Remember when I owned a Nikon Z 24 - 70 f/2.8S for about a week last year? Also remember all that stuff I said about purchasing a used F mount lens instead of buying a native Z mount lens? Well I did it again, also a purchase from last year that I started drafting a …
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art Long Term Review
Last March I bought an F mount lens released in 2014. Why would I do that when I have a fancy Z mount camera, you ask? Well because it’s an Art lens with fantastic sharpness, great contrast, and only cost $365! This is a lens that still sells brand new, right now, for $950, and …
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Product Shots and Tulips
As is typical at this time of the year, I start getting the itch to photograph. By the end of the fall I’m usually exhausted from it and gravitate to video games and other indoor activities. After a few months I get the itch again. Sometimes the weather cooperates and allows me to go outside, …
Sirui Aurora 85mm f/1.4
In the SLR days (i.e the 80s and 90s) third party lenses were primarily focused on reducing cost. Lenses from Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, and others lowered the barrier to entry in exchange for a lower level of performance than Nikon, Canon, and Pentax. In recent years those Japanese third parties have significantly upped their game …
How I Came to Buy a Backpack from 2005
I bought a Nikon 180 - 600mm Z lens to replace my Sigma 150 - 600 for wildlife and sports photos recently. It’s an awesome lens, but one difference from the Sigma is that it does not extend to zoom, which makes it physically longer than the Sigma and harder to fit in a camera …
Adventures in Auto Capture
Auto Capture is a feature for the Nikon Z9 and Z8 that allows the camera to automatically capture photos based on a criteria. You can setup your camera on a tripod and configure it to take a series of photos that are triggered when movement is detected in certain areas of the frame, certain types …
Tropical Birds
I went on a cruise at the end of February and one of our stops was Costa Maya in Mexico. What was supposed to be a day of snorkeling and lounging on a beach turned into a lame “Tequila and Chocolate tour” followed by a walk through a tropical bird aviary. While I think my …
The Beach
We've had a lot of rain lately and the weather has just started to get better. There have been more and more beautiful days. On one such day last week we decided to take an evening trip to the beach. We were just planning to drive up to York and travel through, but I brought …
Fill Flash for Daylight Photos
I read a few blog posts by Niel Van Nickerk about balancing flash with ambient light and I found them very intriguing. The posts were basically a detailed discussion of how to control fill flash, which is the act of using flash in a daylight setting to fill in the shadows in an image. But …
Gaggles of Gooses
If you've ever driven down Borthwick Ave past the hospital you may have noticed the Liberty Mutual building that I work in. You may have also noticed that it has quite a bit of nice landscaping around it. We have a large man-made pond wrapped by a walking path and two bridges. There are trees, …
Relatively Ambitious 