Monks

The holiday I returned from a couple of weeks ago was wonderful for indulging one of my favourite photographic subjects- monks. I love photographing monks. The colours, the activities and the sense of calm makes them ideal subjects. Here's a small selection of photos I took of monks with every lens I took with me (50mm prime, 16-28 f/2.8 wide angle, 28-300mm telephoto).

Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8

I made my decision on which wide-angle lens to purchase (see previous entry) and picked up the Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8. The ratings and specs compared versus the price (when compared to Nikon's offerings) and the fact that they were a known quantity thanks to my excellent experiences with the equivalent crop-sensor model for my D7000. I knew from looking at the physical specs that the thing was heavy, what I'd not expected was the sheer size of the thing compared to its DX colleague. Truly it is a beast. Check out its size compared to the standard reference brew in the picture, for example. It's comparable with the alternatives, of couese, I just hadn't appreciated the scale-up of lenses that takes places in the shift from crop sensor to full-frame. Ah well, I've made my choice.

The quality of the lens itself is superb and I'm delighted, just as I was with its predecessor in my lineup. I've not got many example photos taken using the lens just yet but here's one of the Potala palace in Tibet. I look forward to many future shoots using it.

Post-hiatus

It seems that it's been some time since I wrote here. There was certainly a quieter spell where I didn't have much going on photography wise but that picked up in a big way a little over a month ago- I've got new gear, I've done a little event photography, took some photos while rock climbing and I spent the last month travelling around Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan so I'm currently processing the 2,700 photos from that trip. There's a lot to write about and many photos to share. I hope to work on getting a lot of content up here over the coming weeks. I've also been returning to some of my older photos to post-process them through my new software and with the expertise I've learned since they were originally done. I leave you with one such photo and a promise that more posts and photos are coming in the near future: