Posted on 09 March 2007. Tags: Japan
Wow! What an awesome lense this turned out to be. After falling in love with the Nikon 105mm f2 DC, I found a great deal on a brand new Nikon 135mm F2 DC here in Japan. I put it on my Nikon D200 and wow does it look magnificent! The size and weight are a perfect match for the D200 and for shooting on the streets here in Japan, it’s going to be a blast. I haven’t had a chance to shoot much with it yet, but the boke and range is excellent. I tend to shoot both near and far on the street and slightly prefer primes over zooms when outside. For me, the creative juices seem to flow better when packed with a prime lense. I find my mind is less cluttered with zooming and just plain at ease with a prime. However, I do bring and shoot with a zoom because they are awesome too of course.
One of the things that is important to me when shooting in Japan is being able to really blur out the background quite a bit. The reason is that Japan is small and there is all kinds of crap that I usually don’t want in the picture. Isolating my subjects with both the Nikon 105 and 135 DC is just plain fun and awesome. They are both light and small enough to really take some fabulous photos, so I’m quite excited.
I should also mention that I do have the Nikon 180mm f2.8 and feel that is an excellent lense as well, especially for the street. The 135 f2 is cool however for moving inside if I need to and perhaps shooting a local indoor event with a slightly wider aperture. It’s a beautiful lense the 135mm F2 DC, and it looks just wicked on my D200! In fact it’s time to head out and start shooting!! Enjoy!
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Posted on 09 March 2007.
Today I received a couple of SB-400 flashguns that I ordered a few days ago. These little guys are absolutely awesome. First of all the SB400 is very small. It can easily slip into a side pouch, coat pocket, and even your jeans if you need to quickly offload the flash. It mounts onto the D200 and my D70s just like the SB-800. There is an on/off switch and a ready light on the back. The flash on the front can be tilted up to bounce the flash which is again absolutely awesome. I took some quick shots with the D200 around the room and it worked perfectly.
The little unit takes two batteries and I currently am using my PowerEX 2700s just fine. In my opinion this flash works much better than the onboard camera flash. It also is extremely easy to carry on and mount anytime when you need something on the go. I shot using the camera in manual mode just fine and I really like how lightweight and small this thing is. Furthermore, I can attach an SC-29 that I have and use it off camera, which is probably the best thing to do when shooting in portrait mode. This is probably one of the two biggest drawbacks of the SB-400. When shooting in portrait mode it does not swivel up or down. You are stuck shooting with it on the side. However, it is light and small enough to shoot off camera with ease in my opinion. The other drawback is that you can’t use this as part of the CLS system. In otherwords, it can’t be triggered or shot wirelessly.
I feel the SB-400 is a real gem for those events or times around the house when you need a nice fill flash. For that, I feel the SB-400 will get a ton of use for me. A 100 bucks for the SB-400 isn’t bad either. Also as a street shooter, I find the SB-400 will probably work rather well too. I’m looking forward to working with it quite a bit this spring and summer.
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