So I was testing out the lens today. First, as I was sitting in my favorite café, I caught a woman glancing over the top of the NYT to check out the fashion on the street.
Yes, we're wearing leggings in Madison. But the main thing I wanted to test out with the lens was architecture. Like this:
Yes, we're flying the French flag here in Madison. The reason I was concerned about the lens and architecture is that I want to be prepared to take photographs on the Wright & Like tour this Saturday. Check out the houses you can tour. If you come to the right Frank Lloyd Wright house at the right time, I'll be the docent showing off the living/dining area. I won't be combining photography with docenting, but I will on my own go to all the houses and photograph the exteriors (as I did on last year's tour: here). To join the tour:
Tour Headquarters | The Gobbler Restaurant, I-94 and Highway 26 Centrally located in Johnson Creek, WIJames Lileks wrote about The Gobbler here: "This site is an appreciation of a lost slice of American architecture and design - a period when just about everything had run off the rails, and good taste, restraint and classic traditions were utterly abandoned." Ha ha. Please go over there and click through all the pages. It's hilarious. Anyway, there will be bad taste and good on the Wright & Like tour.
The Gobbler Restaurant, a not-to-be-missed futurist style building, will be our one day tour headquarters. The site is located south of Interstate Highway 94 (Exit 267) off Hwy 26 and will open at 8 a.m. for ticket and merchandise sales. Same day tickets are $55 (non members) and $50 (members).
Here are some daisies with an adorable tiny bee:
And here's a fly who has no idea he's not as cute as the bee:
And here's a tree that's not cute either. In fact, it seems vaguely obscene:
Just a walk around 2 blocks with a new 24 mm lens in Madison, Wisconsin.
IN THE COMMENTS: I'm told it's not a bee. It's a hoverfly. I apologize to the flies. Apparently, some of them are very cute. And maybe some insults need to be hurled at bees. Zachary Paul Sire says:
Bees are not cute. They are ruthless killing machines. Trust me on this one.Revenant say:
bees = the devilChip Ahoy say:
We're taught those wonderful bees pollinate flowers and that's a good thing. But then once I noticed one particular bee positively rape a flower bud. It didn't wait for the flower to bloom. It forced open the bud and climbed in, buzzed around inside, bzzzzzz bzzzzzz bzzzzz, came out covered in sticky pollen and looking kind of drunk. Bees are naughty.
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55 comments:
Very nice pics, but you should know that Jason Giambi was wearing his gold lamé thong with the flame-line waistband today.
I read a horror story that had a tree like that. Vampires came out of it and the US Army killed them with flamethrowers.
Nice lens.
24mm is a great lens for pictures of groups of people. You can get a lot of people in the picture, and they are close.
I love to do close-ups portraits of people's faces with 24mm. Get within 3 or 4 inches and you can take in their whole, beautiful face.
Oxeye daisy
Ann,
Wonder why you didn't pick up the PC-E 24mm Nikkor if you plan on doing architectural photography?
http://press.nikonusa.com/2008/01/nikons_new_wideangle_pce_nikko.php
NO.
Bees are not cute. They are ruthless killing machines. Trust me on this one.
Sharp and perfect pictures, nonetheless.
lumiere: I didn't notice it.
Here's the link to buy it from Amazon and in the process make a contribution to the Althouse blog (without paying more). Well, I don't think I would have bought that. It seems cool, but it's much more expensive -- like $2000 instead of $300 -- and it's also heavier and bigger. It doesn't even come up on the Amazon page as an alternative to the one I bought. So it's a pretty different thing. Nice though.
bees = the devil
Lower mm = broader focal range?
I'll stick to my old Nikon.
We're taught those wonderful bees pollinate flowers and that's a good thing. But then once I noticed one particular bee positively rape a flower bud. It didn't wait for the flower to bloom. It forced open the bud and climbed in, buzzed around inside, bzzzzzz bzzzzzz bzzzzz, came out covered in sticky pollen and looking kind of drunk. Bees are naughty.
Please, I'm begging you, take some "after" shots of The Gobbler if you go. I'm dying to see if it still looks like that. Simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.
There was girl from the Bronx who used to hang around the Quiet Man in the '80's that we called the Gobbler.
I can't stop laughing over this page from Lileks' Gobbler site.
knoxwhirled
The Gobbler Motel was torn down several years ago. The Gobbler restaurant is still there but has been closed for a while now. However, it is for sale and appears to be in pretty decent shape in case anyone is interested in re-opening it.
