A tribute to Milan, Italy
If you are lucky enough and visit Milan on a sunny, windy day, some good memories of this city will easily stick to your mind. Give it a try.
20 mm eyes on Zurich day and night
Nobody on the shores of Zurisee today
Nobody waiting for the ferry boat back to Zurich
Nobody in the city centre but a couple of tourists
Nobody by the Limmat … is everybody at Expovina tonight?
Each picture shot with a Sigma 20mm f/1.8, thanks Thiago! Amazing how much stuff can be shot in a single picture with a 20 mm. Click on pics to zoom
Night life: an alternative wide point of view
Trees from the top of Zurich shot with a Sigma 20 mm f/1.8 – nice wide field but some distortions on the right borders, like probably with any other 20 mm. From Utliberg to Zuriberg, enjoy a big version of the full panorama here
D800 plus Astro 700 mm: astronomic pictures!
For the second night a bright light is visible from my bedroom window. What is it? I just mounted my Astro 700 mm telescope and set my D800 on 1/40, f/1.4 ISO 3200 and … it is an astronomic alignment!
Please, appreciate the two black bands on the planet and the four moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto! I can imagine what Galileo felt that night around 400 years ago.
I tried to take the picture with the Canon 450D, no way. I am glad I can use the D800 for astronomy, I did not have this possibility before. Thanks pals for gifting me this cheap telescope when I finished university in the last millennium.
Here below how Galileo wrote about the four moons, click to enlarge.
Nikon service could reduce but not repair my left D800 AF issue (end of October 2012)
I am pretty sure the Nikon Service Switzerland did its best to fix the left AF issue of my Nikon D800, no jokes. The problem is: they could not fully repair it.
I gave in my 3 week-old D800 camera with a 0 AF fine tuning, perfect central and right AF points, highly blurred (unusable) left AF side.
After 3 weeks I got back a camera with a -12 AF fine tuning, a slightly blurred right AF and a slightly better left AF. My test (click on the first picture table for full view) was carried out with these specs:
– camera on tripod
– Mup to avoid mirror vibrations
– liveview focusing vs AF points
– several pictures shot for each points
– around 3 meters far from the target
– 50 mm f/1.4 G mounted
I compared for AF accuracy and sharpness my 2,700 CHF Nikon D800 against the entry level Canon 60D (800 CHF value). The Nikon D800 could never produce with left and right AF points any sharp picture, while the Canon 60D was sharp at each trial (click on the second picture table for full view)
So, what’s next? Should I wait for Nikon to find a solution to the problem? 36 Mpixel of out of focus images for a sensor that got the highest DxO rating, this is what I would call a waste of technology.
