episa's photostream  

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Nikon D700 and lens Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f/2. Taken hand held at ISO 1600, f/4, 1/250.

The weather is dull gray and I have not much inspiration for landscape photography with such skies. So when the urge to trigger my camera shutter becomes too strong I head to the woods and see what part of nature I can photograph: leaves, trees, moss, etc......

By comparison with the previous shot the bokek is not as smooth (a little harsher) but the depth of field is bigger (no use of extension tubes which shorten the DOF). The Zeiss 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar is reknown for its sharpness and indeed all the crispy details on the tree trunk are visible.

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Nikon D700 with Voigltander APO Lanthar 180mm f/4 behind 48mm of Nikon extension tubes (complete set PK11a+PK12+PK13). Taken handhled at ISO 1250, f/5.6, 1/125s.

As long as the temperature does not go below zero degree C, nature continues its magic work and life tries to grow, even in the middle of winter - January.

The narrow depth of field with totally out of focus background is achieved by combining the long focal length lens 180m f/4 with exptension tubes stuck between the lens and the camera. This allows me to achieve almost 1/3 magnification (48/180) with that lens which has a naturally gorgeous bokeh.

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Nikon D700 and lens Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G mounted on Tripod Gitzo with wireless trigger Phottix.
Taken on January 1 2012 at 00:07 using camera settings ISO 3200, f/2, 1/80s.

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Nikon D700 and lens Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G mounted on Tripod Gitzo with wireless trigger Phottix.
Taken on January 1 2012 at 00:05 using camera settings ISO 3200, f/2, 1/40s.

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Sony NEX5-N with Novoflex Nikon to E format adapter mounted on Voigtlander APO 180mm f/4 lens. Taken at ISO 1600, f/4, 1/250s.

I know, I know, it is just another duck - a quite dull composition actually - so why post it? Well this is not done to advance the photographic art obviously but to please the community of lens and camera tweakers always experimenting new cocktails.

I like very much in particular the Voigtlander 180mm APO lens: despite its unattractive largest aperture of f/4, it is capable of producing beautiful bokeh and focus selection rendering like on this duck photo. The foreground and background are nicely blurred without any harshness of highlights and the critical focus required on the duck eye/legs is achieved successfully thanks to the great peaking function capability of the Sony NEX5-N.

The result is a nicely sharp focused center where the duck literally pops in the picture. Also the APO coating of this lens can help reproduce the nice iridescence of the green color of the duck's head, even in cloudy days as it happened to be.

This soft bokeh rendering can be achieved as well with the Nikon AF-S 300mm f/2.8 but the price of that lens is in another league and not practical to carry while on vacation. The latest Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII also provides super crisp and colorful photos but for some reason cannot give the same look as the voigtlander (APO coating?), and is also too big and heavy for me to add it to my travel bag.

On the contrary the tiny Voigtlander weights only 485g, fits in anyone of my photographic pockets and through a 49 to 52 step us ring can accommodate common and cheap 52mm filters - that small vs the required 77mm filter size for the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 zoom!
Hey you can even make a more relevant comparison between this Voigtlander lens and the Nikkor AF 180mm f/2.8 IF-ED : 760g and 72mm filter size! I owned this Nikon lens for a while and sold it back for its slow focus and lack of differentiation with the newer Nikon 70-200 VRII zoom lens.