Here's a pretty good site:
http://gobblermotel.blogspot.com/2003_10_01_archive.html
try and keep the sensor plane perpendicular to the ground. Wide angles will make your walls look crooked if you don't - as in that post in the first picture (or try fixing in post if you can't get the shot - that works too but is harder)
I have never seen or heard the word "docent" used outside of Frank Lloyd Wright houses (and, possibly, church as a little kid, though I may be misremembering).
So, I looked it up.
Why can't they just say guide?
As a wordie, Althouse, I think you ought to lead the charge toward simplicity.
Love the new lens.
The "adorable tiny bee" is actually a kind of hoverfly called a Flower Fly.
Picture
It's amazing the sort of things you start to notice once you have the right lens to capture it...
Crooked walls are a matter of aesthetics. They don't bother me in other people's photos, but I can't stand to see them in my own. Go figure.
Obscene? Don't you mean erotic? Obscene is what that woman peering over her NYT is thinking.
Very nice pictures. Now please teach Glenn Reynolds how to take pictures - his are terrible.
I pet bumble bees - they are very nice little insects, and very tame when approached with calmness.
Seven.. I used to work in a museum. The word "docent" is very common in those circles.
Ann... personally, I don't think a 24mm is nearly wide enough (on the non-full-frame digitals) to be very useful in architecture. I use the Nikon 12-24mm zoom. It's 900 bucks but it does everything I want it to. In the old days I used the PC (perspective correcting) lenses but in the digital era it's not necessary. You just about have to use a tripod with those lenses (even outdoors in broad daylight) and that's a pain... and now you can fix the perspective in Photoshop so I don't bother with them any more.
Bumble bees = gods
Seven: "As a wordie, Althouse, I think you ought to lead the charge toward simplicity."
It's a title. Pretty standard in museums. I think it should be understood.
clint said..."Love the new lens. The "adorable tiny bee" is actually a kind of hoverfly called a Flower Fly."
Thanks for the info... and your picture is cool.
Citizen Grim said..."Crooked walls are a matter of aesthetics."
I go by what I see in the viewfinder and then on my computer screen. I either like it or I don't. I try many angles and choose what I like.
BowlsRus said..."I pet bumble bees"
Ha ha. I was just listening to an episode of the Ricky Gervais podcast where Karl Pilkington is talking about his mother petting a bee. You should find that!
Rick Lee said..."personally, I don't think a 24mm is nearly wide enough (on the non-full-frame digitals) to be very useful in architecture. I use the Nikon 12-24mm zoom. It's 900 bucks but it does everything I want it to."
I'm sure you're right. What do you think of the software for use with the fisheye?
I just figure out what that tree reminds me of.
Ann, are you a friend of Dorothy?
http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/Tree.JPG
Leggings-that is a fashion crime. Someone call the police.
They read the NY Times in Madison? Wow, that is surprising.
Fellow republicans and lovers of the Bush Doctrine I am in the southern coast of Maine and it is beautiful.
I stopped by Boston on my way up to have a fabulous dindin with a married homo that I know. He is definitely ruining the sanctity of marriage.
The rare clumbers stayed at his brownstone in the fabulous Back Bay to play with his rare barkless and shedless Basenjis-Shaka and Zulu.
I am now at my fabulous B&B on the Atlantic 20 minutes from the Bush Compound/
The weather is going to be 90 this weekend. I am ready for my closeup.
How are you?
I am surrounded by gays and French Canadians right now.
Can life be anymore fabulous?
Everyone has an attitude. Even the little Quebecois children. Divas.
Also, all French Canadians look gay-similar to Euro Trash.
I agree with the commenter who said that the PC lenses are unnecessary in the digital age.
As for the 12-24. That is a pretty stiff tariff. I don't know what body Ann is using, but the money would be better spent on an upgrade to a body with a bigger sensor, which will automatically make the lens wider angled.
Fat Man: Thanks! I had no idea that's what a different body would give me...
So much to think about...
I have a D50.
Doesn't the Gobbler in Ft. Atkinson or Jefferson or wherever have a bar that moves around in circles?
Frank Lloyd Wright rules.
Spring Green is one of my favorites places in Wisconsin.
The golf course is beautiful.
OK< now I am heading to The Front Porch in Oqunguit to sing show tunes.
