May 2017 – Page 3 – Dave's Place

Serendipity

© Dave Whenham — Nikon D7100 Sigma 105mm macro lens handheld f8 ISO 800 1/1600th sec

Serendipity. A wonderful word and a wonderful experience at times. Take this image. It only exists because my wife had to finish something urgently before we went out on Friday morning. The suitcase was packed, all our requirements for the weekend down south were installed in the boot and we were just about leave when she remembered something. “It will only take ten minutes” (it did by the way).

So, I picked up the nearest camera. With my Fuji in the boot of the car my hand chanced upon the Nikon D7100 with which I’d been photographing poppies the previous afternoon using the Sigma 105mm macro lens. I spent ten minutes playing in the back yard, shooting backlit poppies (subject of a future post) before senior management returned. Without really thinking I dropped the Nikon in the boot of the car and off we went.

Fast forward to this morning and I had forty five minutes to play with the cameras before we left to come back up north so I found a field of rape seed crop and with the Fuji in hand set about looking for some bold yellow field/blue sky. I chanced upon this little fella and with an 18-55 lens on the Fuji it was but a dot in the frame. Then I remembered! What was in the boot of the car! Fortunately (more luck) I was still only a few yards from the car so I popped back for the Nikon/Sigma combination.

Serendipity had ensured I had the right tool to hand at just the right moment.

Which lens is your least used?

Which lens in your kit bag do you use least? Your photo software may well tell you but for me it was an easy question to answer without the aid of the computer when I was asked it on Saturday last. Without a doubt it is the Fuji 55-200mm f3.5-4.8 R LM OIS XF Fujinon Lens.

(C) Dave Whenham — All images Fuji X-T1 and 55-200 lens

So, I set out this morning with the Fuji X-T1 in the bag sporting said 55-200 intending to have a play with this combination after I’d taken some images with the new X-T20 that I was intending to test. Except that’s not how things worked out. I did take a few shots with the new camera but it spent most of its time in the bag with the X-T1/55-200 glued to the tripod and hogging the limelight.

When asked I couldn’t explain why the 55-200 rarely saw the light of day particularly when you consider that the Nikon 70-200 is one of my most used full frame lenses. Having looked at the RAW files this evening though it will be a fixture moving forwards.

A weekend of images

Over the past weekend I managed to abdicate most of my domestic responsibilities and get out with my cameras. Over the two days I shot bluebells on my Nikon cameras with a macro lens, sweeping views of the bluebell carpet with a wide angle lens and more intimate landscapes with a 300mm telephoto. Some informal portraits of the grandsons with a 105mm lens occupied the period between the bluebells and a walk along the canal with the X-Pro1 (“pick me up!”) and the 23mm prime lens.

Day two saw me shooting urban landscapes in challenging light (lack of) with a full frame Nikon, an extreme wide angle and mid-range (24-70) zoom lens. A momentary panic at the start of the shoot when after my third exposure the camera returned an “ERR” message which I could not immediately resolve but other than that a pleasant stroll even if we weren’t blessed with much light.

So, just a taster of two days shooting mainly with the Nikon D750 and D7100 but with the Fuji X-Pro1 and Fuji X-T1 sneaking in the bag too. Final shot is of Dave’s drone capturing a birds eye view of Elland Bridge.