Our Legacy

April 26, 2023 / Richard R. Barron / 4 Comments

As I approach the age of 60 years, I am starting to thing about what might become of my work when I am gone.

These boxes contain most of my film photography at The Ada News from 1988 to 1997.

Now, before you label me as one of those “back in my day” guys, you should know that I remain healthy and happy at my job as a news and sports photographer and staff writer.

But I thought about this extra hard recently because of two occurrences. 1. My young journalist friend Ashlynd visited my office recently, and we talked about the boxes and boxes and boxes of photographic negatives stored under the countertops here. 2. A fellow photographer came to visit recently with the goal of finding some photographic negatives from an event he photographed many years ago, and as a result, he brought down a big plastic tub full of three-ring binders full of negatives.

Neither my work nor his should be relegated to storage. In many cases, my shots were published once in the daily, then packed up neatly in Kodak boxes. That seemed like a sensible plan in the early years of my career. A few of these boxes stored over the period of a few months seemed entirely manageable. But as the years and decades rolled by, those boxes added up.

I certainly set aside many of my best negatives for contest and display, but the bulk of my work, thousands and thousands of images, sit in the dark.

I also think of the millions of images made by news photographers and reporters that might now be in the possession of newspaper/media companies long after their photographers aged out and retired or went to another paper. What plans to these understaffed media companies have for all those images?

I know it’s a lot to ponder, and I don’t know if I have a good answer. Would a historical society be interested in my negatives? Would a college library? The National Archives?

Or am I off base about this? Are the images we made and shared once in the daily newspaper or magazine simply a part of the process of living and being journalists? Have we done enough by witnessing life’s events and sharing them in print?

If you have ideas about the best way to preserve our legacies, I would love to hear them.

You can see the film era taper off abruptly in 2003 to 2005, a period during which I started relying much less on film and almost entirely on digital.

The Sky was Alive!

April 21, 2023 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

Wednesday, April 19, 2023 began as most Oklahoma spring days do, with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, and a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms.

Robert makes a couple of frames with his iPhone as we exit a restaurant in Ada.

As it happened, fellow photographer Robert Stinson was visiting from Tulsa to do some photographic negatives scanning and archiving. We took a dinner break, and when we stepped out of the restaurant we discovered that the evening sky was maturing into something photographable, so we sprang into action.

Our first stop was the Ada Regional Airport, so we could use the Beechcraft Bonanza on display at the entrance as a compositional element, and it worked out pretty well.

Golden sunset light strikes the aircraft on display at the Ada Regional Airport. Above and behind it, the sky is bulbous with mammatus clouds, which indicates turbulence.

As we drove the rest of the way into Byng, we started to see lightning coming from the clouds some distance to the north. We wanted to photograph it, but the evening sky wasn’t really dark yet, so I walked my wolfhound, then thought about where I’d like to be to photograph lightning.

As the evening faded, I took the opportunity to walk Hawken, my Irish wolfhound.

I put my dog in the back yard, then went inside to grab a hefty tripod and my Nikon D700 with one of my favorite lenses, the AF Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 on it. I set it up facing true north, but as you know, thunderstorms move, and this one was moving northeast.

If you’ve ever photographed lightning, you know how fickle it can be. By the time you get set up to shoot it, the last bolt could have faded, and you end up with images of dark blue sky.

Another factor is being sure you are safe. In Oklahoma, thunderstorms can get severe pretty quickly, and lightning itself is very dangerous.

Wednesday night’s storm, however, was an entire county to the north, and as I was photographing it, unknown to Robert and me, it was spawning a destructive tornado in Shawnee, about 50 miles away.

I turned my camera more to the northeast, as that seemed to be where the lightning was moving. I started making images with 10-second exposures at ISO 400 with an aperture of about f/8.

There were quite a few strikes, but since they were far away, they were small in the frame, so I started thinking about loading all the frames into Photoshop and blending them, which I have only done a few times.

Robert left to go back to Tulsa, so I loaded my images, more than 200 for the entire evening, into Adobe Bridge, where I selected only images that had visible lightning in them, 21 total, and opened them using Tools>Photoshop>Load Files into Photoshop Layers. I then selected all the layers in the layers pallet, and selected the blending mode “Lighten.”

