[Sagitta]

Rules are simple. Pick one of your lenses, and post your personal favorite shot you've taken with that lens. Most of all, share the story behind that shot.

Preferably, limit one photo per post (but double and cross posting is a-ok) since this is hopefully as much a 'story behind the shot' thread as it is about the photos themselves.

I'll start!

I'll go with the lowly Sears 135mm f/2.8 to start with. I'm picking this lens, since its the one I've used the least and always seems to not be on the camera due to being overshadowed by just about everything else I own.

The shot itself wasn't planned - I'd been using the lens outside and hadn't swapped it out yet for one of the faster lenses I own, but my 12 month old son was being held across the room and had this very pensive looking expression on his face.

I swung the camera over and managed to nail focus wide open which with a 135mm manual prime is achievement enough on any given day and worth celebrating on its own. Granted, I then added a bit of softness in post due to killing grain, but still!

The shot was a touch underexposed, so it took me a bit before I realized I had taken probably one of the best portraits I've managed of my son (or anyone else for that matter).

Shot Christmas Day, 2011. This was the shot that made me re-evaluate my lack of usage of the lens after a long period of ignoring it in favor of my two longish zooms that overlap that focal range.

[Bramela]

Ok, i will join in.

Pentax FA28-105. An older lens but a lens with some quality. I can't say it is my favourite lens, but one I like to play around with, now and again.

[patolds]

And one from me too.

An Auto Chinon 135mm M42 lens, not a bad piece of glass, first month I've used it, and found to be a good portrait/studio lens..if you have a spare 5 feet or so to play with. Taken earlier this month.




Cheers Paddy

[Arjay Bee]

Nice one Paddy - haven't seen you here for a while - maybe we just frequent different threads.

This one I have shown before and is an easy choice as it is probably the only decent keeper so far I have made with this particular lens. The lens is the Tokina made Vivitar 75-205 3.5 K mount with close focus abilities. I had just taken delivery of it and had it on the K20D for testing purposes and happened on this Singapore Daisy with a visitor.



The lens exhibits a bit of glow at this focal distance - probably needs a decent internal element clean but is in otherwise perfect condition. Cost me about $30 including mail from the USA. All metal and glass - just haven't used it much since then.

[Sagitta]

Nice one Paddy - haven't seen you here for a while - maybe we just frequent different threads.

This one I have shown before and is an easy choice as it is probably the only decent keeper so far I have made with this particular lens. The lens is the Tokina made Vivitar 75-205 3.5 K mount with close focus abilities. I had just taken delivery of it and had it on the K20D for testing purposes and happened on this Singapore Daisy with a visitor.



The lens exhibits a bit of glow at this focal distance - probably needs a decent internal element clean but is in otherwise perfect condition. Cost me about $30 including mail from the USA. All metal and glass - just haven't used it much since then.

My Sears 75-260 close focus does the same glow thing. Mine's internal focus as well, so maybe the lenses are cousins of sorts. I love the 75-260 to death though, and rarely use it in conditions that would cause the glow to surface.

I can't wait until I can get my mitts on a K-30 so I can use focus peaking with it.

[ramseybuckeye]

Great idea for a thread, Sagitta, and some excellent photos all!

This is my favorite with the DA55-300. I've probably got more good shots with this lens than any other, but this one is special to me. I went on a trip to Yellowstone in June 2010 with my two sons and a nephew. We stayed at West Yellowstone and were out pretty late one night, I got up and ready and everyone else was still sleeping soundly, so I drove a few miles into the park along the Madison River. It was a little cloudy and foggy but the sun was trying to bust out, I came along this area where they were fly fishing and got this shot off, the fog was gone in an instant afterwards. I didn't realize at the time how it would come out, once we got home I knew it was a keeper. It's the only picture of mine that was accepted into the Pentax Photo Gallery Premiere Collection:

[Sagitta]

In my efforts to get a working cheap 28mm I probably had a half dozen failures in the process before finally snagging one. One of those attempts involved an A3000 that came with a mangled old Pentax-M 50 f/2. The lens has a few issues, and since I have a better, faster lens, I rarely use the thing. That said, I did spend a day or three running it through the paces since it was something new to me, and I wanted to see how it worked.

We'd taken a trip down the coast on one of those foggy Maine days that you really have to experience to appreciate. The trip home had us making our way through thick fog back home along US 1, and I was idly snapping shots out the windshield more out of boredom than 'I want to get a shot in'.

When I went back in later, I found this. Its not often you can really catch a mood in a shot that has no people and a spattering of objects, but I did it with this one.

This shot came from that lowly old 'rode hard, put away wet' Pentax-M 50mm f/2.

[LeDave]

DA* 50-135 f2.8 - f2.8, iso80, 135mm, 1/100s.
Shot at the Minnesota State Fair. Saw some dude with a Canon and a 70-200 f2.8 L USM IS II shoot down at the crowd. I decided to stand where he was right when he left and take the same shot.

[Just1MoreDave]

I have a battered SMC Pentax-F 70-210mm f4-5.6, pretty competent glass in an ugly package. It works well for many types of shots. I had decided the sunset wasn't going to be too interesting and was grilling dinner on my deck when conditions changed. I ran to get camera, lens, tripod and card, set up quickly and got the shot below. What I am most proud of is the rays immediately around the sun's disk. I knew that effect was possible and chose this lens for its 9 aperture blades to make it happen. This version is a mostly unprocessed test that I had printed to see what the colors were like. I will probably either clone or crop some of the foreground elements when I decide on a frame size. Dinner was also good, unaffected by my brief camera dash.

