11 May 2008 My new baby
I’m referring to my new lens, of course, which I now have back in my possession, along with all the photos I took last weekend, because Maki’s dad was nice enough to take the nearly three-hour train ride (one hour on the express, but that’s for non-train-loving wussies, according to him) here to give it to me. Thanks Maki’s dad!
One of the things that appealed to me about the Zeiss 25/2.8, aside from extreme sharpness and freedom from modern evils such as autofocus and zooming, is the very low minimum focus distance. All lenses can only focus on things a certain distance away from them; just as you see old people move a newspaper away from themselves to read it. Well, the Zeiss can focus up to only 3 inches or so away from the front of the lens. This makes it almost a macro lens. But, at the same time it’s pretty wide at 25 mm. So, you gain the ability to take “environmental macros,” or close-up shots that also are wide enough to include more context than most macro shots show.
Here are just a few shots taken from a day at the park in Takefu, Maki’s hometown.
People were wondering why I was lying one the ground to get this shot.
Do you see a resemblance?
One at f/8 for a wide depth of field and wonderful sharpness…
And one at f/2.8 for a very narrow depth of field…
