people places n things

Of the several things I wanted to do photography wise this day, one thing I hoped to do was test out my old manual 35mm f1.4 nikkor. It was one of 2 lenses that still had some degradation from moisture like the 2 telephoto lenses I sent to Focal Point Inc. to be cleaned, but not nearly as bad. Testing it out in my backyard last fall proved promising, and I wanted to try it out again in the field under various lighting conditions to test it further. So after cleaning these last two lenses myself, I wanted to see if they were still good as before, and thereby save me the expense off shipping them out to be professionally restored. But as the day went by the opportunity to use it in a shot never came. When I arrived at this spot - my designated place to improve on my panning skills, I was sure I would never get to use my old 35mm, as it takes a really superb photographer to pan a moving subject and still get it razor sharp using a manually focusing lens. I was using my auto focus lenses and I was still having all sorts of problems getting a sharp image.

Fate intervened, as this young man, spotting me photographing him doubled back after passing by, to see how the picture came out. Happy with the images, he asked me to take some more shots of him for his personal use, which I happily did. When the background became too distracting behind him because I was no longer panning the camera for these shots, I reached in my bag and pulled out the lens with the widest maximum aperture I had, which turned out to be my 35mm, great!! Looking at the shots in the camera I was certain I had a good image for him. Few things test a lens like shooting it wide open, and at f2, that's pretty close.

After 20 years of inactivity, and fungus damage, turns out she can still take a razor sharp shot, YESSSS!! One more lens to add back into my arsenal. It's great to reach into my bag and feel it in there again.

springCentral Parkposed shotsld2