This is Photoshop with all the layers selected, but before I applied the blending mode.

Wham. It was that easy. I admit to being surprised by the result. I’ll definitely use this technique again.

With one drag of the mouse, Photoshop blended 21 mediocre lightning shots into one eye-catching image.

Photography is Full of Surprises

March 14, 2023 / Richard R. Barron / Leave a comment

Photography, like many complex hobbies, can involve a great deal of head-scratching, second-guessing, and wishful thinking. So many photographers and those who would like to be photographers rest their hobby on, “If only I had (this lens or that camera)…”

The Sigma 400mm f/5.6 dates back to the 1990s, and, while it doesn't challenge today's huge super-zooms, it is surprisingly good if you know what you are doing. The rubber ring just behind the slide-out lens hood isn't originally a part of this lens, but a rubber wristband I sometimes use to keep the hood from collapsing in on itself as I use it. Some photographers use gaffer tape for this. — The Sigma 400mm f/5.6 dates back to the 1990s, and, while it doesn’t challenge today’s huge super-zooms, it is surprisingly good if you know what you are doing. The rubber ring just behind the slide-out lens hood isn’t originally a part of this lens, but a rubber wristband I sometimes use to keep the hood from collapsing in on itself as I use it. Some photographers use gaffer tape for this.

And sure, if I won the lottery… hm. You know what? Before I buy any more cameras, I think I’d buy an airplane.

But that’ll be the day, right? In the mean time, I am, and have been throughout my career, someone who puts hardware into my workflow to see how it will perform. Sure, anyone can shoot pictures of cats and brick walls, but those kinds of images will never tell you what you need to know.

With all that in mind, I got a grab-bag of photo gear before Christmas from an estate sale, and before long, I put all that hardware into action, including the Sigma 400mm f/5.6.

The front element of the Sigma 400mm f/5.6 is smallish by modern standards.

This lens was one of a group of lenses that were made by some third party, then labeled with brand names like Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, Pentax, and so on.

It was obvious from the day I took home those bags of camera gear that no one had made pictures with any of it for years, so it was exciting to use it.

The Sigma, however, comes from an era of sketchy quality control at the company, so I didn’t have particularly high expectations. I put it on my Nikon D3 and took it to tennis earlier this week, and I was able to surprise myself with the result.

The trick with a lot of lenses is that they are often not at all sharp at their largest apertures, and knowing that, I shot with the Sigma set at f/8, one full stop smaller than the maximum aperture of f/5.6, and sure enough, there was a sweet spot. Shooting at f/8, which in any situation is a small aperture, means either amping my ISO to about 1600, or putting up with slower shutter speeds. Even “stopped down,” though, this 400mm wasn’t as sharp as it’s 30-year-younger brethren.

So on sunny days when I want some reach and to carry a lighter piece of kit, look for me with this interesting legacy lens.

Traffic rolls down Mississippi Wednesday in this image made with the Sigma 400mm f/5.6, shot at f/8. This image is actually quite sharp.

Another Camera?

March 5, 2023 / Richard R. Barron / 3 Comments

As a photographer, I am friends with a lot of photographers, and we as a group tend to regard cameras and lenses as more than just tools of the trade, but as prizes and even works of art.

The small but mighty Nikon D5500 sits on a tripod in my home studio.

It goes without saying that this hobby can get pretty expensive pretty fast.

It also hopefully goes without saying that cameras that aren’t being used are a bit of a tragedy. It would be analogous to paint brushes that aren’t use to paint or kitchen utensils that are never used for cooking.

The Nikon D5500 has a swiveling/tilting monitor that displays a number of camera settings.

I thought of this the last few days for two reasons. First, I was in Oklahoma City to cover basketball playoffs, and that put me just a few minutes away from Bedford Camera. Second, I read an article this week about a couple who discovered over 2000 cameras and lenses in an abandoned storage locker.

And no, I am not making it my goal to collect 2000 cameras.

The monitor of the D5500 folds up for transport or storage, or to protect the display in rough conditions.

One of my very realistic goals, however, is to have the right cameras and lenses in my bag when I need them, and that goal includes the ideas that I need to be able to make good pictures, decent video, accurate notes, and, of growing importance, I need to be able to do all this in a way that keeps me mobile and healthy.

