Critters

Seems to be doing something right. Wish he'd do it somewhere else....

Haven't often been visited by the local squirrels this summer.....

Still playing with my Minolta 75-200 f4.5 lens attached to my D300 with a Fotodiox adapter. Obviously the setup works. I own a variety of old Minolta lenses. I thought I was buying an adapter to fit my V1, but evidently ordered the wrong thing. Since the adapter's inexpensive, and fits my D300, it seems worth some experimentation. With the adapter on, things work OK, though the camera seems to think this lens is f2.8 and 50mm. Since at this point I'm just setting things by trial and error, that's harmless.

Continuing with my Minolta on Nikon experiments. The problem with what I was doing the other day--using my Minolta zoom on the D300--is that there's no advantage . My Minolta Rokkor 75-200 f4.5 is in no way an improvement on the Nikon Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 AF. In fact, it's a slower lens without autofocus capabilities. So we'll treat the squirrel shot from a couple days back as a proof of concept, and move on. Well, I got the adapter for my Nikon 1 yesterday, and here are three photographs which were shot using the Minolta lens on the V1. The gold finch (really not sharp enough by my usual standards) and the single squirrel (on the borderline) were shot at 200 mm; the two-squirrel shot (excellent sharpness) was set around 135 mm. All three shots were hand-held and manually focused. This setup has a real advantage: The 75-200 f4.5's a much longer lens than the camera's native 30-110 mm f3.8-5.6 lens. At full extension, this is equivalent to a 540 mm lens on a film SLR. That's a noteworthy gain. This is another Fotodiox adapter, and really all it does is step down the lens barrel size. Attaching this lens/adapter combination has a significant impact on the camera's behavior. Most modes are disallowed, and while manual mode is permitted it loses the camera's light sensor, effectively turning the camera into a fully manual device. But it works. We'll keep experimenting, probably on both cameras. I have other Minolta lenses, some of which are quite quick; those would be gains on the big camera in some situations. This could be fun.

Continuing with my Minolta on Nikon experiments. The problem with what I was doing the other day--using my Minolta zoom on the D300--is that there's no advantage . My Minolta Rokkor 75-200 f4.5 is in no way an improvement on the Nikon Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 AF. In fact, it's a slower lens without autofocus capabilities. So we'll treat the squirrel shot from a couple days back as a proof of concept, and move on. Well, I got the adapter for my Nikon 1 yesterday, and here are three photographs which were shot using the Minolta lens on the V1. The gold finch (really not sharp enough by my usual standards) and the single squirrel (on the borderline) were shot at 200 mm; the two-squirrel shot (excellent sharpness) was set around 135 mm. All three shots were hand-held and manually focused. This setup has a real advantage: The 75-200 f4.5's a much longer lens than the camera's native 30-110 mm f3.8-5.6 lens. At full extension, this is equivalent to a 540 mm lens on a film SLR. That's a noteworthy gain. This is another Fotodiox adapter, and really all it does is step down the lens barrel size. Attaching this lens/adapter combination has a significant impact on the camera's behavior. Most modes are disallowed, and while manual mode is permitted it loses the camera's light sensor, effectively turning the camera into a fully manual device. But it works. We'll keep experimenting, probably on both cameras. I have other Minolta lenses, some of which are quite quick; those would be gains on the big camera in some situations. This could be fun.

Walk, bicycle, or ride in a carriage: Transportation on Mackinac Island....

More horses from our little walk around Mackinac Island the other day.

A Red Admiral, I'm told.

For BlitzGirl . Yeah, it's pretty much a private joke.

"Can we be friends?" Um, no. Photo from a year and a half ago....

On that same sunflower. Getting this photo was harder than I expected.... Now the pace of the sunflower pix will slow. But we may be watching it decay until April. One Sunflower .