A new DX normal prime

Saturday, 2 May, 2009 @ 7:30 PM

Ah yes. Well, my local camera store has just received their first shipment of Nikon's new snub-nosed 35mm f1.8 prime lens. As it's really very reasonably priced, I figured I ought to buy one and take it for a test run.

On a crop-sensor (DX) camera (such as the D300), a 35mm lens is a pretty close analogue to the 50mm focal length that on a film or full-frame (FX) camera has long been regarded as the closest match to a human's natural field of vision, hence these often being referred to as "normal" lenses.

The first thing that struck me was how lightweight it is! This is by far the lightest lens I own, yet somehow avoids feeling flimsy. Although I've only given it limited use so far, I'm impressed with its sharpness. Focusing seems quick, quiet and accurate, and the 1.8 maximum aperture will come in handy for isolating subjects and in low-light situations.

A fast, simple, lightweight and unobtrusive lens like this will be perfect for street photography, as well as some landscape work. I'm definitely looking forward to using this one more, and expect that it will be spending a considerable amount of time on my camera.

Ballard dies

Sunday, 26 April, 2009 @ 6:50 PM

J.G. Ballard, undoubtably my all-time favourite writer, sadly succumbed to prostate cancer last week at the age of 78. Although most popularly renowned for his 1984 novel Empire of the Sun – a semi-autobiographical account of a young English boy growing up in a WWII Japanese prison camp near Shanghai – most of his other books would, I imagine, appeal to a far more limited audience. He often explored sexual and psychological themes, and many of his characters experience delusions, hallucinations and paranoia. Like a master painter illustrating a complex scene with just a few, well-chosen brush strokes, I always found Ballard's writing to have an almost dream-like quality; an elegant minimalism that dared me to use my imagination to flesh-out the characters and scenes that he would seemingly only superficially outline. Among the bizarrely beautiful Ballard works I've enjoyed over the years are The Crystal World, Cocaine Nights, The Day of Creation, and The Kindness of Women.

Line calls

Sunday, 26 April, 2009 @ 5:30 PM

Since Thursday, I've been working as a volunteer linesman at Cayman's second Outback Legends Championship tennis tournament at the Ritz-Carlton. This was really a great experience. The Legends Championship is a series of events held a various locations around the world, where an assortment of retired tennis greats compete for some fairly decent purses. At the Grand Cayman event, 8 players were slated: Mats Wilander, Jim Courier, Goran Ivanicevic, Mark Philippoussis, Wayne Ferreira, Karel Novacek, Jimmy Arias and Mikael Pernfors. At the last minute however, Ivanicevic pulled out due to a knee injury, and Aussie Pat Cash was brought in as a substitute.

Some of these names were more familiar to me than others, but all have been ranked in the top 10 in the world at some point in their careers, with both Wilander and Courier holding the world Number 1 spot. Although all currently "retired" to some degree or another, they are all sublimely gifted players and some of them obviously make the effort to remain near the top of their game.

By the end of the tournament, Courier took the $60,000 winner's purse in a fairly easy match against his compatriot Jimmy Arias. At age 37, Courier looked consistently strong and confident. Arias was a surprise; a weedy-looking little guy, constantly cracking jokes and playing to the crowd. His tennis was impressive though, with wins over Wilander and Cash before succumbing to Courier in the final. Wilander was a disappointment. Probably the strongest of the bunch in his day, he looked old and tired, and went down easily in the first round to Arias. Novacek and Ferreira didn't stand out either, with neither of them putting up much resistance in their first-round losses to Cash and Philippoussis. The two Aussies played respectably I thought, with Philippoussis looking serious throughout and blasting plenty of his trademark warp-speed serves. Cash's presence brought out a bunch of raucous Aussie larrikins wearing checkered headbands. He looked a little stiff on the court, due to hamstring problems as it turned out, but aside from a couple of minor tantrums at the umpire he kept his humour ("How do you stay in such good shape, Pat?" "I'm dating a beautiful young woman, and you're only as old as the girl you hold", and, when a baby began bawling in the audience, mid-shot, "I thought McEnroe wasn't coming this year?"). The real surprise to me was Mikael Pernfors. Prior to this match, I knew virtually nothing about the guy. He looks like a wizened little gnome, with toothpick arms and legs – in fact I heard one spectator comment that he barely looked as if he could walk from one end of the court to the other – but his ball control was just extraordinary. He had a huge repertoire of tricks, spins, drop-shots, and amazing ball placement skills. Returning a Courier smash, he dropped the ball just over the net, with enough backspin for it to jump back over to his side, leaving Courier dumbfounded and the audience open mouthed. Ultimately though, all his crowd-pleasing antics weren't enough to overcome Courier's superior power and athleticism.