Kiss today goodbye
The sweetness and the sour
Seem we blah blah blah
Well Hello Dolly
Well Hello Dolly
Sally Struthers is in town.
How D list is that?
I just drove by Ray Bolger and Doris Day's old house.
Also, while driving through Boston today I noticed Harvard was graduating. Ben Bernake was their guest speaker.
There was red and black everywhere.
That is fabulous.
I recognize Trader Joe's and Strictly Discs across the street. Are you in Ancora? What about it makes it your favorite? I haven't been, but then I'm not much of a café-goer (how un-cool).
That tree looks like something you see on Britney Spears as she steps out of a car.
Cheers,
Victoria
As a clarification, the parenthetical remark above was intended as a reaction to rather than an explanation of the preceeding statement. That is, I meant how uncool that I don't hang out at cafés, not how uncool is it to hang out at cafes. Anyway...it's late. 'Night.
Oops...make that preceding. It's past my bedtime.
As for the 12-24. That is a pretty stiff tariff. I don't know what body Ann is using, but the money would be better spent on an upgrade to a body with a bigger sensor, which will automatically make the lens wider angled.
I noticed Ann didn't have a Blogad of either premium or regular variety for a couple of weeks.
Then she got the ACLU regular ad, and The Mole Premium.
Suddenly, she buys a mega pricey wide-angle lens. COINCIDENCE MES AMIS?! I think NOT!
BTW, Ann, I've bought 44 Kindle books so far. Now, not all of them were after clicking on your Amazon sidebar wotsit, but a fair amount of them were so I hope you're getting dividends.
You guys can sign into Amazon and check out what I bought, if interested, here.
Cheers,
Victoria
"Are you in Ancora?"
No. Barriques.
Victoria: 44 books. Yikes! You better read them all! Thanks for using my links.
As for the 12-24. That is a pretty stiff tariff. I don't know what body Ann is using, but the money would be better spent on an upgrade to a body with a bigger sensor, which will automatically make the lens wider angled.
Now it's getting complicated. You can't use that 24mm with a full-frame sensor. It's designed for use on the smaller sensor only.
I don't necessarily think that Ann needs the 12-24mm, but SOMETHING wider than a 24. Perhaps a 17 or 18mm... a 24mm is only equal to a 36mm on full frame. That's just not very wide for architecture. All of these shots were done somewhere between 12mm and 18mm.
Ann... I don't have anything to say about the software for making the fisheye rectilinear. I don't have any experience with such things.
Victoria: 44 books. Yikes! You better read them all! Thanks for using my links.
Well, you know, summer reading list and all. After my original 2 book per day post-Kindle purchase flurry, I'm now wolfing down 1 book every two days.
BTW, do you do a summer reading list yearly blogpost? Or am I thinking of another blog...
I will read them, fear not, though. :)
Lovely new lens! I am in Paris and was actually surprised to see that the legging thing is still going strong here. A more worrisome observation is what appears to be the resurgence of hammer pants. I assumed the first pair I saw was an aberration, but there have been at least dozen subsequent sightings...you've been warned.
Why can't they just say guide?
Because "docent" adds a distinctive overlay of meaning to "guide," and it matters. That's the glory of, that's the story of lov--ing language.
Althouse should get the 18-200 VR, put it on the D50 and leave the rest of her lenses (except, perhaps, the 10.5) at home.
Britney Spears as she steps out of a car
They're called grotches on trees.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee
One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Emile Dickens
"Yes, we're flying the French flag here in Madison."
Who are you surrendering to?
I enjoy your photography, but seeing your interest in pictures, I have to say the following:
Of all the blogs I read, and I read quite a few, yours is my favorite. It usually is entertaining, upbeat, sensible, and shows someone of intelligence behind it. Please don't find this insulting, but until now, the only things that turned me off from your blog were your photos of yourself. Finally, you have a photo that shows a happy, nice, intelligent, normal-looking person. Your current photo goes with your very enjoyable blog. Please keep it that way. Thanks.
LarsPorsena,
Apres Napoleon, has anyone ever surrendered to France?
I can't go into Ancora -- the vibe is just so corporately different from the former Eureka Joe's that it's too jarring. Even after -- what -- 5, 6, 7, years? Barriques is very soothing. And they sell great gin.
It's not a bee, it's a hover fly.
They're called grotches on trees.
From grooved crotches, presumably. :)
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