Photos Photo of the Day

Gareths next project, Jean-Michel Jarres Laser Harp.

 

Oxy-G

 

I guess this was considered futuristic at the time.

 

I was wondering how he managed to play the flashing lights without a body or hands but then I saw his head had been placed on top of a robotic chassis and mirrored.

Definitely from the future.

 

Oddly pixilated, monochrome men, are a rare sight in West Somerset.

 

On par with my normal vision. You could go into business making 'find the cat' pictures.

 

Eclipse!

 

and sunset following eclipse

 

Great sunset shot .

 

Some time ago I got this fabulous Japan-made Kiron 80-200mm on ebay for the princely sum of £9. It's a "one touch" manual focus zoom lens from the film era, and the contrast needs a fair bit of correcting in post, but dayum the optics are phenomenal. It's the only long-ish telephoto lens I currently own and I've had great success with it.

About the pictures: Dundee Port is a hive of activity at the moment because components for a very large offshore windfarm (Inch Cape project) are being shipped and assembled here before being taken out for installation. In anticipation of components arriving, three large crawler cranes were erected on site, the last of which I was fortunate to capture over the course of a few days. (Full disclosure: the rigger dude has been Photoshopped in to give a sense of scale - he was actually there a couple of days before!)

The final photo of all three cranes was taken with a Nikon 24-85mm, which is a fantastic low-budget general purpose AF zoom for full frame.

 

Such craneage! What Nikon are you using?
Older lenses are fun to play with and can be super cheap as you found.
I've been playing with lenses from dead 35mm high end compact cameras adapted for Nikon Z mount, which has been fun and not that expensive.

No camera has cost over £25, and the kit to adapt them is £40, with £30 worth shared via a super janky M42 modular mount system.
I'm onto lens 5 at the moment, my first 28mm, the rest have been 35mm/38mm so far.
Next goal is to make some stop down apertures as the lenses aren't that great wide open!

 

Yeah that's exactly the case - the lenses are ultra cheap but there are definite compromises (for example, I can't shoot video with the Kiron as there is no electronic communication between body and lens).
I upgraded from a D7000 to a D810 which I got at the tail end of last year, and it's likely the last camera I'll ever buy as it ticks all the boxes for me. The guy I bought it from had both the Z7 and Z8, and he was selling a criminally under-used D810 plus battery grip for £450, so I jumped on that like a horny rabbit.

I have the older 50mm AF prime (f/1.8 D) and the excellent 24-85mm, both of which are amazing at dealing with the very high resolution of the camera; the gear is far more capable than I am as a photographer, and it's a great place to be as an enthusiast.

 

The D800 series are beasts, nice buy!

I had a D7000 that I never loved, something about the images didn't gel with me.

A Fuji X-T1 was a good introduction to mirrorless, but I've used Nikon cameras since the mid 80s and their DSLRs all the way back to the D1.
The Nikon UI is now embedded in my brain and Z cameras were back to home turf so to speak.

There are still vast numbers of F mount lenses out there to play with to suit every wallet.

I have a dumb (no contacts) F to Z adaptor which does have a aperture control for G lenses plus adaptor rings for Leica M and L39 for my Voigtlander lenses.

Where I used to work is the UK Voigtlander importer, so I can borrow demo lenses when I need. It's a real treat