Stuart Herbert

Kristi’s recent interest in getting a Nikon D70s has reminded me that I still need to replace some of the lenses that I have. The old adage with photography is that you should put your money into your lenses, not your camera body. I picked up my 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses when I bought my first camera body in ‘97, and back then I couldn’t afford very much

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been replacing lenses in my bag with Sigma lenses. I tend to combine my photography with my walking (although I have done a wedding once for a friend, and wouldn’t say no to doing more), so I’ve been working through the range from wide-angle towards telephoto. You can’t guarantee good light, so I’m aiming to have all my lenses support a constant f/2.8 aperture throughout their focal range.

On holiday in North Wales a couple of years back, I started off my set with Sigma’s 15-30mm wide-angled zoom. I think the ones you can buy today are an improved version, but I’m very pleased with mine. One of the first photos I took with the lens was of Dolbadarn Castle in Snowdonia, framed my the magnificent Llanberis Pass.

A year later almost to the day, I picked up a Sigma 50mm macro lens. Macro photography’s fun, and if you don’t mind lying in the dirt you can get some great shots. A lot of people find the idea of buying a fixed lens (one with no zoom) odd in this day and age; most photographers love their zoom lenses, and would be lost without one. My thinking is that, pound for pound, you’ll get a better quality fixed lens for the same money as a zoom lens - simply because there are less parts to manufacture. This lens has become a firm favourite of mine, and it’s the one I use to take most of photos with today. About the first shot I took with this lens was a spider we came across during a walk on our honeymoon.

At the moment, I don’t feel the need for another macro lens, so next on my shopping list is Sigma’s 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG lens. This will replace my old Nikon 28-80 G lens, which came with my Nikon F80 camera body. Even a cheap lens like that can be used to capture a beautiful place. The only downside is that the lens is too large to fit my collection of filters - which I guess means I’ll have more room in my camera bag for one final lens.

Apart from being useful for the odd portrait, I’ve found myself needing a telephoto zoom lens to photograph standing stones sited on private property. This sucker is the lens I’d love to have, but at around £1700 and unwieldy physical dimensions, I’ve settled on the more realistic 70-200mm lens, which I’ll also get telephoto convertors for.

But first, I need to buy a mains adaptor for my Nikon D100, so that I can clean the sensor. It’s amazing what you can hide using Photoshop

I bought my Nikon D100 two years ago because I’d grown fed up with the variable accuracy of shooting with chemical film. I’d go out into the Brecons, shoot a roll of 36 exposures, wait for it to be developed … and what came out the other end didn’t look like the shots that I’d thought I’d taken. The colour balance, contrast, and tonal range would rarely match how things had actually looked that day. At £10 a pop just for the costs of the film and developing, it’s just too expensive and frustrating.

Kristi has been using my old Nikon F80 and F60 camera bodies since I got the D100, and as time goes on she’s been taking more and more photographs when we’re out walking. It’s been interesting to watch her go through the same frustrations with chemical film that I did; her frustration’s been made worse because she’s got her own Minolta compact digital camera to compare shots from, and there’s always the shots from my Nikon and Canon digital cameras.

I haven’t actually seen the latest photos that she picked up from Jessops at lunchtime, but I guess they weren’t good enough. She’s retired the F80, and ordered herself a nice shiny Nikon D70s. It should be here in time for the Beyond The Border storytelling festival at the start of July.

As she’s planning to use my lenses with the camera, I hope to get to play with the camera myself. One more than one occaison, I’ve read stories about Nikon D100 users who switched to the Nikon D70 after frustration with the sharpness of the D100’s photos. Personally, I sometimes have trouble getting the focal point correct - the D100’s viewfinder is tiny compared to the F80’s - but from what I’ve read the D70’s viewfinder is identical in size. Still, if the D70s can help me take even better pictures, I might just have a D100 to put up for sale on Ebay later this year.

I had a lovely surprise the other day. The bosses @ Box UK bought me and a colleage a 19″ TFT monitor for home, as a thank-you for extra hours we’ve been putting in at short notice. How nice is that? Pretty damn nice, I’d say.

Throughout June, Kristi and Ben are exhibiting some of their paintings at Machen Library, nr Caerphilly. I went down with my camera, and managed to get a few photos of Kristi and her work up on the walls of the library.

High quality prints of Kristi’s work are for sale. She hasn’t setup an online shop, but I’m sure that’s just a matter of time.