[pjthiel]

My new lenses finally arrived yesterday and I quickly pottered around the garden this morning taking some snaps.

The pictures are all 100% raw from the camera, no PP, with the JPEGs exported at 90% quality to Flickr from LR3.

All of the pictures were hand-held, including all the close-up work. The lighting was difficult, with the sun hot and high, no cloud (time ~11:00am). A lot of the shots were particularly difficult due to the stiff breeze moving all of my "delicate" subjects.

I have not yet checked/calibrated the focus of the lenses on my K-7 body.

The pictures here represents approximately one third of the pictures taken, with the others being a mix of quality dupes or pictures where lighting/focus/composition was too poor to post.

The vast majority of the pictures were taken with manual focus, made simple by the quick-shift system. The DA*200 is a joy to manually focus, with the big, rubber coated focus wheel. The DA35 is a little tricker, primarily down to the compact size of the lens and the awkward shooting positions I managed to create!!

Oh, and no people shots I'm afraid ... I was all alone this morning

On to the photos!

First up ... the DA*200:


































Next up, DA35 F2.8 Macro:






























































That's it ... enjoy, and get your comments rolling in

Cheers!

[pjthiel]

Grabbed myself a tripod today... I'm going to attempt my first sunrise shots tomorrow. It's only around the corner, and I don't have any sense of what the view will look like through the lens. I just know it's a decent elevated view looking out toward Mt Diablo. I'll add those pics here if I manage to get up on time.

[yeatzee]

both are indeed VERY sharp straight from F/2.8!

[sterretje]

Congratulations. I think you've done them proud.

[pjthiel]

both are indeed VERY sharp

Thanks yeatzee, I am really pleased with the quality of these lenses.

[pjthiel]

Congratulations. I think you've done them proud.

Thanks sterretje! I was generally pleased with how many of the shots came out as relative keepers. The 200 takes a little getting used to in terms of the handling; but once you get the hang of it, it is a dream to operate.

[pjthiel]

Here's a handful of shots using the DA35 Limited from this morning's first attempt at capturing a sunrise.

Location turned out not to be that great for shooting:

1. Road to the right running through the valley
2. Sun rising behind hills/mountain meaning ambient light was strong before I could even see the sun.
3. Clear weather with zero clouds; meaning I had to find interest in composition and an uninteresting, distant skyline.

This was also my first real attempt at anything like early/late/night shooting, first use of a tripod and first attempt at using Lightroom for PP.

So if the pictures are crap... it's not the fault of the camera and lens

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Last edited by pjthiel; 05-01-2011 at 08:49 AM. Reason: Added a point to the list.

[manishved]

Great sunrise pics.

[rbryant]

Gorgeous shots. And the credit goes to you, not the glass. ( Though your new lenses are very nice. )

[pjthiel]

Great sunrise pics.

Thanks!

[pjthiel]

Gorgeous shots. And the credit goes to you, not the glass.

Thanks a lot, I appreciate that. I was pretty pleased with the sunrise in particular, considering it was my first attempt at anything like that.

I keep meaning to write-up the experience in a separate blog post, primarily because it was so dramatically (understandably?) different to how I "read" it would be

[karsten]

Excelent pictures