Originally posted by Welfl I've really been looking forward to having to take fewer panoramic "segment" shots once I start shooting with a wide-angle lens.
Stitched panos are great... when appropriate. They're not appropriate when shooting in tight dimly-lit jam-packed spaces like the
tourista marketplace in Nogales.
Which prompts a brief description of my yesterday. We left Old Bisbee early, drove up Tombstone Canyon, through the Time Tunnel, across the San Pedro valley past Fort Huachuca, through Sonoita and Patagonia, to Nogales and our favorite cheap parking lot (a shuttle stand) just 1/2 block from the border. We stopped for numerous shoots along the way, with the DA18-250, my default on-the-road lens.
As soon as we reached the border I mounted my PKM Vivitar-Komine 24/2, whose iris blades are stuck open at f/2. To shoot in bright desert daylight, I had an assembly screwed into the lens: step-ring, CPL, step-ring, wide metal hood, enough to cut flare and keep shutter speed below 1/4000 (the K20D's limit). I'd remove that assembly to shoot indoors, quickly replace it when outside. That works fine. I got good close shots of day-of-the-dead artifacts and curious displays and vivid street scenes, mostly impossible with a 28mm or longer lens.
Then we stood in line 1/2 hour to walk back across the border into USA. Just one CBP officer to check thousands of passports, what a lousy system, grumble bitch whine moan. But I digress. We drove north through the village of Rio Rico (no relation) to Tubac Presidio, an art+craft community with shops just marginally bigger and brighter than the Nogales stalls, for more gift-shopping.
And I didn't watch where I was walking. Duh. I tripped over a boulder, a 50cm / 20in black cube in front of a shop. The camera was slung around my neck and went front-on into the rock and then the ground. The old Vivitar CPL snapped apart. Camera and lens survived just fine.
My surmise: the CPL took the shock of the fall, and failed. If I'd had only the metal hood, it would have bent and maybe the lens objective would have been scratched by rock or dirt. If I'd had a 'protective' UV filter mounted, it too could have bent and broken, maybe denting the lens' front thread. But the failure-point left the camera and lens and threads intact. And I later dusted-off the CPL and snapped it back together. All is right as rain now.
My point there is that some shock-absorbing mechanism mounted on the lens, like a two-piece filter or a collapsible lens hood, is much more protection than a single filter. Other point: No matter what splendid sights are around you, watch where you walk!
Last edited by RioRico; 03-22-2012 at 10:48 AM.