The shot below was taken at 17mm, f/11, ISO 100, for 30 seconds. This photograph also won the honor of being “Photo of the Week” at Photo Camel, a forum I frequent.

Click on the image to go to the Flickr page and then from there you can see a larger version.

This is with my white seamless setup.

Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D NIKKOR ED (“New,” 1997-)

and the

Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF-D NIKKOR (1987-)

These are “pro” level lenses with all metal construction and exceptional optical properties. These compliment my existing collection of pro Nikkor lenses nicely and they’re FX not DX lenses.

Below are some samples from the 85mm.

The IQ of these new lenses is great, the only optical abnormality I discovered is that the 80-200 has some chromal abberation issues at 80mm+f/2.8 on my D300 body. However a few of my lenses have noted bad DX0 marks on the D300 while having exceptional marks on Fx bodies, so that has me excited for the D800. Once I get my D800 I’ll bring these guys in for a service at the local Nikon service center just for good measure to have them all aligned and cleaned.

This brings my lens collection to the following, all of which I’m extremely proud of. These are lenses I want to be buried with.

• Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
• Nikon 24-85mm AF-S
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D
• Nikon 85mm f/1.8
• Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR
• Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D ED

This one was shot with a CTO gel over the flash head and the white-balance of the camera set to tungsten. It gives a nice blue tint to the ambient light.

We headed out to the upper Newport Nature Preserve and got some great pics.

We shot at a field near my house. The sun at noon behind shifting clouds made this shoot a nightmare to keep correctly lit. I had to adjust strobes and re-meter frequently, but it was all worth it.

See the “Like” link on the sidebar to the right.

http://500px.com/jgunder

We have been able to reduce the amount of medication Sarah takes by about 30% over 4 months, and our seizure control has remained good.

We will continue to experiment over time. Maybe someday she won’t need meds at all.

She’s brighter and more alert than ever.

Today we went to the park and introduced her to the tire swing, one of her sister’s favorites.

Just ring the doorbell, walk in, “don’t mind me I only lived here for 20 years of my life”, and just hug the house from the inside, and say, “I miss you soooo much house”.

I was in Tustin today on an errand, and I yearned to visit my friend’s old house, but his family hasn’t lived there in years. What would I say to the people? “I know you think this is your house, but I lived here longer than you ever will, and the walls of this house have been present for my history”. I wish, once you moved out of a house, it died and self imploded. The thought of strangers in my old houses bugs the shit out of me.

I yearn to visit my old house in Alaska. Perhaps the strongest attachment of all, I have a recurring dream I’m back in my house in Alaska.

It’s funny, I don’t think it’s at all an attachment to the people in my life at the time, but just the actual physical location.

I get VERY ATTACHED VERY EASILY.

When my wife and I went back to the big island of Hawaii to the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel we looked for our wedding spot, a little area carved out of the rocks above the ocean. It was gone; they had rerouted the trail and vegetation had grown over it. I was so sad. I get uneasy when my history changes, when I go back to places and they’re not the same that they were. It creeps me out and I get melancholy. I miss my house in Irvine, and my friend’s house in Tustin. I miss my house in Lake Forest and my house in Laguna Beach. And more than anything I miss my little log cabin in the Alaskan wilderness and our family home on the big island of Hawaii.

If I had the money I’d buy all these places back and kick the a-holes out that live there now. I’d fly between them all frequently.

I took the V700 back and am waiting for a new once to come into stock. For now I am scanner-less.

Unfortunately 20 years worth of my father’s slides got added to that mix so I never actually got to scan any of my own stuff and since March of 2009 I’ve been working on getting his stuff scanned so I could get back onto my stuff.

33 months later I am done, (with my father’s slides).

I burned up the Epson V500 Photo scanner in the process, and ended up with a V700 Photo to finish the job.

It’s a great scanner and I appreciate its ability to scan 12 slides at a time compared to the V500 which could only scan 4 at a time.

Now I can begin scanning all my own stuff! Detour complete. Below are a few of the thousands of old pics I scanned.

Nikon’s new professional camera, (to be announced in January), is a 16 MP extreme ISO performance camera.

Here are the rumored specs.

• 16.2 MP
• 11 fps
• 100-12,800 native ISO range, expandable to 50 and 204,800
• CF + XQD memory card slots! That’s right, the Nikon D4 will have the new Compact Flash XQD memory card slot.
• Compatible with the new Nikon WT-5 wireless transmitter
• Integrated Ethernet in the camera
• Face detection/recognition function that will be working in the viewfinder (maybe some type of a hybrid viewfinder? Nikon had several related patents)
• Improved video, I have no other details on that but my guess is 1080p/30/25/24 and 720p/60/30/25/24 similar to the Nikon D800
• Uncompressed video out through the HDMI port
• Ability to assign the two buttons on the front of the camera to smooth aperture control during video recording
• Improved 51 AF points
• AF detection range will go down to EV-2.0 (the D3s went to EV -1)
• Autofocus system: 9 cross-type sensors that are operational up to f/8

Am I missing something?

The Megapixels

When 21 and 25 megapixel cameras have already been out for years why after all this delay and time is Nikon’s new flagship model only going to be 16 megapixels? I realize megapixels aren’t everything, but after all this time to be coming out with a professional camera that takes lower resolution images than many consumer cameras just seems odd to me. If this is going to be priced the same as the D3, then the old Canon EOS 5D Mark II is looking more and more attractive every day.

The ISO Performance

And ISO performance up to 12,800? Who needs that? I never shoot past ISO 100. I’d be perfectly content for the rest of my life if my camera only went up to ISO 400. What audience is Nikon catering to with these specifications? Blind people with small printers shooting in caves with only available light? Maybe I’ll call this the “cave man camera”.

Of course I’m still holding out hope that the 36 megapixel D800 will be affordable, (in my dreams).