Nikon D90 and the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 Ultra Wide Lens!

Tokina 11-16 2.8 @12mm

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great 4th of July and got some nice pictures.

Update: Newer Version Just Released 7/27/2012 Check it out Here

I’m going to talk a little about the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 Ultra Wide lens today and my personal thoughts about it. As I said in a previous blog here that I really wanted to get this lens for landscape photography. Well it turns out I was just recently hired by a Build and Design Company to take some photos of their finished interiors……Yep, A paying photography job, Sweet. Anyway this was the perfect reason to finally get the Tokina 11-16mm lens. Plus I was getting ready for vacation where I really wanted to use this lens. I found a good deal on eBay from cameraland with MSN cashback which after the rebate cost me around $520.

First off this lens on the D90 is very cool, looks great and is built like a hand grenade. It worked great for the building interior work I was shooting. It made all the difference in the world compared to my other widest lens the Tamron 17-50mm 2.8. I found out quickly the tammy is just is not wide enough for interiors in my opinion after trying both lens. The Tokina is sharp and fun to use but takes some basic practice to get use to. I used this lens on my D90 set to aperture priority F/8 & F11, tripod, and used the natural lighting of the interiors and the photos came out very nice. See low-res samples below.

So now it was time to take this Tokina on the road for vacation up the California and Oregon coast into Seattle Washington for a family visit and lots of pictures. I was exited to start shooting landscapes and such with the Tokina until I started framing shots at 11mm and they seemed to be a mile away in the viewfinder and just too much at times it seemed. This seemed to be fine on a few shots but not all. I found myself putting on the Tamron 17-50mm more often then not for landscape photos. Don’t get me wrong here the Tokina was sharp and great at 11mm but for most landscape shots I found framing the scene and some zoom ability was needed from the Tammy. The Tokina zoom range is very minimal thus I’d say this lens will always only be used at 11mm which is why I got it anyway. This brings me to an early conclusion that this is definitely like others have said a “Specialty Lens” especially great at building interiors and exteriors and some special landscape photos. I also loved this lens for any really close up shots of big things like cars. I swear it seems like you can get a foot away from a car and fit it all in the frame at different angles, very cool. After my trip I’d say that 80 % of my landscape keepers came from the Tamron 17-50mm but one of my very favorites did come from the Tokina 11-16mm taken at 12mm.

I can’t compare the Tokina Ultra Wide against others like it because this is the first and only true ultra wide I’ve ever used. I do love this lens the more I use it for it's specialties and would definitely recommend it for interiors and exterior building photos and some landscape specialty shots but not as just a landscape lens. I will continue to play with this lens and become more familiar with it as time passes. Below are a few sample photos from the Tokina 11-16mm on my Nikon D90.

Tokina 11-16 @ 16mm

Tokina 11-16 @ 11mm

Check out more Reviews Here!

The Best Place to Buy a Nikon D90?

So were did you all buy your Nikon D90? Their seems to be a lot of choices online to purchase a D90 but finding a good reputable dealer is the key to me. I'd like to buy from our local camera chain store but the prices compared to buying online is just  to big of a gap,even with shipping. For online customer service and no hassle returns I’d have to say Amazon is one of the best. They also have the D90 available in all sorts of configurations. B&H is another good choice for online sales of the D90. Ebay is where I bought mine but make sure the seller has a good track record (feedback) before you bid. Another reputable online store is Adorama which has a nice selection of gear and is also a great place to order your prints. Ritz camera is another but they seem to have higher prices….For first time online purchasers I’d really suggest Amazon since you won’t have any problems and if you do they will take care of you!

Amazon

B&H

Adorama

Ebay

Ritz

New ThickSkin Armor for the Nikon D90

Some new protection for your Nikon D90!

ThickSKIN, Form-Fitting Armor for Nikon D90 Digital SLR Cameras

Guard your dSLR from damage

The ThickSKIN, Form-Fitting Armor for Nikon D90 Digital SLR Cameras will protect your camera from bumps, drops, scrapes, and certain weather elements. The tough, rubberized silicone is form-fitting to your camera and provides it with the utmost protection. Your grip is more firm and secure with the system in place as well. Don't let your camera take abuse, protect it with the Reinforced Camera Guard Protection System today.

Maximum protection for your Nikon D90 dSLR Camera
ThickSKIN, Form-Fitting Armor preserves your Digital SLR Camera from scratches, dust and normal wear-and-tear
Tailored design provides a custom fit for your Nikon D90
Rubberized finish offers a better, more secure grip
Lens guard will fit most lenses up to 85mm

Check it out Here

New Sigma 8-16mm Ultra Wide Angle Lens for the D90!

The NEW Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM is the only one of its kind. This is the first ultra wide zoom lens with a minimum focal length of 8mm, designed specifically for APS-C size image sensors. It has an equivalent angle of view of a 12-24mm lens when used on digital camera with an APS-C size image sensor.

