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Fannying about in the garden with a cheesegrater attached to a Cokin filter holder and shifting the focus from the DLW to the outer edge of the grater once the LEDs were switched off, and waving some dim coloured LEDs around the outside of the grater. Probably a bit too dim 'cos the aperture was nailed down a bit to allow for the lights on the wand to be moved slowly enough to make out the pattern.
...but, I'm sure that we, the Greeks, shall be able to refocus pin sharp again!
GREETINGS FROM GREECE.
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Micro-Nikkor AF 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6 D ED (front) and Sigma AF 150mm f/2.8 APO EX HSM macro DG D (back); both tripod collars have an RRS plate attached.
The Micro-Nikkor AF 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6D ED is a unique lens - it is the only true macro zoom lens around with a max. object magnification of 1:1.3 (the 6T close-up lens is required to get to 1:1). In terms of useability it is the only macro lens which allows precise framing (if framing and not precise magnification ratio is of significance) without having to change working distance and refocus. This is an advantage in the field especially when working from a tripod since framing and focusing can be achieved without having to move the assembly back and forth. Attaching an Arca-Swiss-type plate to the tripod mount makes the system a lot more stable - the original foot is a tad short.
The Nikkor has a rather long focus path (roughly 200 degrees) which is nice for precise manual focusing. On the downside the AF (via the slotted drive screw operated by the camera) is relatively slow and noisy. A focus limiter helps to reduce excessive focus hunting in non-macro situations.
The image shows the lens focused to its minimum focus distance of 0.37m (the working distance then is a scant 11cm); at the longest focal length, this equates to a 1:1.33 magnification ratio (1:3.21 at 70mm). When focused to infinity, the front retracts almost completely into the lens barrel. One characteristic of this zoom is that the effective aperture doesn't change as a function of the focus distance - probably because the focal length is substantially shortened in the process of focusing closer (which is indicated by the close working distance); I read somewhere that at the 180mm setting and closest focus distance, the focal length is around 90mm. As I said, it's a unique lens.
The Sigma is an IF (internal focusing) design and loses about 1.5 stops when focusing from infinity to its closest focus distance of 0.38m (at which point the magnification is 1:1 and the working distance about twice that of the Nikkor). The HSM makes focusing virtually silent (though not necessarily quick - but the three-stage focus limiter helps but takes getting used to (full-range, 0.52m-infinity and 0.38-0.52m)). The Sigma tripod collar is removable - a big plus; it's also quite sturdy. Unfortunately, due to the IF design, working off a tripod when trying to maintain framing is an exercise in frustration - a macro rail is an absolute must. Really too bad that the lens that works great on a tripod (the Nikkor) has a weak tripod mount (that isn't removable to add insult to injury) whereas the one that drives one nuts on a tripod (the Sigma) has an excellent one.
The Sigma is a tad shorter than the Nikkor but takes 72mm filters to the Nikkor's 62mm. The Nikkor weighs about 1kg, the Sigma is about 100g lighter.
The Nikkor has an unusually low distortion for a zoom over the entire focal length range - the Sigma has virtually none. Optically, both lenses are excellent - with the Sigma taking the crown.
For general (non-macro or non-close-up) shooting, the Nikkor is a slow variable aperture zoom whereas the Sigma is a fast (f/2.8) medium tele with a very nice bokeh. The Nikkor is no slouch in terms of bokeh either - but has the disadvantage of being between 1 1/3 to 2 stops slower.
www.flickr.com/groups/nikond700/discuss/72157624431662720...
March 2013: Realizing that most (of the little) close-up work I shoot can be accomplished with either lens (and me not really utilizing the strengths the zoom offers in that aspect because I mostly shoot handheld) as well as finding that the prime is more useful to me in general shooting (now that I own the 70-200/2.8 AF-S VR), I decided it was time to part with the 70-180 that I owned for about 12 years. It's an excellent and unique lens, but that's not enough reason to keep owning it for me.
October 2015: traded the Sigma 150/2.8 for its successor, the 150/2.8 OS. Significantly larger and heavier but optically as good as the non-OS version.
Taken out of my series "Ciao, Grazie - The Beach Hawkers"
ak.refocus.de/#/?set=the_beach_hawkers
Ciao, Grazie – The Beach Hawkers
They work at the most beautiful beaches in the world, during the most beautiful time of the year, but are often only considered as annoying. They offer fake watches, bags, jewelry, sunglasses but also a lot of bric-a-brac to tourists. To most of us they are often only „faceless“ troublemakers.
Only few holiday-makers are concerned about the fate of these people during their vacation. Packed with their goods in scorching heat, the beach hawkers are wandering about the beach up to ten hours per day.
A successful seller’s average day’s wage is about 10 – 20 Euros only.
Although offered as such, most of the goods do not come from Africa or India, but directly from Italy.
