Something new, something old.

Just a few days apart came my two new cameras and man-o-man
are they different from each other.

First, since I do a lot of photography of people who are not
used to being photographed the smaller my gear is the less intimidating the
gear is to my subjects. The D200 was the first small Nikon DSLR to be pro
quality so I’ve been happily using them for the last 2 years. But I must say
that I’m thrilled, thrilled!, by my new Nikon D700. When the D3 hit the scene
with a thunderous sound everyone took notice. I knew that Nikon would
eventually release a “full frame” DSLR but when they did it would not be a Me
TOO! That pretty much made Canon and everyone else head back to the lab to work
up something that was competitive. Well, I knew that they would soon release a
baby version kind of as they did with the D200 to the D2x: essentially the same
chip but a bit slower and much smaller. Well the D700 is just that: the guts of
the D3 in a small body but with the built in flash so that I can control my SB-800’s
without any additional units. Whoo-Hoo!

This also means that I can go back to my favorite wide lenses
that were rendered less than themselves due to the DX chip and it’s 1.5x crop
factor. Thus my favorite lens, the AF-D 24mm f/2.8, shown, is out of the mothballs
and will get back in regular use. This also means that my “Secret Weapon” the
legendary AF-D 28mm f/1.4 is useful again! Yeah!

Now I rarely need an ISO greater than 400 but I gotta tell
you – the ability to have ISO6400 that looks better than the ISO800 of my D200
means that I have a whole new world of photographic possibilities in marginal
to nearly no light.

Next as I’ve mentioned in a prior post I’ve been shooting a
project on not only film, yes it’s true, but on a 6×6 twin lens. It’s a series
of portraits of local chefs that I really like. Since I’m such a foodie it’s
like getting to photograph your favorite sports stars any way that you want.
But I wanted the images to be rather timeless looking, not look like all the
punch color digital capture images that you see and none of the guys are
standing at the stove holding a whisk. So I shot it on 6×6 B&W film.

Well that camera, a Seagull 104, broke and wasn’t worth
fixing. That was replaced with this darling Yashica Mat-124G which is as old or
older than I am. Luckily the Seagull broke at the end of the first leg of my
project so it didn’t get in the way of my work.  I pitched the story and the editor I had in
mind loved the images from my 6×6. Yeah! I’m looking forward to using the Mat to
finish the project and lots of other things in the future. Oh I must say that
these cameras are so very nice and are going for a song these days. Get one if
even as a lovely paperweight/conversation piece.

Sorry about getting geeky on ya but when I get new tools
that open up new ways of seeing. Well … I get pretty excited.