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Greetings,
Well, this is a little late. But better late than never!
Happy November everybody!
In this edition I’m managing my gear inventory, dropping names, being optimistic about workshops and kinda sorta solving a problem.
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Selling some gear
My Nikon D300 has been my backup camera since I got my D810 back in 2014. It hasn’t seen any real use since then and it’s looking for a new home.
I also have the MB-D10 vertical grip and the Kirk Enterprises L-Bracket.
 The D300 has 37,328 shutter actuations. It has some pretty normal wear and tear but no cracks or dents or anything like that. It’s been a good and reliable camera. The only thing broken is the rubber cover for the 10-pin and flash sync ports. And it’s only split in half so each cover still fits its port. (see picture)
I’d rather sell it all at once (camera, grip, L-bracket) than by piecemeal on eBay and I’ll make somebody a good deal on it all.
I’ll also include the Thom Hogan guides and three batteries.
I’m also selling my Tokina 12-24 f/4 AT-X PRO lens. It’s also in good shape but does have a slight flaw in one small spot of the filter threads, though it’s nothing that will keep a filter from being attached (I just tried). I never even knew it was there until I took a closer look while writing this up.
If interested in either the camera or the lens, or have questions, reply to this email. I'll give it a couple of weeks before I list it all on eBay.
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New Camera
The reason I’m selling my D300 backup camera? Because I just got a Nikon Z6 with FTZ adapter!
I’ve been wanting another full frame camera to go along with my D810 for a long time. And I also wanted a camera that had better noise performance for night photography. I’d been lusting after the D850 but the price is nearly prohibitive. And add to that, I don’t really need, or want 46 Megapixels.
From what I’ve been reading, the lower Megapixel (24 MP) cameras are actually better with noise because the pixels are larger. So I began looking into the Sony and Nikon cameras. I decided to stay with Nikon because….Nikon. I already have lenses and batteries and accessories that are compatible with the Z6 and FTZ adapter.
Last February Jack Dykinga emailed me (yes, I’m name dropping) to say that he was looking for better high-iso noise performance than his D850 has. He’d heard good things about the Z6 and wanted to know what I knew. Which was basically squat. Other than what workshop participants who had the Z6 had told me (they love it), I didn’t know much.
So when I started getting interested in the Z6 I emailed Jack to see if he ever got one and how he liked it.
He loves it. And then he told me that I should buy his because he was getting both the new Z6 II and Z7 II cameras and he’d make me a good deal. (Which he really, really did. Jack’s a great guy)
So that’s the story of how I became the owner of a practically new Nikon Z6. Now I have to learn how to use it. The thing is packed with all sorts of features I didn’t know I needed or wanted, but that are now very intriguing.
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2021 Workshops
Things are looking optimistic for 2021 with regards to a Coronavirus vaccine. It may still be a few months before the delivery infrastructure is in place, what with the temperature requirements for vaccine storage. But hopefully it will mean we can get back to flying to far flung places without too much fear. Other than that fear of sitting next to a clown. Gahhhh!!
With that in mind, there are spaces in nearly all my workshops and tours for next year. The only trip that is currently sold out is the second aurora tour to Yellowknife that I’m leading with John Barclay; there's still room in the first tour. And we have two spaces available in our July workshop to Olympic National Park. The rest of my workshops still have available space.
I’ll be working soon on setting up a couple of trips with Cliff Zenor for late next year: Bosque del Apache and White Sands National Park. Those two are tentatively set for the first couple of weeks in December.
So pop on over to my Workshops site and see if there's anything that interests you. I'm looking forward to them all, but especially getting back into Olympic National Park in both May and July.
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Z6 FTZ adapter and Rokinon lenses
One of the main reasons I wanted the Z6 is for night photography. And for night photography I mainly use the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 and Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lenses. So naturally I wanted to test compatibility. After installing the latest firmware for the FTZ, I attached the Rokinon 14mm, since that’s the lens I use the most for night photography.
Much to my disappointment, there seemed to be problem. The aperture setting would bounce around, the view screen would flash, ghostly clicking noises were heard. Hmmmm……
The Rokinon 24mm lens seems to work just fine on the FTZ adapter though. So yay!
I fired the Google machine and found out that this is a common problem for this combination. And that so far, Nikon hasn’t addressed it with a firmware upgrade.
But all was not lost. Thanks to the forums I visited, I found a couple of work arounds...
Read the rest of this riveting story on my blog.
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Happy Thanksgiving
 I wish you all a happy and, most importantly, safe Thanksgiving holiday. I hope we don't see a big spike in Covid-19 cases a couple weeks after Thanksgiving, that will ruin a lot of people's Christmas holiday. None of us want that. So be careful out there!
And go Hawks!!
(that's the Seattle Seahawks for those of you who may not know)
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