The only wear point on this camera seems to be on the front "D5500" medallion. I don't know who it could get worn, but as you can see, it is. — The only wear point on this camera seems to be on the front “D5500” medallion. I don’t know who it could get worn, but as you can see, it is.

Thus, as I was looking at some of the gear under the glass displays at Bedford Camera this week, one camera caught my eye, the Nikon D5500. This camera is at the top of the “advanced amateur” game, so it’s not really aimed at professional photographers like me, but it is small and very, very lightweight, and, thanks to a sag in the digital camera market and the huge upsurge in mirrorless camera sales, surprisingly inexpensive.

This particular Nikon D5500 is equipped with a third-party vertical grip, which holds two batteries. It's nice to have the extra power if I need it, but the real advantage of the vertical grip is in the way it improves the way the camera handles. — This particular Nikon D5500 is equipped with a third-party vertical grip, which holds two batteries. It’s nice to have the extra power if I need it, but the real advantage of the vertical grip is in the way it improves the way the camera handles.

Hopefully this camera will fill a niche for me for all those times you see me prowl around for hours at a time at events like Cruisin’ Main, AdaFest, the Stratford Peach Festival, and more, for which camera performance isn’t as critical as when I am shooting sports, and where lighter, smaller gear means fewer hotpacks and Tylenol at the end of the day for me.

In the coming weeks and months, I hope to take this small wonder to its limits, and see how it can help me make better pictures for you.

The top of the Nikon D5500 is small compared to my bigger, heavier pro cameras, and does not have an LCD display. Still, it is easy to see and use.

“A Magic Picture”

February 16, 2023 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

A friend in town messaged me recently asking if I would be at all interested in an old movie camera. My response was, as you might expect, heck yes. I never turn down a camera of any kind.

The full side view of the Filmo camera shows a large circular dial that allows you to put in various exposure factors, like winter or summer, deep woods or snow. It is only a guide - the photographer sets to camera based on this device. — The full side view of the Filmo camera shows a large circular dial that allows you to put in various exposure factors, like winter or summer, deep woods or snow. It is only a guide – the photographer sets to camera based on this device.

She dropped it by our newspaper office this week. I showed it to a coworker who immediately asked, “is that a video camera?”

In a way, yes, it is a video camera, or what would have been the equivalent of a video camera in 1940.

The camera is the Bell and Howell Filmo Autoload motion picture camera, and this little camera was full of surprises.

This sturdy metal door opens to allow 16mm film cassettes to be inserted.

Firstly, it is a 16mm camera. Almost all the film cameras used by hobbyists throughout the 20th century were 8mm cameras. 16mm tended to be much more expensive, somewhat higher in image quality, and were mostly used by news camera people for theatrical newsreels and, in the second half of the century, television camera operators.

Secondly, it is surprisingly heavy. Despite being the size of a clutch purse, it weighs nearly as much as a modern laptop computer. I’m not sure who in the hobby would lug around such an instrument, but I guess its weight is a reminder of how well-built stuff was when they still made it out of brass and steel.

Lenses from many years ago seem quite small compared to modern large aperture lenses.

Thirdly, it used a 16mm film cassette. I’ve literally never even seen such a product, and even if I had one, I’d likely never find a place to have such film processed. I guess I could sent it off in one of those “memory boxes” I see on social media once in a while. You know the ones – pack up all of your film, prints, video cassettes, audio cassettes, and a myriad of other analog media – and have it transferred to digital in one form or another. But they don’t say they will process motion picture film, just that they will transfer it to digital.

As I prowled around the internet looking for information about this camera, I found a video that told me in the happiest, phonisest voice, that it was, “a magic picture that moves and talks that now comes to your screen at your command.”

So I’ll have fun playing with this beautifully-made relic. I might even use it as a prop in a photo session!

Removing the lens that came with the Filmo reveals that I could also use a Sylvania lens a photo buddy gave me last fall.

58mm: All That Glitters is Not Gold

December 25, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

Today: a look at a lens that came with a grab bag of cameras from an estate sale, the MC Rokkor-PF 58mm f/1.4.

