Month: February 2015

Photographers that I admire very much nclude:

Life/Time

• Margaret Bourke-White – know for her photos of Mahatma Gandhi
• Robert Capa – known for his D-Day photos
• James Nachtwey – known for his war photography (see his 30 years in Time at Time Lightbox)

National Geographic

• Steve McCurry – known for his 1985 cover portrait photo of 12-year old Afghan girl named Sharbat Gula that was taken with Nikon FM, Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 and Kodachrome 64
• Jodi Cobb – known for her photos of the women of Saudi Arabia and of the Geishas
• Wlliam Albert Allard – known for his photos of people using the Leica M6 35mm rangefinder system
• Joel Sartore – through the The Great Courses, I have learned so much about how to take good pictures from him
• Lynsey Addario – her book entitled It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War published in 2015 described that started with her father’s Nikon FG and 50mm lens

Sports Illustrated

• Water Iooss Jr. – known for his photos of Michael Jordan and the SI Swimsuit models

My favorite lens is the Nikkor AF-S 58mm f/1.4G. With very shallow depth-of-field, it can be hard to nail down focus, especially at long distances and in low light. However, it produces 3D-like images with beautiful bokeh and sharp results when focus is achieved. Although it is the largest Nikon normal lens, it actually fits on the Nikon D800 nicely, providing good balance for the camera-lens combination.

It is truly a nifty fifty! I wish it was available when I was doing a lot of International travel from 2009 to 2013. In my travels, I’ve used the Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AI-s or the Voigtlander 40mm f/2 on the Nikon D200 to minimize bulk and weight. Manual focusing on the D200 and other DSLRs, unfortunately, is difficult to get sharp results because DSLRs are not equipped with split-image focusing screens for precise manual focus.  In addition, on the APS-C (Advanced Photo System type-C) image sensor, the D200 gives me 1.5x cropped images, e.g., 30mm focal length equivalent on a 20mm lens.

In addition to the above lenses, my favorite Nikon lenses – especially on the FX full-frame DSLRs such as Nikon D810 and Nikon D4s – are…

• Prime lenses: Nikkor AF-S 24mm f/1.4G, Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 AI-s, Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-s, Nikkor AF 85mm f1.4D, Nikkor AF-S 200mm f/2G VR and Nikkor AF 300mm f/4.
• Zoom lenses: Nikkor AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8D, Nikkor AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8D, Nikkor AF 80-200 f/2.8D and Nikkor AF-S 200-400mm f/4G VR.

My favorite lenses on the Fujifilm X-E2 camera are Fujinon XF 18mm f/2 R, Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 R (pancake lens), Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R, Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.2 R (macro lens) and Fujinon XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS.  Since the X-E2 uses the APS-C image format sensor, these lenses give me the equivalent focal lengths of 27mm, 41mm, 53mm, 90mm and 83-300mm respectively.

The worst lens I’ve used is Nikkor AF-S DX 18-70mm f/3.5~4.5.

While over 100 million Americans remember February 1, 2015 for the exciting Super Bowl XLIX football game when the New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24, we will remember it differently…

1. Just when the Super Bowl kicked off at 5:30PM, we had our own soup-a-bowl and enjoyed a bowl of noodle soup for dinner!
2. 19.3 inches of snow accumulated during the weekend. Although it was a wondrous sight, we shoveled snow multiple times in the morning, day and night so that our driveway and sidewalks would be relatively clear of snow.
3. Eugene and Maggi were delighted to have a 3-day weekend when School District U-46 decided to close schools on February 2.