In the past couple of months I acquired new equipment. I ended up just investing in all the lenses I wanted/needed, and then I bought a new camera to go with the lenses.
I have shot with both the lens, and camera, done a few test shots here and there, but have not yet had the chance to actually put the gear into a real world scenario.
Today was the first day I did that...
The Nikon D800 is an excellent camera... but this BLOG is about the 70-200mm lens more specifically...
I've owned this lens for about a month or two now, and I've found it pretty much unusable on my D7000. Due to the crop factor, the field of view is too tight and I can't really do much unless its a controlled situation.
Currently I consider myself more as an event Photographer, rather than a Portrait Photographer, so the 70-200mm cannot be freely used at an event due to confined spaces.
However, the 70-200 on the D800, it was a beautiful combination. It still was a bit difficult at times, but a lot more manageable than if it were mounted on my D7000.
So today I fully utilised this lens, and my god was I impressed!
I've owned a Sigma 70-200 f/2.8, and I found the AF painfully slow, especially at 200mm. So when the camera cannot find focus, you have to wait for the lens to cycle through all over again to try find it, and it's so slow! The Nikon 70-200 on the otherhand, a lot faster! Teamed up with the D800 also, it was able to AF in dark conditions...
Seriously was blown away by it today... So much so, that it's now 11:30pm, I've been up since 6:30am, shooting all day, and I'm having to BLOG about this lens as I'm that excited by it.
The thing that blew me away so much with this lens was the VR (Vibration Reduction).
Only two of my Nikon lenses have VR, and that's my 105mm f/2.8 Micro, and the 70-200mm. All my other lenses don't have this feature.
This feature allowed me to shoot in low-light tonight.
I wasn't keen on using Flash, as it just flattens everything out. It doesn't look as if our eyes would see it, so I avoid using it unless I have too.
With the 70-200mm, I managed to goto ISO2500, shoot at 200mm, at 1/30sec. That's a really slow shutter for that focal length, but from what I can see, I'm still getting sharp, in focus images, with no visible hand shake. As I was at 1/30sec, at times I'd get blur from the subject moving, but not so much from my hands shaking holding that lens...
I thought I'd just add a picture of the lens lol... just for the hell of it...
One complaint with this lens though is its hefty weight!
I wanted to stand at a point where the guests were seated, so get the guests perspective of the speeches, and I had my camera ready, aimed at the Bride, waiting to see laughter to capture, and the joke was taking some time to get to the punchline, and my arm was beginning to ache! lol... To pick up the lens and put it down, you know it's heavier than the average... to hold up to your face for a few seconds, you begin to get tired...
So tired to the point my hands were shaking immensely as I tried to pick up a drink to my mouth...
But! I got the shots nonetheless, and the VR really helped me attain some key shots in low light.
I did also shoot with a fairly high ISO, on the premis that it'll handle the noise well, and then when I export the images from 36.3mp down to a reasonable size, the noise will be clean.
D800 + 70-200mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, ISO2000, 1/15sec
As a rule of thumb, you should shoot slower than your focal length. So if I'm shooting at 200mm, I should be at a minimum of 1/200sec. ISO2000 usually you get some grain... But this file exported at 1000px looks very clean to me. I'm sure zoomed in 1:1 on the full res file, you'll see noise, but I'm úber impressed with this ISO performance.
I'm even more impressed with the slow Shutter Speed I was able to shoot at with this lens.
To put it into perspective...
1/200sec down to 1/100sec is one stop of light...
So to do the math...
1/200sec @ ISO16,000
1/100sec @ ISO8000
1/50sec @ ISO4000
1/25sec @ ISO2000
I'm not even entirely sure if you can select ISO16,000. It goes up in different increments on my camera. But the principle is you half the sec, you double the ISO... The more ISO, the more image noise...
The average DSLR struggles above ISO1000... So for my camera to produce a clean file at ISO2000 is impressive in itself, but the lenses VR function to allow me to shoot at 1/15sec is even more impressive to me. It prevented me from pushing the ISO up further than I have too... That is why I'm so stunned by todays shoot!
The above image is unedited, imported RAW, and exported un-touched in Lightroom 4. It's not the best composition, as the face is smack bam centre. This type of shot is known as a sniper shot as it's overly centralised. However to me, it was more important to capture the facial expression than worry too much about anything else.
The Centre Focus point is always the most accurate, and quickest. I personally like this shot as it is. There's a great natural smile, caught in a candid moment. There is some light bouncing off a lamp on the lower right handside, which is slightly distracting, but for me, the smile takes prescendent over that.... The extra headroom allows to display nice separation from the subject, and has lovely Bokeh from the 200mm f/2.8.
I did a quick colour correction on this image. I think on the final edit I'll pull back slightly on the clarity, but I just wanted to do some Noise Reduction. I used Lightroom to perform Noise Reduction at 25, and it seemed to completely rid the image of any grain.
Just showing how usable ISO2000 is, and I wouldn't have been able to get this shot, this clean, without my new gear.
D800, credit is due for the AF in low-light and ISO performance.
Lens, credit is due for Focal Length and VR...
If I used any other lens I owned, I would have to walk in closer, which might cause some attention and the guest would have lost this smile, or I would have to shoot and crop a lot later...
Just pretty amp'd about todays shoot, and some of the shots I achieved with the new gear.
I will be editing and uploading the rest of the pics soon.
Might have to BLOG about the D800 itself... I'll save that for another... but this lens, again, seriously! The VR is amazing!
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