depending on the amount of detail captured) and firing off hundreds of shots at a time at my sporting events, a 500 gigabyte hard drive can quickly get clogged.

Since I am both in-between computer upgrades, and cannot back up another external hard drive, every now and then I go through “purges” in my Lightroom catalogue to free up hard drive space. Any photographs that are a) Moderately (or more) out of focus b) Doubles or c) Just “meh” in overall quality get permanently deleted. In a sense, I’m making sure to hold on to my best work, so that I don’t have to dig through any refuse years on down the line.

In my most recent purge, I’m going through most of my sports events and sorting out photographs the best way I know how (and the way I recommend to novice photographers):

Start looking through a photographic outing (could be something as large as a full athletic event or as small as a walk around the flower garden)
Realize that only the best work should be saved
Run through the list, highlighting what “stands out” as far as subject matter, composition, exposure is concerned
Move highlighted files to the front of the list, then look through the non-highlighted items again quickly to make sure nothing is overlooked
Take a deep breath, select all the other files, and put them in the trash

With that in mind, here’s some of those “best” shots from my last tennis match and baseball game shot before the end of both seasons. Tennis shots were under awful indoor, fluorescent lighting that required me to shoot both at high ISOs and fast apertures to simply get a useable shot at all. Of course, this was a nice torture test, of sorts, for not only how ISO 3200 performs on the NEX-7, but also how the 85mm f/1.4 produces images wide-open.

Slice
85mm, ISO 3200, f/1.4, 1/800

Sports á la NEX-7

Posted by Matthew Durr on April 24, 2013

Posted in: Sports Photography. Tagged: 300mm, 85mm, Action, AI-s, Baseball, Blurry, Colorful, f/1.4, f/2.8, Lacrosse, NEX-7, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, photography, Player, Portraits, Runner, Softball, Sony, Sports, Sports Photography, spring sports season, spring weather, Tennis, Transylvania University. Leave a comment

It seems that every year, spring sports season comes and goes with such an undecided vigor. Much like spring weather, one week it’ll be cold and dreary with only a single game to shoot, whereas the following week brings warm weather and a multitude of home games. This past weekend fit into the latter category, sporting generally warm temperatures with five games to photograph in four days (three on Saturday, one on Sunday, another on Tuesday). Needless to say, my shutter count—and eye fatigue—went up tremendously in a short amount of time.

I figure a good exercise to keep from over-saturating this post with too many photographs is to cull four of my best photographs from each game: 2 baseball, 1 softball, 1 tennis, 1 lacrosse. Let’s see what I dig up. All captured with the Sony NEX-7 and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AI-s ED or Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AI-s. P.S. A good number of these are in the 2:1 crop ratio. Since this is how my images are sent in to my supervisor for displaying, I usually shoot with this in mind.

Wind-Up
300mm, ISO 200, f/4, 1/2000

Weekend Update: Sports, A Photo Story, Demo-Day, a Recital, and more!

Posted by Matthew Durr on April 14, 2013

Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: 105mm, 300mm, 35mm, 85mm, Action, AI-s, Alex Yaden, Baseball, Blurry, Bonfire, Car, Clouds, Colorful, Conceptual, Concert, Demolition, f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.8, Lacrosse, Long Exposure, macro, News, NEX-7, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, Photo-Story, photography, Player, Recital, Salsa Dancing, Sony, Sports, Sports Photography, Stress Fest, Sunset, Transylvania University, Villanelle. 2 Comments

Tagged
300mm, ISO 400, f/4, 1/1600

Another week, and one step closer to a break. At least, that’s been my train of thought for the past month. As always, it seems, the times leading up to finals week (starting tomorrow) are always a killer in trying to find time for photography. In a way, however, writing posts on here is a way of taking a break from studying, though I do feel a bit productive at the same time. 😀 Besides, last week I couldn’t afford any time to do an update. Not today!

