718 - All Red And Green

Remember “706 - Carry That Weight II”? In a comment Ted asked me to not only show the bikes but also the riders.

Well, last morning, immediately after I had left the tram, I saw these two guys passing by, newspapers in their baskets, I remembered Ted, tried my luck and even got sort of a decent shot. Gosh, that’s not easy. You can’t plan anything …

… or maybe you can. Of course I know some spots now where lurking for some minutes would almost certainly produce a result 🙂

Only meters on I found this ribbon on the radio antenna of a parking car. Must have been to a wedding, although at weddings the ribbons are normally some variant of white.

All images today were made with the Nikon 85/1.8, a lens that has been severely underused yet. The riders were shot at f8, this from minimum focusing distance (which is about a poor 80 cm) at f4, the others wide open at f1.8.

There are three reasons why this lens did not get enough attention so far. One is that I bought the Nikon 70-300 VR only two weeks later, and of course the 300 mm were more spectacular.

The second reason is, that this lens shows strong purple fringing (like many old Nikon designs seem to) when used wide open and in extreme contrasts.

The third reason is, that in terms of focal length this lens is not very far from the Sigma 70/2.8 Macro, but the Sigma is the by far better and much more versatile lens.

So, why on earth do I use the Nikon 85/1.8 at all?? Well, I like variety, and used for what it’s good at, this lens can produce remarkable results.

The Song of the Day is “Red Ribbon” from Mary Coughlan’s 1990 album “Uncertain Pleasures”. Amazon has no sound samples, but I found the whole song on Deezer, an online music service that I did not know before. They let me hear the whole song, and in contrast to Pandora or Rhapsody they let me hear it although I am not a citizen of the United States.

It’s a French service and their music search is currently more than a little flaky. So far I have not registered with them, because I can’t currently see what the benefit would be and their terms of use are displayed in French. Anyway, I could hear the song, that’s what counts and I hope you can hear it too.