[ramseybuckeye]

I paid $42 for this lens in January, it came with an SF10 as a rear lens cap. This was a very surprisingly good lens and I got a lot of good images out of it but this was my favorite. I watch the moonrise/moonset calender on the US Naval Observatory website and if possible I go out with the camera for moonrises. There's just something special about the rising moon. I have ideas for images but the location of the moonrise doesn't always work, so I drive around the countryside looking for shooting locations. This one is a little later than moonrise, but it works for me. I didn't know how it would work to line up the moon over the cupola, but it was the best of the several different looks I took. The last light of the sun was behind me, just enough illumination for this to work. I've recently sold the lens as I obtained a DA18-135WR lens that is also quite sharp and made this one redundant.

[Sagitta]

I managed to get a Sigma 70-300mm DL Macro Super cheap off eBay (as I have most of my lenses) and promptly broke the zoom about a month after getting it. The lens still works, so I still used it (a lot) and uner the right conditions it produces nice contrasty shots. My favorite moonshot actually comes from that lens (which the awesome shot above reminded me of) but that hasn't been my 'favorite' shot from that lens.

In August of 2011 I went down to the Great Falls Balloon Festival in Lewiston and actually ~came prepared~ (a rarity as usually I just grab a lens and go without really planning ahead). I'd almost left the big zoom behind due to its size, but I figured I may want to get in close on some of the balloons and the crowds.

Once the balloons started launching at daybreak, I quickly realized they were headed for the river so I staked out a good spot on the old repurposed railroad bridge in the park down there to wait for the balloons to start coming in. I'd been told they liked to set down and 'bounce' their baskets off the water, and I wanted that shot. Soon enough, the bridge probably had a thousand people on it all crowding about to grab shots or otherwise just watch the balloons, and I had a blast.

At one point, I glanced back at the crowd debating getting a crowd shot, and did a doubletake - one of the balloons was way off in the distance half hidden in the early morning haze that was still hanging over the city, and the dawn sky was lending a really amazing cast to the clouds off to the east. I stretched a bit, and shot across the mob of people to try to grab the balloon and the surrounding architecture and one of 'those moments' where I knew I had a keeper.

I couldn't get home for another 36 hours or so, but when I did I went in and did some cropping of the bridge to make the steel frame the frame for the picture. I also cranked the contrast and levels to hide the mass of heads on the bottom of the shot and wound up with this.

The funky bell tower and domes are actually part of the Lewiston City Hall building complex and not actually churches (despite the crosses). The tower to the left is part of the historic Bates Mill complex.

[ramseybuckeye]

DA 35/2.4
Sometimes in the winter when we start to get a heavy snowfall, I head out to the country. There is just something about photos when the snow is falling, maybe it's all the shades of white. I've had several really good pics made with this lens, but this one wins by a hair. I was driving south on a country road, looked south and skidded to a stop, turned off the engine opened the window and shot from the driver's seat, then got out and shot a couple while standing on the road, not sure which this is. I entered an 8x10 cropped version of this photo in our county fair this year and won first place in color winter landscapes (all entries had to be printed 8x10):

[Wired]

this is a toughie. I have a lot of favourites.... but it came down to this one. I wanted to start off with the story of my favourite shot that I've taken to date. it was down to four different ones, but in the end this one just warms the heart the most.




I took this with my DA40mm 2.8 limited, I didn't know my camera, or proper exposure techniques very well back then. I was shooting in manual I believe and was just snapping away. I new the higher the aperture, the sharper the image. I know now there is more to that... which caused a high iso. I wish i could say the grain was on purpose, but it was just lack of experience at this point. We were playing at the park with the kids and the youngest was tuckering out and she just laid down on the carousel to rest. I just quickly turned and snapped the photo. This has become my favourite print, and its up at my desk at home and at work. Everytime i look at it I can't help but feel the warmth of love in my heart.

[Sagitta]

I've taken to collecting Sears lenses - it wasn't planned, it just kind of happened. One of the first lenses I picked up was the end result of some hard eBay buying lessons in my quest for a 28mm prime lens. I burned through about 4 duds (wrong mount, didn't work, wrong mount and didn't work...) of various cheap brand (Underground, Albinar, a Vivitar 24mm which wound up being some Bizzarro mount) before I finally picked up a Sears 28mm f/2.8 macro.

I went though a LONG period of not using it - I tended to not like the focal length, and if I really wanted that 28mm range I'd probably snap it with my plastic wonderlens, the FA 28-90mm.

None the less, I was determined to figure that 28mm prime out, and I found that when in 'macro' mode (ie, shooting up close and personal) it could have some very nice results. Color rendition had kind of a bright vintage feel to it (as most of the Sears tend to do).

I found myself wandering around sunset outside work, and noticed the late day sun casting a gleam across the railroad tracks next door. I went looking for an interesting subject to use with that light, and came up empty until I took a good, hard look at the tracks themselves. This was one of those shots that I knew even before I hit the shutter was going to be a keeper.

Sears 28mm f/2.8 macro, shot wide open...