Thursday, February 21, 2013

What's In My Bag: Night Landscapes

Tonight I am going to South Mountain overlooking Phoenix to do some night photography.  For this I will definately need my tripod and a remote shutter release since most of my exposures will most likely be 30 seconds or longer.  For this I should only need one lens, my 18-55mm G VR, but for the heck of it I am also bringing along my 60 year old Kilfitt 400mm f/5.6 "FrankenLens".  Here is the rundown.
My intention was to get some cityscapes during sunset and early evening.  I spent most of my time shooting the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 G VR and it worked brilliantly.  Shooting between 30 seconds and 5 minutes I got some gorgeous shots.

Phoenix Arizona Cityscape at Sunset
Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
Focal Length: 18mm
Shutter: 26.7 sec
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 100
Flash: None
Just to see what it could do I pulled out the Kilfitt 400mm f/5.6 "FrankenLens".  This is a lens that was given to me with the original mount boogered up to fit some unknown camera.  So I went ahead and bought some (ahem) high quality super cheap extension tubes and pressed a tube onto the mount.  These all screwed together so I was able to mix and match until I got the lens mounted at the correct distance from the focal plane.  It is definately a kludge job, but it works, and works quite well.  Here is a shot from the old Kilfitt...

Phoenix Arizona Cityscape Closeup at Sunset
Camera: Nikon D80
Lens:  Kilfitt 400mm f/5.6 "FrankenLens"
Focal Length: 400mm
Shutter: 3 sec
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 100
Flash: None
Overall not bad.  This was a good shoot, had the right equipment, and came home with some stuff I was proud of, and that is all you ever want.

Thanks for reading.

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