New Camera
May 6th, 2022
I’m not much of an equipment nut. I just want the right tool for the job at hand. And I’ve been, and still am, very happy with my micro 4/3 kit.
But I’m getting ready for major documentary project that I hope to start this summer. And I felt that I wanted higher resolution files for this job. So I bought a new camera. It’s a Nikon Z7ii. I’ll admit that it’s nice to be back with Nikon, which was my camera brand since I started with a Nikon F in 1968.
So, I have the new camera, but the lens I want for it has been backordered for months. Thankfully I got the notice yesterday that the lens has finally shipped, so I should have it in a few days. Then I can get to some serious testing.
But, of course, I’ve been taking photos with the new camera and old lenses. I used it for my Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day photos. I have a couple adapters that let me put Nikon F-mount lenses on the Z-mount camera. Unfortunately, I only have one old lens that will autofocus with the new camera, and it isn’t a very sharp lens, an old 18-200 lens for the cropped sensor Nikons. The new camera automatically switches to the cropped sensor format when this lens is mounted, and thanks to the electronic viewfinder, shows the full image.
So I’ve done a few photos with the new camera and that old lens. The photos above and below are a couple samples of portraits with friend and model, Jenny.
Another fun thing with the new camera is that, with adapters, I can use any of my old F-mount lenses on it. So I’ve been playing with some of my old favorites that I haven’t used for years, even decades. The photo below was shot with one of my all-time favorite lenses, my old trusty 85mm f/1.8. This is one of the best lenses Nikon has ever made, and it’s so solidly built that we joked you could use if for a hockey puck between shoots with no issues. It’s really sharp and makes lovely images. But, it’s manual focus and digital SLRs just couldn’t be focused well enough with manual focus lenses. But that’s changed now with the great focusing aids that the Z7ii offers, including fringing and magnification. I love electronic viewfinders.
Another old lens that I haven’t used much for years is an old 100mm single-element soft-focus lens. I’ve had it since college. It does some lovely things that can’t be faked in software. But, it was effectively 150mm with my cropped-sensor Nikon SLRs and 200mm with my micro 4/3 cameras, so that made it hard to use for portraits, which is what it’s best at. But the Z7ii is full frame, so it’s back to its intended focal length. It’s still hard to focus. It’s so soft that the focus aids in the camera don’t kick in, but I can manage, just as I did in times of old. Here’s an example below. I kind of love the perversity of using such a low-resolution lens on one of the highest resolution cameras available. And I did enjoy doing that with the pinhole the other day too.
The new lens will be here soon so I’ll be getting busy testing it and you’ll see those results before long.
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