Dave Benham

D700, AF-S 70-200 at 175mm, 1/80th at f/4.5, ISO 200

As I haven’t been to the gym for a while it was high time I got out with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-200 f/2.8 zoom that I acquired recently. It’s brilliantly balanced on the D700 and feels great, but it isn’t half heavy. On the plus side, a couple of hours of wandering around with this lens makes the 24-70 f/2.8 seem as light as a feather! Mental note: leave the 50mm f/1.4 off for a bit…

First impressions – the AF is insanely fast. It tracks well in low light and is pretty quiet too, but you can hear the VR servos fire in from time to time. On that note, take a look at the shot of Harry above. That was taken at 175mm using a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second, handheld. All the rules say that image should be completely out of focus but it works for me thanks to the VR.

D700, AF-S 70-200 at 95mm, 1/80th at f/4.5, ISO 200

I found myself using the motor drive more than usual, switching the camera into high speed mode for the first time in a while. Perhaps this lens made me feel like a journo – during our half hour walk around the park I certainly got a few strange looks. Most of them must have been about the camera and lens, surely!  It was interesting playing with the compressed perspective you achieve with a longer lens, and the longer reach was great. Looking back at the shots I can’t see any of the vignetting or softness that some people report with the 70-200 on full frame.

D700, AF-S 70-200 at 80mm, 1/80th at f/8, ISO 3200

Thanks to the D700 I’m shooting so much more natural light stuff these days – this shot shows why. Even at ISO 3200 in really low light I was able to get a usable portrait, and although there is visable noise it’s no worse than my D200 was at ISO 800. I’m itching to play with off camera flash soon though, the new Pocketwizards for Nikon can’t come soon enough for me.

With the recent addition to my family I’ve been thinking of how best to invest in my family’s future. Recently my photographic investment has been on new lenses, with my philosophy being to purchase glass that I will keep for many years, not the throwaway optics I’ve had in the past.

I’ve made another investment in the last couple of days which is vaguely photography related. I’ve purchased some shares in Jessops, a UK based camera retail chain. Not many mind, it’s more a little fun than anything, but who knows, it may pay off in the future. The retail world has changed a lot since the end of 2006, when the shares were trading at £1.50 each. I purchased some shares at just over 1.5p each.

Why Jessops? I don’t often shop there; most of my purchases are online, or via independent stores like Mifsuds. Part of me has a grudge – the staff don’t have the highest reputation, and they annoyed me when they stopped doing part exchanges. But things are changing. The business has to evolve to keep up with online. And of course I want to be able to go into my local town and pick up and try the latest gear. It’s all very well getting everything online, however I don’t want to need to go to London or Brixham to check out a new Nikon body.

I freely admit that I probably won’t buy a huge amount of kit from Jessops, but it’s been more than once that they’ve rescued me with film, a memory card or a filter in an emergency. And for that reason I’ve invested my hard earned cash. And if the shares could go up a couple of pence then that would be grand.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to keep my blog up to date, and this last week was the first time I’ve been a bit slack. But I have an excuse or two!

Number one was the arrival of my second son, Thomas. Ok, so it stopped me posting to the blog for a week or so, but think of the photo opportunities he will create! Unlike last time I had my camera with me at the hospital and I’ll set a page up soon to show what a cute little chap he is.

Secondly my blog was featured on the Redweb Facebook page. Check it out – it’s a fantastic example of how social networking can be used to benefit your business. Redweb have a very talented design team and I’m proud to work with them. My blog is featured on the page, and the extra traffic made the old virtual private server creak a bit.

So I’ve moved up in the World – a dedicated server from Coreix. I know there are cheap servers to be had in the US, but I’ve got a UK domain name and I’d like to be hosted in this country if possible. Coreix have very keen prices, from basic Linux servers all the way through to full managed hosting. Service so far is very good (my new server was up within three hours, and I ordered at midnight!) and no outages.

Right, quick updates over, more news to follow soon…

There are several online depth of field calculators around but I do like this one from Don Fleming. It’s bang up to date with all the latest D-SLR models, and makes the proper adjustment for a full frame sensor compared to an APS-C sized sensor. Did you know that shooting at f/5.6 on a D300 gives the equivalent depth of field of f/8 on an older Hasselblad? Read David Ziser’s post at Digital Pro Talk for a great argument on how using lower f stops is possible with digital equipment.

I like the DOF calculator as a quick reference – for example here I can see shooting at a subject 10 feet away using a 50mm lens at f/2.8, objects just under a foot in front of the subject and just over a foot behind will also be in focus. A graphical representation is shown as well, example below.

Try the online depth of field calculator here, hope you find it useful!

Morning! A couple of updates to share…

Away from photography I love to indulge in a little online gaming every now and again. Chris McKinnie, a fellow gamer, has recently started a new blog documenting his experiences putting a site together and working with a content management system. It’s interesting to see Chris have some of the same experiences I did when setting this site up. Bloggers unite!

Back to my blog, I’ve made a few changes on the blog today, and there are a few more in the pipeline.

• Added a link in my photography section to John Goode. John is a colleague of mine at Redweb and also a Canon shooter with a great set of images. Check out his Sky set on Flickr as well, some unbelievable colours and moody clouds in attendance!
• You can now follow me on Twitter via the link at the top right and from my About page – Twitter is a great microblogging service and is a great source of information as well. The first shots of the ‘plane coming down in the Hudson were posted on Twitter literally as people left the cabin!
• In draft: new equipment pages. The lowdown on my gear, and the software I use too. I’m hoping to get these on the site this week some time.

I’ve got some more shots to post on the blog later as well, watch this space. Or just come back later.