Sigma’s new FLD glass elements, which have the performance equal to fluorite glass, compensate for color aberration. One hybrid aspherical lens and two glass mold elements give excellent correction for distortion and astigmatism. An inner focusing system produces high definition images throughout the entire zoom range and the Super Multi-Layer Coating reduces flare and ghosting while superior peripheral brightness ensures high contrast images throughout the entire zoom range. HSM ensures quiet and high speed AF as well as full-time manual focus capability. It has a minimum focusing distance of 9.4 inches throughout the entire zoom range which allows photographers to emphasize the subject by creating exaggerated perspectives.

This lens has a compact construction with an overall length of 4.2 inches and a maximum diameter of 2.9 inches and is perfect for shooting landscape photography, architecture, building interiors, photojournalism, wedding photography, group pictures and more. New from Sigma, the pioneer of ultra wide-angle lenses.

Check out the Reviews Here!

Mastering HD Video with Your DSLR D90!

Here's a new book geared toward mastering videoing with your DSLR. As far as i know this is the first book on videoing with our D90....

Many of the newest DSLRs include HD video capability, and while the interest from the photography community was initially cool, we have seen a recent shift. Photographers are beginning to explore the video capabilities of their cameras and want to learn about the art and craft of creating high quality video.

In this book learn how to capture and edit video footage, how to achieve the unique "motion picture look " and the effects which have not been possible with standard digital video equipment. The book takes the reader all the way from mastering video concepts, specific video features of their DSLRs, and equipment needed to shoot video, to understanding the restrictions, problems, and pitfalls of shooting video with a DSLR. Using an easy to follow approach of introducing concepts, thoroughly explaining the process of shooting video, and finally presenting step-by-step projects that take the reader from capture to editing. Examples and other useful materials and video clips can be found on the DVD that comes with the book.

Photographers who are ready to give HD video a serious try, as well as videographers interested in exploring the possibilities of DSLRs for their work, will find this book an indispensable source of technical know-how and inspiration.

Check it out Here!

Kindle Addition Here!

Nikon D90 Everything Spring Photo Contest!

Hey everyone happy April Fools Day! I wanted to give this a try! Everyone has been so nice on my blog over the last year and a half I want to giveaway a free copy of David Busch's Nikon D90 book! So let's have a D90 only photo contest with spring as our theme!

UPDATE 5/4/2010

Here are the top 5 photos and winner submitted for our first contest!

1. Winner! Wafwot


2. Vincent



3. D


4. Nancy


5. Tmup

Congratulations To Wafwot, You win the Nikon D90 Book!

With some help from my friends Wafwot got the votes to win first place. I'll be having another contest soon for another nice d90 gift...please stay tuned!

Thank You to everyone that entered my first contest!

This is how it will work.

1.Theme is Spring Time

2.Photo must be from a D90

3.Must include exit data.(just the basics, Lens, Exposure, Aperture, Focal Length, ISO)

4.Photo Title and Description

5.Dead Line to enter is April 30th

So add this info below in the comments field along with a link directly to your photo so i can see it. I'll post the top 5 photos at the end of April and pick a winner!

Have Fun and thanks again to all my followers and anyone that has visited this blog!

Photography Books to Better your Nikon D90 Skills!

I've basically listed every Nikon D90 "how to Book" ever made on this blog over the last year and a half. So now I wanted to list some general Photography books for you that will help us all be better photographer's. So here's the short list of the best photography books available.....

1. : How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (3rd Edition) by Bryan Peterson - For serious amateur photographers who already shoot perfectly focused, accurately exposed images but want to be more creative with a camera. More Info.


2. Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography (Updated Edition) by Bryan Peterson - Almost everyone can "see" in the conventional sense, but developing photographic vision takes practice. Learning to See Creatively helps photographers visualize their work, and the world, in a whole new light. More Info.

3. Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography by Bryan Peterson - Take great pictures of people--beyond portraits, photos that capture a moment. More Info.

4. Capturing the Light: An Inspirational and Instructional Guide to Landscape Photography by Peter Watson - This outstanding book showcases 90 of Peter Watson's stunning photographs, all capturing the light to perfection. Each photograph is allocated a page for display. More Info.

5. Photographic Composition By Tom Grill - Effective image design, a key ingredient in successful photographs, is a skill that any serious photographer must learn and master. More Info.


6. Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography by Brenda Tharp - Professional and amateur photographers alike will find an array of surefire strategies in Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography, an indispensable guide that demonstrates how to use classic visual design principles to create strong, compelling, nature photos. More Info.  Kindle Addition

7. Photography by Barbara London - A picture tells a thousand stories, but the one it doesn't tell is how the shot was made. Barbara London and John Upton's Photography is an all-inclusive look at the craft of photography. More Info.

8. John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide by John Shaw - An updated bestseller, this book of extraordinarily beautiful photographs of nature contains state-of-the-art instruction on how any photographer can aim for equally impressive results every time a camera is focused on the great outdoors. More Info.

