April Fools '22 | Talk Thread

And we're away.
Good to see 16 mostly familiar participants signed up, and looking forward to seeing a month's worth of creativity and imagery along the way.
I've decided on my two lenses, the CZ 85mm f1.4 Planar, and CZ 135mm f1.8 Sonnar, both screw drives mounted via LA-EA5 onto my a7iv. Perhaps a bit too similar, but I love what they deliver.
Must say I was impressed to see @gregja had posted his day 1 at 06:33am local time. That's really keen.

It isn't fair...You can post earlier than we can

Nice start, I'll do my best with 18mm and a 90mm macro (safety choice).

Great to see everyone here. After a couple of schedule changes, I am going to work with two lenses this month. As I can, I will try to stick to a Sigma 1000mm f8. However as conditions are not favorable, or when I am traveling for business, I will go to the other extreme and use a Sigma 8mm f4. Basically, I will be using the shortest and longest FF lenses made for a-mount. Given my current work schedule, I will shoot for pic-a-day, but may need to settle for 3/week.

A few learnings (or re-learnings) on the Sigma 1000mm f8 APO, kit, and long lens technique.

1. My gimbal head makes my carbon fiber tripod top heavy when collapsed. This makes it difficult to strap to my backpack, and awkward to carry by hand. I need to remove the head, carry it in the backpack, and assemble in the field if I need to walk any great distance.
2. I am still working out how sharp the lens is. That being said, I would say looking through full resolution photos, the lens is sharper than I would have guessed wide open. Shooting is difficult because of the need for bright light to achieve a SS of >1/1000 sec. However, the A99ii is the ideal camera (in the overall sony/minolta a-mount catalog) to push ISO. All that being said, it is difficult so far to determine what the limiting factor on sharpness is (my poor technique, SS, ISO noise, or lens MTF). I will keep playing and seeing what I find.
3. In bright light, AF is not bad at all. The number of AF points is very limited. However, as long as there is enough contrast, it locks quickly and doesn't hunt. If I point it into trees or bushes and there are more trees or bushes behind, now it hunts much more, and MF is required. That is not much different than my experience with any other long lens.
4. The lens database is off by a factor of 10 for MFD. It lists 1500mm (1.5M), but it is actually 15,000mm (15M or 50ft).
5. The lens FOV is very narrow, so it is difficult to find small objects or birds I can see visually, and then line up the lens.

Otherwise, I am still practicing my long lens technique to dampen vibrations.

It's nice to see all the contributions, in particular I'm enjoying Lee's lens series and wondering which will be number 31.

@ffrolvaag - Choosing 1000mm and 8mm is very impressive, or just insane - I am really looking forward to how you cope in the coming days.

Phil Wood wrote: It's nice to see all the contributions, in particular I'm enjoying Lee's lens series and wondering which will be number 31.

Thanks Phil.

Time to start some commenting, that's another essential part of a challenge, certainly for the ones that last a month.

Day 1

gregja, interesting texture, brought out by a punchy B&W conversion
LAbernethy, that looks a little used pristine copy and the product shot is well lighted and composed
Jozioau, better weather on the way it seems. Nice object and well captured
Dopol, nice pop in the snow and tulip petals
pegelli, I had hoped for more snow but it mainly passed us by
Harm vb, nice selective sharpness, hope to see how it further develops this month
onsplekkie, there seems to have been a lot more snow in your area than here, nice foolish subject indeed
Phil Wood, nice simplistic composition, apparently bauty was overrated and was that wall really such garish green?
bigsi, the light reflecting on the shoulders and the colour contrast between fore- and background work very well in this photo
Fred_S, nice wide view and the snow helps a bit adding interest. I bought the same lens to complement my Tamron 28-200 superzoom and I like it, how do you like it so far?
ffrolvaag, you really need a wide lens like that to capture "the smallest room", turning two shots into a diptich is a nice idea and works well in this case
Robbie, nice line to follow and the walker partway down is just in the right place. Very inviting to go and have a walk on the beach
addy landzaat, do I recognise that sculpture from your CYC challenge last year? Anyway, with the snow it certainly adds something extra, also the long focal length quiets down the background nicely