Second bite at the cherry...

Returning to Cradle Mountain in Tasmania during a sudden snow dump was a welcome break from some pretty hard physical labour on a farm. Sliding around on the road enroute to the National Park due to ice on the road combined with shortness of available time heightened the senses. I’d been there about a week earlier in bright sunshine. Seeing it now transformed in white was a real treat.

Lugging around a big camera bag with all available lens options was not an appealing one. So, it was one lens in the pocket and one on the camera. I even thought I would leave the tripod in the car and make the most of high ISOs. Not a great option if you’re looking for near and far focus matching sharp images at small apertures or even considering a portfolio effort. Anyway, here are some of those images with more from others destinations.

All these images were taken just outside the entry to the NP. There are a few good walks and these are within 20mins of the car park. Of course a 20 minute walk quickly turns into 2 hours if your stopping frequently, changing lenses (and cleaning of moisture) and setting up a tripod. Most of these shots were done holding an umbrella (rain variety). River shots were from Pencil Pine walk and others from King Billy Pines walk.

The below image is my ‘could’ve been’ shot which I ended up taking with an iPhone. The blown highlight my punishment for not packing a 50mm or 85mm lens.

So, have I learnt my lesson? Yes. I recently acquired a smaller camera bag - a Lowepro Backpack Lightweight Sporty Lowepro Tahoe BP 150. Lightweight alright. Some might say flimsy. You don’t get much for $80. Still it’ll do the job for now. An extra 3-4 lenses with relatively easy access. I’m not really complaining.

The above shot is of one of those places you drive past and notice out of the corner of your eye. But there’s no place to stop and there is a line of cars behind you. I’ve been there before. Not this time. Turn around after stopping and head back. Wandered around for an hour. Even got access via a gate. It was a wetland area.

Early morning shot from a bridge somewhere near Campbell Town. Probably the South Esk River. All things considered I think Tasmania is Australia’s most beautiful state. Plenty of these beautiful scenes all within reach of a day’s travel.

Can’t say I know what’s going on here. This is an iPad shot taken quickly from a bridge on the way to St Helens.

A black and white conversion that works for me. Another ‘stop down the road, turn around and come back’ shot.

Not much interesting lighting but still a great experience. If I’m not mistaken - the Meander River on the way to Liffey Falls.

Tree roots, Liffey rainforest. I haven’t mentioned thus far that this was my first real outing with the CZ 20mm F4.

I’m pretty satisfied with its performance along with the rest of the CZ lenses. They’re all manual lenses - for the most part its not a big deal especially with landscape photography. Being f4 hardly matters either. Nearly all shots are f8 and above. Sadly my prize 50mm Pancolar has developed some sticky aperture blades and so stayed at home for this trip. Relegated for the moment to portrait shots at around f2.8.

Nice combination

Recently, I bought a number of vintage lenses such as Carl Zeiss 35mm Flektogon from East Germany and also some Soviet-made lenses like the Jupiter 9 and Helios 44M. I bought these to replace some of the lenses that I sold that were medium format that I had been using on my Nikon D800 for several years. In fact one of my early posts in this blog refers to those lenses that replaced some more modern Nikon lenses - one in particular that was totalled in a fall of a cliff (24-70mm). But that’s another story. Just prior to buying these vintage lenses I bought a Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85 mm F1 .4 for those occasions where I might need a larger image such as the Nikon D 800 can provide but with a good quality lens with excellentllent resolution. It’s turned out to be a very impressive piece of glass. But more interestingly I combined it with an XPro close-up lens super II F500. The resulting sample image can be seen here. I’ve always been wary of using any other glass in combination with a lens I know to be of exceptional quality like the 85mm CZ for fear of diminishing the quality of the image. That did not seem to be the case here.

Carl Zeiss 85mm f1.4 with XPro F500 close-up lens

While not exactly macro I was particularly pleased at what could be achieved with this lens. BTW, the CU lens was not attached via a threaded adapter (which I’ve since ordered), I just held it up to the lens. The image has not been sharpened or touched up in any way save a small amount of exposure compensation. I couldn’t achieve this result with any of the other lenses. Both the sharpness and bokeh for my liking are superb. Message me for more details if you’re thinking of this combination. The CZ lens came in at around AU$1100 and the XPro $55. Both are second hand but mint condition. PS. Although I still have the D800, I have an adapter for the Sony A7III which more easily accommodates the vintage lenses.