A lot has happened lately. Let’s get down to it. Continue Reading

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

Posted by Matthew Durr on March 24, 2013

Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: 105mm, 180mm, 300mm, 35mm, Action, AI-s, Blurry, Clouds, Colorful, Dandelion, f/1.8, f/2.8, Flower, Gumball, HDR, Lacrosse, Landscape, Light-Painting, Long Exposure, macro, micro nikkor, Nature, News, nex, NEX-7, Nikkor, Nikon, Origami, outdoors, Panorama, photography, Player, Portraits, Runner, Softball, Sony, Sports, Sports Photography, Squirrel, Stink Bug, Street Mural, Street Photography, Sunset, Transylvania University, Update, Wildlife. 2 Comments

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: Reacquainting with an “old” friend

Posted by Matthew Durr on March 3, 2013

Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: 300mm, 80-200mm, 85mm, Action, AF, AI-s, Blurry, Colorful, d300, ED, f/1.4, f/2.8, Fraternity, Greek Week, Lacrosse, News, Nikon, nikon d300, nikon d40, Olympics, Open Mic Night, outdoors, photography, Player, Portraits, Runner, Sorority, Sports, Sports Photography, Talent Show, Transylvania University. 6 Comments

Electronics, what with their extremely numerous and complex construction, have the potential to malfunction all the time nowadays. When hundreds of working parts are crammed into any one object, something is bound to eventually go wrong. Of those many parts, my NEX-7’s sensor cleaning function has stopped working properly recently. I decided to attempt a repair starting last week so I would a) Have it covered under my one-month-left warranty and b) Get a fully-functional camera ready for the majority of baseball/softball/lacrosse/tennis season.

So, being without my NEX-7 sucks, I won’t shy away from saying that. But, thanks to a generous father, I borrowed a Nikon d300 to still get the job(s) done this past week in photography. Some of my very early readers may know that I transitioned from a DSLR to a NEX. Due to the Thailand flooding that crippled Sony’s major factory, that transition was ANYTHING but smooth. In December of 2011, I was starting to really get into more advanced photography with my school paper’s Nikon d40. As an old, 6-megapixel CCD-sensor camera, it didn’t really do well in specialized situations (such as sports) where high shutter speeds were needed in relatively low-light. I pre-ordered the NEX-7 at this time. However, the athletic director was still interested in hiring me on–the shots I COULD get in ideal situations were good enough that he saw my potential. The problem? I wouldn’t get the NEX-7 until March of 2012!

So, enter the d300. A 12-megapixel CMOS-sensor beast of a DX-format DSLR. In its prime, it was the choice for event photographers who shot DX-format. Manageable noise even at ISO 3200, a fast 7 fps continuos shooting rate, more manual controls than a casual photographer could shake a stick at, and a rugged magnesium-alloy body wrapping up a professional package. In the right hands, it still is an extremely capable camera in almost all shooting scenarios, and DX-format photographers are clamoring for a successor (the d300s doesn’t count, and Nikon has stated the new d7100 isn’t the flagship DX model).

It has been about 10 months since the last time I heavily used this camera–the only subjects I’ve had to use it on are product shots of lenses attached to the NEX-7! This past week was a surefire struggle for me, as there are many advantages and features of the NEX-7 I have become accustomed to (which I may write an article on in the near-future). Using manual glass on a DSLR is an awful experience compared to on a NEX. Thankfully, for a lot of this past week’s shots, I used a nice autofocus 80-200 f/2.8 ED that I bought for my Dad on Father’s day.

But enough rambling, let’s get to some photographs! All the following captured with the Nikon d300 and 300mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4, and 80-200mm f/2.8 ED (which I may have to take an in-depth look at someday).

First up, Transylvania University has fielded their first-ever Lacrosse team this year, and I photographed their first home game (which ended in a win!). Conditions were pretty terrible though; low-light, rain/snow, high winds, and trying to focus my 300mm made every movement a challenge. It still didn’t stop me from coming back with some great action shots though. 😉

Boxed-In
300mm, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/800

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

Weekend Update—Professors, Soccer, and Fire!

Posted by Matthew Durr on November 4, 2012

Posted in: General Photography. Tagged: 105mm, 180mm, 300mm, 50mm, Action, AI, AI-s, Blurry, Bonfire, Class, Colorful, environmental photos, f/1.8, f/2.8, HDR, high ISO, NEX-7, Night, Nikkor, Nikon, outdoors, photography, Player, Portraits, Professor, Sports, Sports Photography, Transylvania University, Weekend Update. 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

Matthew Durr Photography

Because great photographs don't make themselves