Wide open with ND filters

So you got a 1.4 (or perhaps an even wider aperture lens) and you use it mostly for low light. What about shooting in bright light? Shooting wide open under a bright sunny day will blow everything out. It wouldn't matter if you lowered your ISO down to 50 and sped your shutter speed up to 1/8000th sec. It will be bright, and no amount of raw processing will save your file. The solution, I'm sure others have covered, albeit briefly, is to get a neutral density filter. The above image was shot with the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G with a 3 stop Hoya ND filter. ND filters aren't that expensive and they are quite stackable.

Tripod huggers (landscape photogs) use ND filters to slow everything down a little more even with light still available at the end of the day.

Bye 14-24, welcome back 24-70.

True story: Last month I sold my Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G, locally through craigslist and purchased a mint Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G the very next day, using the same load of cash I received for my wide angle. I've used the ultrawide maybe three times total. It bothers me that there's no filter ring for me to drop my three-stop neutral density filter onto. Also I'm not much of a landscape guy.

As you recall, I traded away my 24-70 and 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II away earlier this year and boy, I regret and miss the versatility of those lenses while I shot my last event, which was a wedding.

I came armed to the teeth with primes all the way up to 200mm! Even though I had two DSLRs on my Blackrapid harness, carrying a wide and tele, it was a pain having to swap lenses so often to get that range I wanted. I "zoomed" a lot more with my feet therefore, exerting more energy than I had to. Granted I lost 30 lbs. in 8 months and in the best shape of my life, ever. After a few hours I was completely exhausted, much like how I felt on my last post.

Re-attaining the 24-70 once again, will indeed make my life a lot easier. I could easily slap this on my D3x as my wide/group portrait lens and my tele of choice on the D700 for high iso candids. It's indeed a game changer. Some of you may wonder 'why not the new 24-120 f4?' It's plain and simple, while I love the extra versatility, I do not like f4. I love shallow depth of field, it's my bread and butter. It's what draws potential clients to my services. The 24-120 f4 would be a wonderful vacation walkaround lens. The 24-70 f2.8 is absolutely sharp corner to corner and since it has a 9 blade aperture, the out of focus areas are incredible. I'm glad to have this lens back in my arsenal.