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[JohnRice]

I've been touting these new Sigma lenses to you guys for three years. I'm glad someone finally listened.

 

[Citizen87645]

John, you should be happy to know you've been the direct cause of most of my GAS over the last few years.

I picked up a 50-150 Sigma, later a Tamron 150-600, and various others because of your recommendation to buy from KEH.

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah, you guys might have been annoyed with me the last three years. After a lifetime in photography, then dropping it completely for a few years. When I decided to try it again for fun three years ago, I guess I decided (without realizing it) that I wanted to play to my heart's content. It's silly the number of lenses I have. I really need to thin them out a bit... to make room for new stuff. I have no life to speak of, so it's the only thing that gets me out of the house, besides work.

 

[DavidMiller]

I've been touting these new Sigma lenses to you guys for three years. I'm glad someone finally listened.

I love my Sigma 120-400, it is an amazing lens.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I've been touting these new Sigma lenses to you guys for three years. I'm glad someone finally listened.

I need to give my new Sigma 105mm macro more of a workout, but so far it looks like a very good "bang for the buck" general purpose macro lens. Hopefully I will have a little time this weekend to try it out more around the house. I will probably take it on our autumn trip to our South Carolina condo, as well, to get a different perspective of shots -- we've been down there so much, I get bored with taking shots at the same locations all the time. Now that we drive instead of fly down there, I have plenty of room to pack whatever I want.

Speaking of packing equipment, we are taking a trip to the Florida Everglades and Keys this winter. We have never been to that part of Florida before. We will be flying, so I will be limited as to what equipment I can take. I definitely plan on taking both my full frame and crop bodies, 24-105L lens, plus the 100-400L + 1.4x TC for the wildlife in the Everglades. I will have room for one more lens -- either a 16-35L wide angle or the Sigma macro. Has anyone been down there and know if there are more opportunities for wide angle or macro shooting? We will be staying in Key West, Key Largo and Florida City (which is just outside the entrance to the Everglades National Park).

 

[JohnRice]

There's opportunity for both, but considering that extra lens only gains you 8mm from 24 down to 16, maybe you should take the macro. You can find macro subjects absolutely anywhere. You only need to look for them.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

That's what I was thinking, too, John. I do not tend to shoot ultra wide angle landscapes very much anyway, and I need to get some practice in "seeing" macro subjects.

 

[Sam Posten]

I've got no beef with 3rd party lenses. I love my Sig150 Macro for example. The Tamron 28-75 2.8 was my first Nikon lens upgrade and I loved it too.

 

[JohnRice]

Still trying to figure out the Lensbaby Velvet 85.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

John, that shot looks more like a painting than a photograph. Interesting effect.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Playing with my new Sigma 105mm macro lens during halftime of the Michigan game.

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm not a fan of stock services but I bet that would sell like hot cakes during the Christmas season Scott. Great execution on what could be a very over done subject.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Thanks, Sam. A few days ago, I'd noticed that our holly bushes in the front yard had more berries than the previous few years, but I didn't get around to trying this until yesterday. That's the nice thing about a macro lens -- you can find subjects all over the place, including in your own yard.

 

[JohnRice]

My father is an avid model railroader and it occurred to me the 15mm macro is probably the perfect lens for photographing a layout. So, I took these when I was over there this afternoon.

Using the Opteka 15mm macro at f/11, Nikon D500, and focus stacking. Ranging from 5-8 shots per image. Focus stacking is a pretty easy process when you think ahead and have Photoshop.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Those are wonderful shots, John! The first photo with no human figurines, especially, looks very realistic.

When we were walking around the zoo this morning, we came upon an actual, real wildlife scene. A wild osprey was devouring a pigeon along one of the walkways.

 

[Mike Frezon]

 

[Sam Posten]

Good dog!
Love the Osprey.
Cool focus stacking! Bet you could have fun with that setup and a tilt/shift lens! One suggestion! I think shots from down lower might have more oomph to them. Not sure Bird's eye is always the right choice here. I'd experiment more, lower.

 

[JohnRice]

Cool focus stacking! Bet you could have fun with that setup and a tilt/shift lens! One suggestion! I think shots from down lower might have more oomph to them. Not sure Bird's eye is always the right choice here. I'd experiment more, lower.

There's actually a shift version of that lens, but it costs 3.5x the price. $500 vs. $150. Since it covers full frame, you'd get a huge amount of shift with a crop camera. No tilt with either lens, but with focus stacking it's not really needed. No way I'm paying $500 for a lens with such limited use.

I agree on the lower vantage point. I was planning to do more of that next time. The one lowest shot (the middle photo) was with the lens rested on the "ground", which is still above equivalent eye level. Of course, you really can't even get to a lot of stuff at that level. I know of a really basic, cheap kind of focus rail that might permit some more flexibility. It's just impossible to get a camera into most of the layout at a low level. This was my first, very quick trial run. I spent less than 30 minutes shooting these.

 

[JohnRice]

BTW, when shooting the model RR with that *completely* manual lens, using live view with an articulating screen was great. It was also a huge positive that the D500 not only works in aperture priority with that lens, but shows live, true-to-life exposure. For some reason, Nikon chooses to have the D7xxx series not display actual exposure in live view. Then I used a wireless shutter release with the camera in mirror-up mode, so the actual exposure was purely electronic, to eliminate the chance of camera shake during the long exposures. That D500 continues to fascinate me. It excels at technical tasks. I did end up underexposing one of the sequences. The lack of noise from the D500 can be a real savior, but I prefer to get it right from the beginning. I don't know how I missed that one.

Just to clarify, when I say it works in aperture priority, you don't adjust the aperture on the camera. You designate the lens in the "Non-CPU" menu and it just always reflects the maximum aperture all the time, but you set the actual aperture on the lens itself. Then the camera sets the shutter speed it deems to be correct. Even though you can use matrix metering, I've found it's inconsistent with non-cpu lenses, so center weighted works better. You just need to understand how center weighted metering works.

 

[Sam Posten]

Wraaaaaa! First shots today with the D850 nearly ruined. I know I set the camera to shoot in RAW. No idea why it shot JPG only.

Testing Adobe RGB vice sRGB output. Lemme know what you think. This is a Dagger Moth Caterpillar. I'm pretty sure that dark spot is its eye.

AdobeRGB

17-DaggerMoth-JPG-0015 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

sRGB:

17-DaggerMoth-JPG-0015 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

Pixel peepers: Look at that brick detail =p

17-DaggerMoth-JPG-0004 by Sam Posten III, on Flickr