Periodically, you hear me, or any of an additional million photographers and photo instructors, say that your next lens should probably a 50mm. Why? Whether you are shooting larger sensor cameras like 24x36mm, or smaller sensors like the APS-C or Micro 4/3, the 50mm lens does some amazing things few other lenses can. Why?

50mm is about two inches, so lenses around this focal length are, in human terms and scales of economy, easy and cheap to build, and as a result…
There are millions and millions of them in the world, mostly very affordable or even in your possession already, since this lens was sold with most cameras during the end of the film era, from the 1960s to the early 2000s.
Many 50mm lenses feature a large maximum aperture compared to kits lenses of today. Even the least expensive of them typically open up to f/1.8, and some older ones are f/1.4. Both are very large when compared to 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lenses.
That large aperture translates into easier focusing, better low-light performance, and, the biggest one, shallow depth of field.

Because of it’s human-scale build-ability, the 50mm class of lenses also tends to be a satisfyingly sharp lens. But I recently bought a lens in this class, a 58mm, at an estate sale that I found a bit disappointing: the MC Rokkor-PF 58mm f/1.4.

The MC Rokkor-PF 58mm f/1.4 sits on my LUMIX GH-2. Made of brass, steel and optical glass, this 1960's-era lens is heavy and handsome. — The MC Rokkor-PF 58mm f/1.4 sits on my LUMIX GH-2. Made of brass, steel and optical glass, this 1960’s-era lens is heavy and handsome.

Why? The reason we like these lenses is their ability to shoot at that large aperture. f/1.4 is an almost magical aperture setting for a lot of photography. It can render backgrounds as satisfying washes of color and light, it makes for a good working distance for pictures of people, and some of these lenses create an almost dream-like quality to an image by introducing unique flare, ghosting, or other aberrations that add an almost antique quality to our images.

This 58mm fell short in early efforts to use it.

Here is a frame straight out of the camera shot at dusk on my front deck. To the eye and to almost all other camera/lens combinations, the stylized Santa Fe moon is impressively bright and colorful, but the 58mm didn't really deliver. — Here is a frame straight out of the camera shot at dusk on my front deck. To the eye and to almost all other camera/lens combinations, the stylized Santa Fe moon is impressively bright and colorful, but the 58mm didn’t really deliver.

This is the image above run through some Lightroom edits. I was able to bring most of the color back decently, but sharpness was lacking, and the background features a fair amount of ratty bokeh. Both images were LUMIX GH-2 raw files shot with the 58mm wide open at f/1.4.

The big disappointment for this lens is the bokeh. For those who don’t understand this subtle concept (about 90% of all photographers, a topic for another day), bokeh is a word used to describe the quality of the out-of-focus areas of an image. As you can see, bokeh for this lens is cluttered, linear and distracting, or, as I like to say, ratty.

So while I won’t throw this lens in the trash, it’s disappointing performance combines with a slow, heavy, inconvenient build, rendering it a place on display on a shelf, not in my camera bag.

It's always nice to see a well-made lens with a satisfyingly large, handsome front element, but not all that glitters is gold. This 58mm f/1.4 failed to deliver. — It’s always nice to see a well-made lens with a satisfyingly large, handsome front element, but not all that glitters is gold. This 58mm f/1.4 failed to deliver.

Keyword: “Authenticity”

November 29, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

The front office at my newspaper has a bell for customers to ring when our staff are working in other parts of the building. I made this photo of it, then ran it through just one funky phone filter, revealing how little it takes to change a photo from the truth into a very distorted rendition.

Lately we in the photography community have seen an uptick in articles in the photography press about AI – artificial intelligence – and the idea that it endangers the authenticity of photography.

When talking to some of my favorite photographers, I heard, not at all surprisingly, that we believe our own work isn’t immediately or directly threatened by this trend.

One question that comes to my mind early in these conversations is, “Why would you want to create artificial images?” The answer is discouragingly obvious: money. Nobody hires coders and puts them in front of sophisticated computers out of the goodness or their hearts, or even really out of curiosity. They just want to make money.

Photographers have to make a living too, of course.

One of my photographer friends in Tulsa has been trending toward the use of film and very old cameras as a way of reinforcing the idea that his work is authentic.

