First test of the 70-200VR I and Kenko 1.4 extender

I recently got myself a second hand 70-200VR I f2.8, the "old" version of this famed lens. Since I sold my 18-200 I was a bit lost on the long distance stuff and I needed to find a replacement. As soon as I could I went for a short test in a park near home, not far from sunset hor the light was not so strong and I had the chance to concentrate on what interestd me the most, the VR system. Being a used lens I just wanted to make sure it worked properly.

In the following images, not fancy, not nice, just plain ugly (but the subject was in the right place) you will be able to see the difference between the shots with th VR on and off, and those with the Kenko 1.4 converter. I took all these shots sitting on a bench to help me support the camera at 1/8 sec. The distance between me and the subject is always the same and the exposure too.

Nothing new, I know, just a reminder for those who are still confused when it comes to buy a new or used lens: VR or not VR?

Nikkor 70-200 without VR

Nikkor 70-200 with VR

Nikkor 70-200 with kenlo 1.4X and VR off

Nikkor 70-200 with Kenko 1.4X and VR on

Tokina AF100mm f2.8 AT-X Pro D Macro

Today I had a bit of fun with my new macro lens, the Tokina 100 f2.8 AT-X Pro D. It feels good in your hands, sturdy and with a professional finish, I like the lens hood too, looks pretty cool when mounted, I left it on all the time.

The lens is a joy to use, the autofocus system is ok, a tad slow but I mostly shot in manual while doing the extreme close ups. As usual, wide open is quite difficult to find the right focusing spot, especially if you are a dork like me and don’t use the tripod, but his is truly not an issue, is normal.

As far as Photozone concerns, probably among the most qualified sources on the internet for camera lens reviews, the resolution is excellent from wide open up to f11, it is ok at f16 and goes down dramatically due to diffraction at very small apertures. Today I used it between f2.8 and f14, and the out of focus area you get at f2.8 is very nice, in fact I’m very much looking forward to use this lens for my next portrait session.

Here’s few images of today’s session: being able to stay as close as 30cm from the subject with an effective 150mm lens can deliver pretty impressive close ups, you will tell me if you like the result

Lumiquest Softbox III

A couple of hours ago I received the prizes of my March win of the LumiQuest contest. The parcel, which arrived in 48hrs since I choose my goods, included one Softbox III, a ProMax System and two cinch straps.

Didn’t really wanted to wait too much to test it, so I quickly unpacked it and put it on my SB800 on a stand. I choose one jaws of my collection and made few test shots.


Camera settings: D90 with Nikkor 35mm f2. F9 at 1/200 sec at ISO 100. Flash in Manual 1/10 when using the sole flash with diffuser and 1/8 when using the Softbox III still with diffuser. The light was at around 45º camera left and the reflector is a white cardboard placed on the right of the jaw, slightly behind it.


Here is the sequence of the images:

Only SB800 with diffuser. Harsh, harsh lights

Only SB800 with diffuser and reflector. The light bounced by the reflector smoothens a bit the shadows but yet they are unpleasant

SB800 with diffuser and Lumiquest Softbox III. The shadows are way smoother compared with the first image

SB800 with diffuser and LumiQuest SoftboxIII with reflector. we have quite an even light and reasonably soft shadows.

"The rig"

Quite a great result for a 22X19cm softbox. I think it will be my "secret" weapon when doing the fishing portraits. It doesn't get on the way of the CLS and is very light, so hand helding the SB800 with the Softbox III mounted will never be a problem.

Thanks you guys at Lumiquest for giving me the chance to try this cool diffuser, now we just have to wait for the Grand Prize :-)

Jig colors? Do you really care?

Lately, I have developed an idea about colours, shape and size of the jigs that is pretty close to the one a Neanderthal could have thought of. Yet, again and again, there are examples that keep me thinking that maybe, we should stop for a second and weight our established theories. Should we eventually put in rewind and get rid of some truths that maybe, are not so truthful?

During my latest trip to the Tropics, the Andamans to be precise, everybody spent a lot of time jigging. Different places, different species, depths and tides. Every one worked with his favourite jig, included myself, and I picked a few. The reason for every lure I choose was different, yet most of them were simple, rusted, or paintless pieces of lead with zero appeal whatsoever. My main goal was to test, once again, what would make the difference and what would not.

I thought about my crappy jigs as soulless particles of metal, puppets maybe, and that I was their Mangiafuoco, the puppeteer. Without me, they had no chance to come back to life and draw the attention of any kind of predator. I worked hard for the money, fishing was quite good on day one to three but after that the tide changed and the action slowed down big time. So it was the moment to show all the tricks and turn a dead situation into some lively action.

Well, it was a tough deal, those animals don’t like very much any kind of slow retrieve (apart from GTs), and hence keeping a faster pace kind of tired me down. Thus, my crippled jigs, with no eyes, no paint and no sex appeal made some serious damage, even when the other guys, with good looking stuff would see no action.

I sell lures, have an internet shop and stock many different kind of lures with several different colours. None of them catch MORE fish, not a single one is miraculous yet there’s a jig that will catch more fish that any other: is the one that we will drop most of the time and that suits our style better.

Lightroom 2.6.

Since my Photoshop copy doesn't want to work properly, yesterday I downloaded the trial version of Lightroom 2.6. My friend Jorge, the director of the photo magazine I write for,  always insist on how good this program is for my kind of editing so I decided to give it a better try. This is my second attempt to use this software, I have already tried a couple of years ago but couldn't get used to the interface, hence I skipped it.

Yesterday I shoot some product images in the studio so I had quite some editing to do, and eventually, I found Lightroom quite improved, easier to use and probably, because it was my second try anyway, everything went smoother. I have also received some instructions from my friend so haven't had those difficult times in exporting the images, and handling them properly.

Funny enough, the biggest problem I had came when I had to resize the image you will see here. I have moved the original folder from the desk to my main disk and Lightroom couldn't find its way to it. Once I put the folder back to where it was before everything worked again.

I do have to put a lot of hours on the software to understand all its tricks and potential, but so far so good...