Working as a first-time linesman for players of this level was a little intimidating. We were given three training sessions, and the basics of line calling can be distilled down to 1) Stay alert! 2) Call immediately, and 3) Call loudly and confidently. During the tournament, I was calling the baseline and service line, the latter being the most difficult and probably most crucial line in most games. My very first call was overruled by the umpire, but I soon got into the rhythm of things and with one notable exception, didn't make too many errors after that. Several times in each match the umpire was called down from his chair to inspect the mark (the tournament was played on clay, so balls leave distinct tracks on the court), and I must say it's quite a relief when the umpire confirms that your original call was correct. Especially in the later matches, the calls we were making potentially had tens of thousands of dollars riding on them, so things became rather nerve-wracking.

All-in-all it was a great experience, and one that I'd like to repeat some day. There is talk of an ATP level one umpires certification course being held here, and I'm definitely interested in signing up if it becomes a reality.

More photo playthings

Monday, 13 April, 2009 @ 6:50 PM

Despite last month's solemn avowal to put a stop to haphazard lens purchasing, Craigslist unearthed yet another irresistible treasure for me in Miami: a PC-Micro Nikkor 85mm f/2.8 D tilt/shift lens. Tilt/shift lenses are commonly used for architectural and product photography, but they can also give an amazing "toy-town" effect to people and landscapes (used in these über-cool time-lapse movies of Sydney by photographer Keith Loutit). The latest PC-E lenses from Nikon have an electronically controlled aperture, and are sadly way out of my price range, however the example I found was a previous-generation version and considerably more affordable. This particular Nikkor has a reputation as being perhaps the sharpest lens ever produced by Nikon, and is definitely the most exotic piece of glass in my current lineup. It's going to be a great toy to play with, but I expect there will be a challenging learning curve before I'm using it confidently and consistently.

While in Miami I also paid a visit to a cavernous hunting/fishing store, where I picked up a camouflage ghillie suit. With luck this will let me get much closer to some of Cayman's jumpier birds without scaring them off. Hopefully I won't be mistaken for a sniper!

Miami, take-two

Monday, 13 April, 2009 @ 6:20 PM

Any holiday that starts with spotting Iggy Pop relaxing in the first class section of the plane is destined to be a good one, and another brief visit to Miami last weekend was no exception. I didn't encounter any comically homicidal pensioners this time, but the trip was nonetheless highly enjoyable. One highlight was a pleasant evening spent strolling South Beach, people watching, dining at a great organic restaurant and drinking Mojitos. Another was a quick trip to Coopertown, where we took an airboat ride into the unique environment of the Everglades. The water level is low now, due to several years of drought (and no doubt many decades of excessive drainage from intrusive development), however thanks to this, large numbers of wildlife have accumulated around the remaining wet areas, making for some spectacular encounters. We saw literally hundreds of gators and egrets, as well as softshell turtles, plenty of fish, and cute furry anhinga chicks in nests right at the edge of the canal. I'd love to take a more extensive (and less touristy) airboat ride some day when the waters are higher.

Gratuitous excuse to post some photos

Monday, 13 April, 2009 @ 5:30 PM

I'm currently in the miserable position of being 3 months behind with sorting through photos. It's great fun, taking advantage of being a digital shooter and getting out there and firing off hundreds (or thousands) of shots of beautiful and co-operative birds, insects, sunsets etc. It's another thing to actually sit down and sort through all those photos, vetting them for focus and composition, adding keywords and location metadata, and marking my favorites for further examination. In fact, this side of things is just a little too close to hard work to be really fun. Obviously though, this facet of the hobby is just as important as the shooting, and in my opinion even more so, as this is where you get to analyse your shots and figure out how to improve your hit ratio for the next time you take the camera out.

SO. I've decided I will start periodically posting shots without them necessarily being associated with a particular blog entry. Hopefully this will motivate me to work through some of the backlog, and get back into a guilt-free shooting groove. Also, I'm down to my last compact flash card, so I don't really have a choice!

Here we have an older shot, taken at night in Brisbane's Queen St. Mall in October 2007. This photo is a rough gem, one that I completely overlooked when I first downloaded it, but after stumbling across it recently I fell in love with the colour and the dynamism of the image. Next is a punk rock caterpillar, looking for a spot to build his chrysalis after demolishing the plant outside my front door. Finally, a rogue sunset wave, doing its best to soak me and my camera. It came close, but fortunately didn't quite have the range.

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