Another photographer, a friend here in town, was just recently pondering her point of view, and was asking herself some very relevant, very insightful questions, such as, “Do these photos really show who my client is, or just who I think she is?”

It’s a fine line, and one that many photographers can lose sight of as they try more and more to show off their skills, and try less and less to give the client, or in my case the public, what they need and have paid for.

Finally, of course, are the bigger-picture issues (pun intended) – is fake photography taking the place of and destroying real, authentic photography, photojournalism, and even the truth? Fake news, fake images, fake societies – what can we do to remain authentic?

It this the real me? How authentic can I be?

Editor’s note: after running in my own newspaper, this item was picked up by Yahoo! News.

We Love Lenses

October 24, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

My photographer friend Robert was in town this weekend, and we did the photographer thing, including a photo shoot Robert did for some of his fellow church friends.

Robert and I share a slightly out-of-balance love for lenses. Lenses are beautiful and interesting. Lenses tease our imaginations. We desire lenses, all lenses, even lenses we don’t really think we will use.

Robert made this image of me yesterday at Ada's Wintersmith Park. I am holding his Nikon D300 with a well-used 50mm f/1.8 on it. On my left shoulder is one of my Nikon D300S cameras with the excellent 35mm f/1.8 lens, and my right should has my Nikon D3 slung with no lens, as a camera in reserve. — Robert made this image of me yesterday at Ada’s Wintersmith Park. I am holding his Nikon D300 with a well-used 50mm f/1.8 on it. On my left shoulder is one of my Nikon D300S cameras with the excellent 35mm f/1.8 lens, and my right should has my Nikon D3 slung with no lens, as a camera in reserve.

Add this to the fact that I currently have a photography student who has designs on owning the entire line of current Fujifilm lenses, and the fact that Robert brought essentially all of his lenses when he visited, and that today I received a delivery of a very cool lens I bought on eBay, and the result is a kind of lens mania.

This is the front view of the Fujifilm X-T10 with my new used 18mm f/2.0. First glance use of this lens is all positive.

The lens I bought is one of the oldest Fujifilm lenses, an 18mm f/2.0. I was interested in it for several reasons: it is very small and lightweight, it wasn’t very expensive, it’s a nice wide angle without being ultrawide, and, lastly, because I was very inspired by the work my young friend Mackenzee has been doing with her Fuji X100V, which is equipped with a 23mm f/2.0 lens.

The 18mm f/2.0 is a ten-year-old design, which is why it was so inexpensive. It includes an odd-looking square tunnel hood, which works fine for me.

I’ve only had this 18mm for a couple of hours, but it’s appears to be the lens I expected it to be. On my Fuji X-T10, it makes a very small package that is as light as it is inconspicuous. Focus is quick but a bit chattery, and the few frames I put through it look great.

At least one internet review of this lens says it is only for the Fuji X-Pro1 and X-E1, but that is not the case. It appears to work fine on my X-T10.

Here is a "test frame," which barely counts as a photograph since I believe in shooting with a lens in the real world to get a feel for its strengths and weaknesses, but you can see it has nice sharpness and selective focus. This was shot at f/2.0, which I expect will be the most common aperture I use with this lens. — Here is a “test frame,” which barely counts as a photograph since I believe in shooting with a lens in the real world to get a feel for its strengths and weaknesses, but you can see it has nice sharpness and selective focus. This was shot at f/2.0, which I expect will be the most common aperture I use with this lens.

I expect I’ll make it part of my travel kit, not my news kit, since I tend to be pretty rough when shooting news. But watch this space for many more efforts to come with this combination!

This side view emphasizes how compact the 18mm on the Fuji X-T10 is. Build is sturdy like all of Fuji's mirrorless lenses. — This side view emphasizes how compact the 18mm on the Fuji X-T10 is. Build is sturdy like all of Fuji’s mirrorless lenses.

Few and Far

October 19, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / Leave a comment

Here are some images that I generated over the past few months around the house and the patch of Oklahoma where I live.

Counting out .22lr rounds before some target practice

Bird house at the neighbor's, shot with Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8. — Bird house at the neighbor’s, shot with Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8.

This parfait glass was stored upside down for a decade, and collected a thick patina of dust.

