Updating Equipment

Took a laundry basket of camera gear to The Camera Store to be sold on consignment. Gone is the 5D3, my 17-40, 50 2.5 macro, 24-70 L, 1.4 telextender, also my GH2 and 14-140.

I'm keeping the 70-200 f4L IS, the 24 tse, 90 tse, for possible use if Canon produces the camera I want.

I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing with the Panasonic GH2 - sweet camera, works well, but I'm getting much better pictures with the fast lenses on the Nikon wide open (so far just the 35 1.4 sigma but I'm going to give the 85 1.4 Nikon a go. IS doesn't help if the people move and fast lenses and high ISO are the only solution - did think of a fast lens on the GH2 but time to clean house.

I returned the Sigma 180 IS macro - not because of any problems, simply because at my age I can't hand hold fore and aft steady enough to focus - so having IS doesn't really make any difference - I'm going to have to use a tripod anyway - and the lens is big and heavy.

In the mean time, low light live view focusing is driving me crazy on the Nikon D800E but I'm willing to live with it.

 

I shot this hollow stump last night, supposedly before sunset, but a storm came up and the light went down, and focusing stopped down became near impossible, especially as I was shooting at f11 with my new Zeiss 15 mm.

The image isn't perfect, even a 15 needs focus blending this close. Upper left is about 3 inches away and remains out of focus and there are parts of the image that are not optimally sharp, but I really like the image. I hugely opened the shadows and I know I couldn't have done that at base ISO on the Canon 5D3. The image above shows much more detail than I could see looking in.