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The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.


Knuckledragger

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I have used the 135DC and 105DC, really swell glass for portraits. All in all I couldn't justify getting one when for 800$ I can buy a 80-200 f/2.8D. Now my sights are set on a 300mm f/2.8 Ai ED. Some old hunting friend of my grandfather wants to sell it to me for 400$ together with a 2X converter.

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Well, canon has the 135mm f/2.8 Soft Focus which seem to produce a similar effect, however other than that overall performance is lower than Nikon DC lenses. To be sure I kinda miss the time when Nikon was the final frontier of optical design. Seems that nowadays my favorite in terms of innovation is Sony. A pitty that they won't/can't make decent non-retrofocal ultrawides for the NEX system. Zeiss/Cosina must have older rangefinder designs which can at least be updated with modern coatings.

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The Nikon 135mm F/2 DC is really a hybrid of the Canon 135mm F/2.8 SF and the stellar EF 135mm F/2L, which is a pretty stellar combination. The 135L does have a few advantages in terms of sharpness and resistance to CA. My favorite "bokeh monster" is the absolutely insane Minolta (now Sony) 135mm F/2.8 (T 4.5) STF. A lens with such a cult following it has its own domain name. It's manual focus, and manual aperture. Wide open it has the DoF of F/2.8, but the light transmission of F/4.5. The light loss is due to a "apodization" element that is a concave dish facing the objective (front) element. The lens has more or less mathematically perfect (gaussian) bokeh circles. As one might expect, it's exceedingly rare and rather expensive (though not any more than the Nikon 135mm DC.)

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DigitalRev TV previously covered the 105DC. It's pretty fascinating viewing if one is a bokeh-obsessed photo nerd.

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To be honest, apart from romantic portrait shots I didn't find the DC lenses (especially the 105mm) all too useful. For low light the 85mm f/1.4 did okay and above that there's the bang for buck giant- 80-200mm f/2.8D. And if I really need shallow dof, I always whip out my old 6X6.

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A casual snapshot, this one. Also need to get that shutter curtain fixed.

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Was standing in line at an indoors farmers market. Lovely old couple ahead of me started talking with me. The gentleman had that old raspy double voice one gets when one has a bit of saliva in the throat. I wish I could have had a little more time to talk to him. Anyhow, his wife let out the loudest fart I had ever heard come out of a human body. EVERYONE started cracking up while the poor old lady turned beet red.

Here is one I was able to take quickly. The guy was laughing so hard it looked like he was wincing in pain. I missed the moment but caught the tail end. Tried different crops but couldn't really do much with his wife's head popping up at the worst time. Suggestions welcome.

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Cancelled the Really Right Stuff order today. Called today, as they told me it would definitely be out this week, only to find out they still do not have the parts so I would be looking, by their calculations, at a first week of December delivery for an item shown in stock in October 26th. Now I guess I need to find another tripod and head that will accept the L Bracket from RRS.

Edited by VPI
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Damn, that doesn't seem too professional on their side. Especially considering that these tripods are mostly used by quite serious people. If they want to play with the big guys quality product is not enough- precision logistics also come in play when doing pro photography.

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Thinking of picking up a S95 and selling the LX5+bounce flash. The NEX5 is small enough that I can carry it around with me everywhere in my sachel so it is replacing the LX5 there. The S95 would be something I could pocket if I didn't have a bag with me (or I didn't want to be conspicuous). The LX5 isn't really that pocketable (at least in my jean pockets).

Is Sony going to discontinue the S95 or should it be around for a while (with some good deals maybe around the holiday)?

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^ I think you meant Canon. tongue.png

If you're looking for a good deal on S95, head over to Amazon right now. They're selling one for $289.99, which is better than a refurbished one from Canon ($319.99) and you won't have to pay for shipping or sales tax (and it'll come with 1-year warranty as opposed 90-day one for a refurbished unit). I'm really, really tempted to grab one myself.

Also, while you are at it, go over here to grab yourself a grip for it.

Edited by Salt Peanuts
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