A shiny metal kettle hangs in a tree, waiting for a bird to occupy as its new home.A shiny metal kettle hangs in a tree, waiting for a bird to occupy as its new home. — A shiny metal kettle hangs in a tree, waiting for a bird to occupy as its new home.

This view of my living room is both bold and evocative.

A spider's web catches some sun at the golden moment, shot with the Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8 on my Fuji mirrorless camera. — A spider’s web catches some sun at the golden moment, shot with the Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 at f/1.8 on my Fuji mirrorless camera.

Late Summer Monochrome

September 30, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / Leave a comment

Balloons can be pretty without their colors.

This little girl was at the family reunion.

I spotted this in a museum, so it is technically someone else's art. — I spotted this in a museum, so it is technically someone else’s art.

Mirrors in a deep blue sky are bold in black and white.

I don't know who else is listening, but I am. — I don’t know who else is listening, but I am.

My tiny dogs looks very small at the start of this long hallway.

Prints Make Pictures More Real

June 23, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 2 Comments

This is one of several renderings of images I made three years ago in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. It prints beautifully.

As anyone and everyone knows, most pictures viewed by human beings every day are viewed on screens of one kind or another. Important exceptions are, of course, my own newspaper, which is always better viewed in print, and many more visually-oriented publications.

It’s fun to share images on social media or, preferably, here on my own website, but without a doubt, when I have an image that I really love, a nice big print of it can really bring it to life.

For a long time, I had a very nice large-format printer, and printed quite a few images, but it died a couple of years ago, so I switched to ordering prints online, which, though they lack to immediacy and quality-control of in-house printing, are actually very good, and, when you consider the cost of inkjet ink, quite a lot cheaper.

Both my home and my office are filled with my images. I love the feeling of living in a gallery.

Recently, my printer of choice for paper prints, and items like calendars and books, has been shutterfly.com.

While looking over prints to hang on my walls at home, I remembered a product that was all the rage when it came out in the early 1980s: Kodak Elite Fine-Art Paper. It was a wonderful product, and delivered on its promise of super-rich tonal qualities on an extra-luxurious fiber-based paper. But like all great things from Kodak, it is just a memory, and, at least on the web, not a well-preserved memory. My photographer friends in college tried it, but it was so expensive that we could only buy a few sheets at a time. As far as I know, I don’t have any images in my collection made with this product.

If you have an image or three that you really love, consider having it printed really big, frame it, and display it in your home or workplace. Or if you are not a photographer, consider purchasing art from a local vendor at something like an arts festival, gathering place, or even on the street, then display it. I promise it will mean so much more than something you flashed past on your phone.

I lighted and shot the San Francisco de Asís Mission Church in Rancho de Taos for nearly an hour in various light and compositions, and many of them, including this one, looked great. A fresh print of this scene hangs in my living room right now.

Terrifying and Wonderful

June 16, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / Leave a comment

On evening photo walks, I tend to follow the same path on which I walk the dogs, counterclockwise as seen from above, mostly out of habit. The first thing I found were these overgrown Virginia creeper vines on the backyard fence.

“For you life is a long trip
Terrifying and wonderful
Birds sing to you at night
The rain and the sun
The changing seasons are true friends
Solitude is a hard won ally
Faithful and patient…”
~Henry Rollins

This week our patch of the world is looking especially green and healthy. In it, I walk my dogs, trim branches, mow, and, if there is time and the light looks inviting, grab a camera.

One of my favorite focal lengths is 85mm. In fact, not counting zoom lenses that pass through the 85mm focal length, I own three 85mm lenses. The one I grabbed for this walk in the pasture was the 85mm f/2.0 Nikkor of 1980’s vintage, a wonderful lens with virtually no vices. It’s sharp, bright, light, and is so well made that just holding it in my hands reminds me why I love cameras and lenses.

This was the lens combo I grabbed for my evening pasture walk: the Nikon D7100 with the 85mm f/2.0 Nikkor on it.

Last week I found a largish water snake in the back yard. To me, snakes are beautiful and very helpful in keeping nature in balance, and the only time I ever destroy a snake is if I think it is venomous or threatening my neighbor’s chickens.

A lot of people are afraid of snakes, but this one, probably a common watersnake, is doing its job controlling the rodent population. I would rather have him in the shed than mice.