Andy Kämpf has got to know these people on the Italian coast and photographed them.
In honest and intimate portraits he shows people from Morocco, Bangladesh, Cameroon and Senegal.
From cheerful to friendly, proud, or melancholic, but also full of hope for a better future, we get to see the full range of portraits.
CIAO, Grazie!
I will refocus foreign aid dollars to where they’re needed most. I will cut aid to wealthy countries like Russia, Italy, and China, to put money back in the pockets of Canadians. It’s time for you to get ahead.
Je vais rediriger les fonds destinés à l’aide étrangère là où ils sont le plus nécessaires. Je vais réduire l’aide aux pays riches, comme la Russie, l’Italie et la Chine pour remettre plus d’argent dans les poches des Canadiens. Plus. Pour vous. Dès maintenant.
I have a Lytro camera - the 'light field camera'. You can focus after the image is taken. This is a series of 4 jpeg exports from the same lytro image with different focal points. First is focused on the spider, then the dewy web, then the tree. Fourth is focused on the house. Exports are from the same Lytro image, with jpg exports at different focal points. See and play with the image here:
pictures.lytro.com/CameraBug/pictures/386291 Click on different places in the image to change the focus.
This is a single capture photograph of a dead Joshua tree. The camera was rotated eight times. Each time, the tree was lit with a different color. The camera was then moved to a second tripod, with a refocus, for the orb. Shot in Joshua Tree National Park, California.
For some reason, my camera outmost refused to focus - despite however many times I tried to refocus it... :(
Letter 06 August 1970 and additional notes
I took Andrea to see Gumps Department Store and then back to Chinatown today. Somewhere, along the way to Gumps, a woman carrying a full laundry basket appeared behind us. She followed us for five blocks and as close as the basket would allow, all the while screaming at us that she had just buried her fifth husband and almost died with him. Then on about having been raped, beaten and robbed of all her jewels and furs the night before. Then she gave a Homeric catalog of everyone she hated: She hated goddamn Jews, goddamn niggers, goddamn hippies, goddamn out of towners, goddamn Irishmen, and goddamn people on welfare. Every other word she used was fuck. Suddenly there was silence, we turned to look but the street had become empty. Poof, like that.
Gumps was shocking. I had been taken to it in 1959 when a small boy, but on this visit eleven years later it looked as though that had been only yesterday. I swear all of the stock was exactly the same items I had seen in 1959. The same items. And all the displays were the same. Nothing had changed except everything also looked rather shop worn and dusty rather than shining with newness at they had in 1959.
We were followed again when we got to Chinatown, some middle aged white guy and clearly a low life. We ducked into a gift shop and as the owner greeted us, thinking we were customers, we told him that the creep walking into the door just then had been following us. This gentleman stepped over to our follower saying something him too low for us to hear but the creep took off without a word.
Funny, but I thought no one would pay the slightest attention to me in San Francisco but everybody stared, the freaks as well as the tourists. And on Market Street above the Bart excavations an Asian woman came up to me shouting abuse in what I think was Vietnamese. I think she was working herself up to start hitting me when her companion took hold of her and dragged her away.
Later we saw ‘Hair’ at the Orpheum, $6.00 seats in the balcony – minimum wage at that time was $1.45.
When back in Santa Cruz, Andrea’s mother-law offered to try us on a fortune telling device, which was so unpleasant that I won’t even write it’s name or stay in the same room with one. To make up for it she held my ring, I was given the choice of asking one question, I didn’t want to ask her anything too reveling so, as I had now missed Fellini Satyricon twice (this was before VHS or DVDs) I would ever get to see it. She said yes but it would be five years, and that I would see it in an upstairs room in Iowa.
In 1972 the Refocus Film Festival began at the University of Iowa and in 1975 I finally watched Satyricon in a second story room used as a theater.
This photo above is of Ricky and Davey in Santa Cruz behind the house on Riverside. August 1970. They (from left to right) are now a practicing psychologist with the VA and retired pharmacy technician. Our great grandmother and great great grandmother (respectively) was also involved in medicine in that she made skunk oil (a topical still available on the internet) and onion syrup in her home in rural Iowa. Before he went west to work stock (a cowboy) Uncle Charlie would shoot skunks and bring home the 'stink bag' which, when enough were gathered, would be rendered in a deep frying pan, rendered down to a golden colored liquid. I'll let you imagine how that made the farm house smell.
Onion Syrup was made the same way but with onions, water, and sugar. Onion Syrup was used as an oral liquid and Skunk Oil as a topical. There were no age restrictions on Onion Syrup but Skunk Oil was considered dangerous for pediatric patients, although, it could be used but only in very small amounts and if only applied to the soles of the feet. The plan was to keep the application away from the baby's hands and therefore, it's mouth.
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