[Don Hoey]

I love those images where the background is an absolute blurr. Those pics are normally taken with long fast lenses so well out of my budget. I have also seen great images taken wide open with an 85mm f1.4, but I would have a struggle affording one of those as well. So after many months of saving my 'Saturday money', I have finally managed to get a nice condition used manual focus Nikon 50mm f1.2 lens. This is quite a change of tack for me, as in most cases I have been trying to maximise dof and now I will look to see if I am successful at selecting suitable subjects to minimise it.

As usual with these things the weather is not on my side for outdoor testing. So attatched is my first sample. A simple job on the kitchen sink drainer with a white card backdrop, and natural light. Lens to subject distance is 24inches, and aperture set to f2 so dof is minimal - maybe 5mm. Even with the electronic rangefinder getting precise focus up close looks like it requires a bit of practice, even for me, and I mainly use m/f lenses. For this I took 3 shots and only one was dead on. No A/F lock when the focus point is not on the target and dof is as thin as this.

Still last years mission was getting to grips with digital infrared, for which I had to use the D100, and as a consequence hardly used the D2X. So this year I will get to use the D2X again for its superior viewfinder and electronic rangefinder, while I get to grips with wide aperture images ........ Hurrah.

Don