It's nice to see Indian paintbrush in the pasture. It was my wife Abby's favorite flower. — It’s nice to see Indian paintbrush in the pasture. It was my wife Abby’s favorite flower.

The wild blackberry bramble at the back of the property grows bigger each year. These blackberries are starting to ripen.

I have cherry, plum and peach trees just south of the house by the garden, and this year it looks like I'll have quite a few peaches. Mine aren't ripe yet, but my neighbor's are just now ripening. — I have cherry, plum and peach trees just south of the house by the garden, and this year it looks like I’ll have quite a few peaches. Mine aren’t ripe yet, but my neighbor’s are just now ripening.

My neighbors have this gorgeous great pyrenees / mastiff named Oscar who loves my dogs and follows us around when I walk them. Oscar looks especially majestic in this patch of black-eyed Susans.

At the end of the evening, I came across a large tarantula. Despite a lizard-brain, visceral fear of spiders, I know these, like snakes, are part of a healthy ecosystem, so I shooed him out of the yard into the pasture.

This is an example of athe Texas brown tarantula, also known as Oklahoma brown tarantula or Missouri tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi). We didn't shoot it; the gun barrel is held up for scale. — This is an example of the Texas brown tarantula, also known as Oklahoma brown tarantula or Missouri tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi). We didn’t shoot it; the gun barrel is held up for scale.

Rose-of-Sharon is a beautiful, easy-to-grow shrub that I never get tired of photographing.

Children of a Lesser Nikon

May 21, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / Leave a comment

One of the biggest reasons my generation of photographers started with Nikon was their absolutely fantastic lenses. They were well-built, solid, heavy, and made incredible images.

Abby Barron photographs prairie dogs with the AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G at Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming, in the summer of 2005.

To stay competitive starting in the late 1990s, however, Nikon had to take some serious shortcuts, one of which was the extensive use of plastic in the bodies of many of their lenses.

The AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G is one such lens. I originally bought this lens for my wife as part of a “kit,” married to a Nikon D70S and an 18-70mm lens. For years, she shot with these lenses at family reunions or on road trips. Eventually, we replaced her two-lens kit with a single lens, a Tamron 18-250mm, which, while not all that great optically, greatly simplified the logistics of her photography: every lens she needed was at her fingertips with a simple turn of a zoom ring.

I spotted the modest 70-300mm sadly gathering dust on a shelf recently, and put it into my workflow, only to be instantly reminded of its shortcomings.

So why is the 70-300mm, and other lenses like it, weaker than other lenses in this same category? It is missing a single item: extra-low dispersion glass. Nikon calls this “ED” glass, and even though my other 70-300mm had just one small ED glass element, it makes a noticeable difference.

ED glass fixes one of the most vexing problems with telephoto lenses: secondary chromatic aberrations, which are green and magenta color fringes on some edges of some images.

I made this image of Ada tennis coach Terry Swopes at a recent tournament. You can see all the flaws of the AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G in this image: it isn’t very sharp, it is littered with green and magenta fringing, and the “bokeh,” the quality of the out-of-focus area, is incredible ratty.

One thing this lens has going for it is it’s weight: it is so light on the camera that you might think it’s not even there.

Despite its flaws, I’m not going to get rid of this lens. If you know what to do, you can make pretty decent images with it. 1. Don’t shoot it at 300mm. Optical quality starts to deteriorate at about 200mm, and 300mm is a wreck. 2. Always stop it down a little. “Stopping down” means using a lens with the aperture set smaller than wide open. Most lenses are sharper stopped down a little, but it makes a big difference with this class of lenses. 3. Be patient with autofocus. Lenses with smallish maximum apertures tend to cause autofocus to hunt and wander, looking for right right spot to be in focus.

If you have a lens like this, shoot with it and decide if it is doing the job for you, or if you should think about replacing it with something larger, heavier and more expensive, but much more capable.

AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G set to 300mm.

Four Decades with Nikon

May 12, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

Last week at the Oklahoma City Tennis Center, I was photographing a young Ada High School Cougar named Eden Boggs competing in the state tournament. Her opponent’s coach looked over at me and asked, “What lens is that?”

