Dinner after along day

Well this is my New Year's Dinner.  Some "Mudbugs" and cajun rice!

Just a busy day for me, happy hour!

Hump Day!

 I don't wanna get up!

 Break time for me, enjoying a little Netflix in the van for lunch.

 We're under a dense fog advisory till Friday... YEAH Friday!

The shed had a lot of icicles today.

Lens swap! Time for a new lens!

Oooookay!  Well if you are still with me on this little project, you know its time for me to pick up a new lens and start shooting with it.

I pondered very hard about what I wanted in my next lens.  I found that the 50mm is a very useful everyday lens, its sharp enough, its fast enough, and its cheap!  Everyone should own one.

For at least a few times I wished I had a nice "longer" telephoto lens.  I thought about a 85-150 range... but I really can't use those in close quarters overall.  After looking at my months of photos I posted I said to myself more often than not that "I wish this was wider".  So... after all one big advantage of FF/FX is going ultra wide.

I got this list together of all the potential wides I want.  I am a prime shooter, I love primes and I don't think there is anything like a prime to push you to use your feet and get creative with that you have.

1. Nikkor 28
2. Nikkor 24
3. Nikkor 35
4. Nikkor 18-35
5. Nikkor 17-35
6. Nikon 16-35

Okay, so I put a couple zooms in there.  Now the primes are reasonably priced in the 250-400 range... which to be honest is cheap in the world of Nikon.

The zooms I listed go from 650-1600, expensive, yes...

So, there you have it... hmmm.  So what did I pick!?!

The Nikkor 18-35!

In the spirit of this blog I decided to go as cheap as I could with this list.  I decided to go with an ultra wide zoom... the 18-35... new this baby goes for 650ish.  I however, have found that this one on the used market is remarkably affordable.  How much?  Would you believe 275!?  Well under half the price of new and fits the spirit of this blog perfectly!

The only thing I didn't like about this lens is that its "slow" the max aperture is only 3.5 at 18mm and 4.5 at 35mm.  Which is a shame... but I am hoping that with this lovely D700 we can overcome some of the slowness and regain some depth of field focus.  The FF/FX format does give you around 1 to 1 1/2 shallower DoF at each stop.  So in reality this isn't so bad.

Now this is considered a "consumer" zoom.  Its sharp, but it does have more distortion than more "pro" zooms... however as  I said before I wanted to keep the spirit of the blog alive I decided to go with the cheapest option... could I just go buy a more expensive zoom or prime... sure, but that's not what this is about. This is about taking photos.  Remember, I am not a lens reviewer... I don't do brick walls or anything.  I just go take real world photos and let you see for yourself.


In case you are wondering what kind of photo you can get with the 18mm wide end... well I'll show you:

 This is a perfect example of why ultra wides are so nice indoors.  This is very tight quarters and my brother is maybe three-four feet away from me and I am at the corner of the room.  They make for great environmental portraits.

 Snowman that we built this year.

So much work!!!

The making of the Snowman, my brother adding the final touches.

Okay... so now for my Photo of the Day!

 

I was just leaving a customer site and I saw some oil in water... while we all have seen this before, I had never really seen what it looks like when its starting to ice over...

Well, this concludes the 50mm portion of the Blog! Time to get thinking about what lens I am going to use for the next 3 months!

Stay tuned!

Still cold outside and the branches are frozen. I applied some effects to this one, it was taken at 1600 ISO by accident. I softened it up and the fleeting sun was out... which gave the fog a nice glow.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  Hope everyone enjoyed time with their families and got a nice round of gifts ;)

 

There was a fog... the moisture in the air froze to everything.  Everything looked just amazing, true winter wonder land.

Snow overhanging the shed.  Added a sepia tone with a classic border and some grain for the old look.

 

Was at the shed for a while today, I saw this little guy... day in and day out... something thats used everyday but no one really looks at it.

Looking through the frozen window of my Apt. I could see a blue car.

Having some wings with my best friend. Over two decades of friedship here.


And.... he's looking at his phone.

More snow!

Burning the midnight oil working on a product piece for a customer.

Blizzard Warning!?

Snow is coming down!!  We are in a Blizzard Warning till tomorrow morning!

Sick of Sunsets?

Yeah... I know people are probably tired of seeing these over and over... but the winter sunsets in Iowa just grab me and I can't help it.

Monday and laundry

Had a day off today. Ended up hanging out and doing some much needed laundry.

He doesn't even realize the sun is coming up and the new day is beginning.

First snow of the year!

Well, its the first snow that actually has accumulated and not just blow away or collect in corners.

The Management is having the whole place repainted.. the guys came by and asked if they could do mine... I said sure.

Looks really nice... but I think they put the "8" up-side down. hehe

Here comes the snow!