Sunday stills – toys

Talking about toys I immediately think about my gear as photography is my main passtime:

Ever since I got interested in old manual focus lenses a couple of months ago my collection has been growing rapidly. Hunting them down is a major part of the game. And of course they all need to be tried, tested, compared and experimented with. It is almost like work!
If anybody is wondering how a Nikon and a Canon can stand so brotherly together side by side, that is because my mf lenses – even de Nikon ones – don’t meter on my Nikon. So I was ‘forced’ to buy a Canon body, even though I did expect lightning to strike when I first mounted a Nikon lens on a Canon camera.

My new old lens

I am developing a passion for ‘antique’ Nikon glass. Old Nikon lenses, made at the time when Nikon was still a respectable brand that made products for professionals only , can now be had at eBay for relatively little money. They still do a great job on a modern digital dslr. You will have to focus and meter manually but after a little practice that is not so hard as it sounds.
My newest toy is a 135mm F2.5 made in the late sixties of the last century. Today I took it for a testdrive to our messy little harbour:

This is a detail of a boat that is being restored. Judging from this pic the end result will be better than new:

Jumping spider

There is very little going on in the macro department these days and as it is my favourite kind of photography I was really happy to see a little jumping spider having her lunch on my sideboard:

As she was taking her time I had some time to experiment and finally took these pictures with a 50mm F1.8 plus a 20mm extensionring and a tc-200, which is a rather antique 2x Nikon teleconverter. I topped it all off with a Nikon 6T close-up lens. Good thing the spider was not shy, because I had to get really close to get her in focus. Makes her look a little like a tarantula, though she is hardly more than 1 1/2 cm.

Finch

Another picture taken with my new lens. This finch was much farther away than the sparrow of my last log so I had to do some cropping. But handheld with a shutterspeed of 1/125 I am not dissatisfied.
And yes I know, that appeltree needs pruning badly. But then, if I cut all those little branches away, will the birds still be coming?

Nikon 70-300 VR

This picture was taken with my new lens, the Nikon 70-300 VR. It is a first step towards serious birdphotography. Of course for the real thing I will need a longer lens than this, but in my own backyard it is OK. Moreover a real big lens is not only very expensive, but also very heavy. And for me (weak female) the 70-300 with its 740 grams is already quite a weight to carry. Meaning I will have to build some muscle first. So handling my camera with my new lens attached to it will be a good workout. Much more fun than dumbells.