I told him it was a 300mm, and it was my workhorse lens for all sports in the spring and fall.

My workhorse long lens is the AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4.

“It’s a Nikon?” he asked. I told him it was, and that I’d used Nikon equipment my whole career.

“Well,” he said, “I started with Sony so I still have Sony.”

I told him it was the same for me, ever since I bought my first Nikon camera, a Nikon FM, when I was in college in the spring of 1982.

Hm. 2022 minus 1982 = …yeah, my math must be off. Does that really equal 40?

Fun fact: since I had only my allowance and a part-time gig selling photos to Student Publications, I seldom had much money, so one month I bought the Nikon FM, then the next month I bought a 50mm for it, then a 28mm, then a 105mm. By the time I had my first newspaper internship, in May 1982, I had just barely enough gear to do the job.

The photography scene has certainly changed since then. In college, there was usually a week or two between shooting an image and actually seeing it. For the two summers I worked as a newspaper photography intern, shot-to-print times, due to deadlines, were usually a matter of hours or minutes. But neither offered the obvious advantage of instant review that digital gives us.

In the early digital era, there was a tendency for photographers to switch systems – sell all their gear from one brand and buy new gear from another brand – as technology matured very quickly, and camera companies introduced technically better products, leapfrogging over the competition for a while. That still goes on, but not like it did in the early-2000s, since some of the first digital cameras (the Nikon D1, the first Canon 1D, the Fujifilm Finepix S1 Pro) were quickly eclipsed by newer models with dramatically improved performance.

I never switched systems, since I was busy making pictures with what was in my hands, and since I started with Nikons, I stayed with Nikons.

This is a collection of some of my earliest Nikon cameras and lenses.

How to Get a $5000 Camera for $500

April 6, 2022 / Richard R. Barron / 1 Comment

One might think that this is an ad for one of those auction sites that claims, “I got this name-brand laptop for just $37!” But it’s not. Yes, I am up to my oldest trick: buying used gear for a small fraction of the original price.

The Nikon D3 sits tall on a tripod in my home studio tonight.

What is it this week? I bought a Nikon D3 for just $500, thanks to some credit sitting in my Paypal account. Originally in 2007 it went for the actual MSRP of $4,999.95 (who imagines this is less than $5000?). The Nikon D3 is an absolute dream camera for someone like me who shoots news and sports in all conditions at all times of day. It’s got everything I need: clean high-ISOs, fast autofocus, long battery life, great handling, super-fast frame rate, good color, rock-solid build, and on and on.

If you use any Nikon DSLR made in the last 20 years, you will have no problems running the D3.

Cameras like this are getting rock-bottom cheap thanks to the migration to mirrorless cameras. I have a camera in the mirrorless class, a Fujifilm X-T10, which I really love, but despite it being new just six years ago, it, too, was cheap on the used market.

Read more thoughts about that camera and mirrorless here (link).

The Nikon D3 has two Compact Flash (CF) card slots. You can program most two-card cameras to use the cards how you want, and I program mine to both write the same data so if one card dies, the other is a back-up. — The Nikon D3 has two Compact Flash (CF) card slots. You can program most two-card cameras to use the cards how you want, and I program mine to both write the same data to each card, so if one card dies, the other is a back-up.

Nikon’s latest mirrorless, the Z9, is incredible, as is Sony’s flagship camera, the A1, but I am finding that in recent years, cameras are quickly outclassing most photographers, whose photography, like mine, could be done with cheaper, uglier gear.

That is one reason I am unhesitant about buying well-used gear, especially gear that really looks used: I will be beating up on it from the moment it arrives, and every new camera I get looks like an old camera in less that six months.

I guess the question is: what if it breaks in six months or a year? New cameras have warranties and last longer! For $500, I’ve gotten my money’s worth in no time, and could replace it if I needed to with another $500 beater. And because I don’t feel like I have to treat it like a Ming dynasty vase, I’m not afraid to take a $500 camera to the house fires and severe thunderstorms and football sidelines in the rain.

I intend to throw this camera into the mix starting tomorrow.

With my use of the Nikon D700 in the last couple of years, my older AF Nikkor 20mm f/2.8D has rapidly become my favorite wide angle lens, and I expect it will see plenty of use on my new used Nikon D3.