a new rig and glass

I bought a new rig and some new glass and thought I’d give you a photographic taste. This is the first image that I have published from this new camera and lenses. This photo is straight out of the camera except that I had to size it down for the internet. The image is a detail from one of my recent works in progress in the studio. I don’t want to show much more of the work as it still has a way to go before completion and I’m superstitious about showing unfinished work. But this post is about my new camera and lenses and not the studio.

A Nikon D300, 105mm f/2.8 lens, f/3.5 @ 105mm, 200 ISO
straight out of the camera only sized with Photoshop CS3

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I get very intimate with my camera, as we do a lot of things together my camera and I. It is always with me; damn we even go on holidays together. I learn to love my cameras or I get rid of them. I still own every one that has been good to me from the last 35 years.

This new rig: a Nikon D300 12.3 megapixel D-SLR camera is pretty……. well it is; simply put, it is amazing. It is not necessarily the nicest camera I have ever bought as I have some nice cameras with amazing pieces of German optics but it could easily become the nicest. It is certainly the smartest camera body I’ve ever owned. This new D300 feels like it is going to be a great friend and serve me well.

Cameras are really nothing though if you don’t have some decent glass to put in front of them. I’m trying three focal lengths on this new body.

For Macro --- AF-S Micro NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8D (used in above image)
For Wide Angle --- AF-S DX Zoom NIKKOR 12-24mm f4G
For in between --- AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-70mm f3.5-4.5

All this precision made glass and this incredible camera body still need a human eye and brain to make anything-worthwhile come out of it. Without the artists mind and eye, all you’re really left with is some very, very expensive bling, bling --- but it sure makes you look good wearing it.