Convivial

Vultures are Circling the Convention

Music Party

First low-light event for the D700, so no flash at all, and I let the ISO go all the way to “H.02” (I believe that’s Nikonese for “Oh shit! Two stops underexposed!). Interestingly, I found that, though some of these are fairly noise (especially where the ISO is in 5 figures), they look a lot worse if I run Noise Ninja on them. I need to experiment more with that, maybe find better settings or something.

Hidden Falls Photos

I was there for a fall picnic (for which we had summer weather), and wandered around just a bit.

And, Finally, Tokina 28-70 ATX-Pro f/2.6-2.8

I got this to use with my Nikon N90 in 1994, when I first went into autofocus. It had a very high reputation then and since, but some of my professional contacts on mailing lists reported not-so-good performance from newer and supposedly better Tokina zooms.

I was considering sticking with this as my main lens for a while after I got the D700 (which brought me back into full-frame photography), but this required testing.

Results seemed pretty conclusive to me.

28mm f/2.8

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 at 28mm, f/2.8

Those corners are really pretty appalling. This was a reshoot, because I was worried I’d somehow done it wrong in the initial shoot.

28mm f/4

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 at 28mm, f/4

Some improvement; but more, some reason to believe that the f/2.8 result wasn’t a mistake somehow.

50mm f/2.8

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 at 50mm, f/2.8

Considerable improvement in the corners; not so much in the center, I almost wonder if that was me? This is why sane people use tripods for lens testing, I believe. But that one was at 1/1000 sec., it really doesn’t seem likely it was camera shake.

50mm f/5.6

There we go, that’s about where it’s really supposed to be.

70mm f/2.8

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm, f/2.8

Funny-looking at the long end, too; more in the middle really. Coma maybe? I haven’t done serious pixel-peeping at these yet.

70mm f/5.6

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm, f/5.6

Nice in the center, okay at the corner now.

Conclusion

So, as you may have guessed by now, I’ve ordered the Nikkor AF-S 24-70 f/2.8.

Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8

My first-ever “major brand” zoom lens (though in fact Tokina, Tamron, and these days Sigma are “major” by any reasonable standards). So my first zoom lens made by a company that makes camera bodies. No, wait, Sigma makes camera bodies (and Vivitar did, back when they were “major”, may still). Anyway, my first zoom lens carrying the same brand as my camera does.

I got this because the Tokina 28-70/2.8 and the Tamron 28-105/2.8 were too long at the wide end to be comfortable as my main lens on a DX (1.5x crop factor) body. I had the Nikkor 18-70 kit lens for a while (bought used), but I got too much flare in situations that shouldn’t really have given me flare, and I fairly quickly bought this and sold the 18-70 on. This was a fine lens for me, and I regret selling it. I’ll regret it even more if I end up with another DX body after all; but I can’t afford to hold it unused while spending the money for the 24-70/2.8 that I’ve ordered.

Testing this is aimed at providing good examples.

I shot these tests on the D700 in DX mode, so the originals are only 5.1 megapixel images.