9. The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby - "Kelby's laid-back writing style is perfect for those looking for fascinating insights without getting caught up in technical detail. More Info.


10. The Betterphoto Guide to Digital Photography (Amphoto Guide Series) by Jim Miotke - This practical, lesson-based workbook gives readers a step-by-step tutorial in getting bright, crisp, beautiful pictures from their digital cameras every time. More Info.


11. The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes - After spending more than thirty years behind the lens—working for National Geographic, Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated—Joe McNally knows about light. He knows how to talk about it, shape it, color it, control it, and direct it. Most importantly, he knows how to create it...using small hot shoe flashes. More Info.


12. The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters - THE FIRST BOOK WITH ONE FOOT ON THE COFFEE TABLE, AND ONE FOOT IN THE
CLASSROOM  More Info

13. LIFE Guide to Digital Photography: Everything You Need to Shoot Like the Pros -Photography has been the business and the passion of LIFE since the original weekly magazine's inception in 1936, and it continues to be the business and passion of LIFE Books and LIFE.com in the new millennium. More Info

I personally learned a lot from reading "Understanding Exposure" What photography books have you read lately? Do you recommend any good books?

Smoke Photography with the Nikon D90!

Stuck in the house on a rainy day? Try some smoke photography for some indoors fun! Do you see in the image a profile of an old sea mariner with his hat and long beard, lol

So i decided to give this smoke photography a go and it turned out not so bad. Here's how i shot these photos with my D90 and what you'll need.

First I stopped by the fabric store and bought a yard and a half of black fabric for the background. Then I stopped at a smoke shop and got some incense sticks to use for the smoke. When i got home i waited until it was dark outside and went to work. I set the black fabric material up behind the table I was using, (make sure you set the background back pretty far because you don't want any light to hit it) next I stuck the incense stick in some wax and put it on a plate on the table.

Now for the flash and light. I used my SB600 flash off camera in commander mode and dialed down the power to -3.0. Next was the tricky part, I made a cone with a black piece of 8x10 craft paper and slid it on the flash and aimed the cone at were the smoke would be. Again the reason for this was to try and keep the light from the flash off the background. Next i got out my little head lamp and aimed it also at the spot (opposite side from the flash) the smoke would be. This was so I could manual focus on the smoke I was shooting in the dark. (you can leave this light on the whole time your snapping pictures so you can focus.

Now that i got everything set up I was ready to set up the D90. I put on my Tamron 17-50 lens and set the camera to aperture priority and went with f/8 and F/11. Since I was shooting flash the shutter speed was auto at 200. I did not use a tripod which made things a lot easier.

I fired up the incense and started snapping away at the smoke and that was it basically. When I was done I deleted the bad ones and uploaded the good ones to Photoshop elements 6 and started working with them.

Use your invert button to get a white background and back to get the black background. To add color I used the hue and saturation slider and played with that. To add color to specific areas I used the selection command and while selected I used the hue and saturation which works great! Anyway that's it...I hope you give it a try I'm sure I'll be doing some more soon.




Here's a good site that explains more.

2010 Mavericks Surf Competition with the Nikon D90!

I'm sorry, hope you weren't expecting actual shots of the surfers because we couldn't even see them from the beach since the surfers were a half mile off shore and it was very hazy. So anyway the reason for the post is what was suppose to be all about the surf competition turned into about 50 or so spectators that were injured by a huge wave that just came up and wiped out everyone! We were on the beach also but were not hit by the big one...you probably heard about it on the news. I got one quick shot of the big one just as it was hitting the first people. I also videoed a little bit of a smaller wave as I and everyone else tried to scale the cliff to avoid it. It was quite the day at the beach......

Best Wide Angle Lens For the Nikon D90?

Recently I’ve been very intrigued by purchasing a true wide angle lens for my D90. When I say true wide angle I’m talking about anything under 18mm. I see there are a lot of choices out there but after researching a ton of information online it’s definitely apparent you or I will want to get a wide angle lens made specifically for our cameras APS-C type sensor. I read this from Tom Atkins over at Photo.net he said “One of the disadvantages of small sensor APS-C Digital SLR cameras is that the 1.6x multiplier/crop factor makes all your existing 35mm wide-angle lenses into "not so wide" angle lenses.” Our Nikon D90 camera is slightly better, with a 1.5x multiplier/crop, but still basically suffers from the same problem. So here are all the wide angle lenses that are made for our D90 APS-C sensor! If this is not correct please someone let me know, Thanks! I'm personally leaning toward the Tokina 11-16 2.8 right now.
Click a lens to read the user reviews!

1. Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF Autofocus DX Nikkor Zoom Lens
2. Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX for Nikon AF
3. Tokina 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX for Nikon AF
4. Tamron SP AF11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]
5. Tamron SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]
6. Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Lens for Nikon
7. New Sigma 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM

Hope this helps a little in your quest for an ultra wide angle lens for your D90!