11.23.2022
The joys of home ownership. Off topic? Not for me...
Ah. The ancient Nikon 20mm f2.8 D wide angle lens. Maybe it was the adapter.... Maybe it was the operator.... A bad shooting day?
11.22.2022
New lens (to me) arrives suddenly and unexpectedly.
Again...it was cold, damp and the day featured endless, plodding rain. The little heater in my office barely kept up with the falling temps. I put on my boots to keep my toes warm. I worried about seasonal affective disorder until I remembered that I live in central Texas and that next week it might be in the 90s with bright sun. Not time to cover up that air conditioner just yet...
I'd just wrapped up the first stage of accounting on last week's three projects. The first stage being the payment of all the vendors, the talent agency, assist, make-up, etc., etc. The fun billing happens today when I send the clients the final bills. But it's always anticlimactic when shoots are over.
My friend, Paul called to see what I was up to and to suggest an afternoon coffee at our usual joint, Trianon Coffee. It's just up the street from my place. I usually walk but not in a chilly downpour.
Paul is also a professional photographer so we sat with hot beverages and groused about the state of the industry, the inevitable changes in commercial work, the scarcity --- post Covid --- of assistants and support crew, the continuing ascendency of video, health insurance and retirement planning. And, of course, most of the conversation centered around cameras and lenses. We just about had everything figured out....
Near the end of our coffee conversation he pulled a plastic bag out and slide it across the table to me. "Here..." he said, "You might want to play around with this. If you want it it's yours." I opened the ZipLoc bag and pulled out a Nikon 20mm f2.8D lens, complete with caps and and a hood. Also a Nikon filter.
I just happened to have a Nikon to L mount adapter in the studio so I mounted up the lens as soon as I got home. I remember owning one of these lenses back in the days of film, using it to good effect shooting interiors when the jobs called for it. I also owned the Canon version and liked it equally well.
I didn't remember that the Nikon 20mm was so small. And lightweight. The focusing ring is almost completely undamped but that's typical for "D" lenses from that time. AF was becoming so popular I'm sure few people ever bothered to use their lenses in a manual focus mode. And in the early days of digital focusing medium speed wide angle lenses through smaller, lower res viewfinders was a complete game of hit or miss with "miss" nearly always winning.
Since I recently gave away my TTArtisan 20mm lens and kept my Panasonic 20-60mm lens for occasional wide shots I was happy to have, once again, a prime lens for those times when you just want to distill your shooting experience down to the absolute fundamentals. And limit yourself to one focal length.
If the weather breaks and my work life slackens I'll head out this afternoon to give this lens a tour of downtown Austin. I hope it's as nice an optic as I remember. Nikon sold a huge number of these so they couldn't be that bad.
Thanks Paul! Always fun to play with something new even if it's old.
11.20.2022
The Sigma 65mm f2.0 lens is wonderful. All the right stuff in one package. And affordable.
And, in case you were worried, I was able to find my car at the end of my photo walk and find my way home. I even remembered to bring the camera back with me...
11.19.2022
OT: Cold and rainy swim practice this morning. Bracing trip from the warm pool through the Arctic blast to the relative safely of the locker room.
We're not burdened by weather that brings life to a complete halt. At least not yet.
I woke up early today. I guess the combination of vitamin K2 and the recent time change are changing my sleep pattern. I read the news, drank fine coffee and ate a piece of toast.
Then I got in the car and headed over to swim practice. There was a thick head of steam coming off the pool. The difference between the 80° water and the 38° outside temperature made the scene look like a Hollywood set that was completely overwhelmed by a Mole Richardson fog machine.
Our highly weather resistant coach, Kristen, came bundled for the weather and didn't miss a beat even when a cold rain started ramping up like buckshot. Her workout was written up on two white boards and I'm sure she wrote it on them in the dry refuge of the guard office since writing on wet white boards is....difficult.
We did a thousand yard warmup and then headed into the main sets which were a series 50 yard sprints on a descending interval followed by fast 100s. Over and over again.
It's kinda fun to swim a workout in the cold with the added sensation of freezing rain hitting every exposed part of your body and head. We seemed, as a group, to be working a lot harder on our underwater streamlines (the push off the way at the turn and the underwater dolphin kick that goes with it) so we could stay submerged longer in the warmer water.
It was easier to cheat by occasionally pulling on the lane line during backstroke today. Why? Because the pool fog coming up off the water made it hard for the coach to witness my transgressions at the other end of the pool.
The most exciting part of the workout came at the end when we had to pull ourselves out of the comfortably warm water onto the near freezing deck and walk briskly through the wind gusts to the locker rooms. It is on days like this that the hot showers afterwards are so rewarding.
In a break from my usually healthy diet I stopped at a local McDonald's drive thru and ordered a biscuit, egg, cheese and bacon breakfast sandwich and a large coffee. Not the best nutrition but insanely fun comfort food after 3,000 yards in mixed atmospheric conditions. I'll try to walk it off later in the day...
Feeling mildly virtuous today.
It seems like it's going to be one of those days with steady, mild rain, ever dropping temperatures and generally gray skies. The perfect day for an afternoon nap.
R&R after a busy week.