Finally winter arrived in Austria and it seems it´s here to stay. But why did I choose this image instead of a snowcovered landscape shot? Did I prefer to stay inside? No - I really love cold winterdays and lots of snow. The reason why I didn´t choose a winter shot is simple: The weather wasn´t the best on weekends and during the week I have to work in the office. I took some shots with my 12-24DX and have to admit that I still have to learn to shoot with wideangle lenses.

But this image was taken with my new 2.8/45 P AIS. This is a very small ( as small or even smaller then the TC-14E teleconverter ) manual focus lens. It´s a new version of an ancient Tessar design - a very simply design developed over 100 years ago by Zeiss that only incooperates 4 elements. Though it might seem a little obsolete today it isn´t. Nikon made this lens a couple of years ago to use it for their FM3A mechanical SLR camera. They even built in a CPU to make all metering methods of modern SLRs and D-SLRs possible. So except autofocus everthing else is there. I ordered this lens in the US because it´s very expensive in Europe. It´s not cheap in the US too as it costs more than the AF 1.4/50 Nikkor. So why buy a slow ( only f2.8 ) but expensive manual lens over a very fast AF-version. The answer is simple: The image that this lens can produce is amazing. It´s sharp wide open but the real advantage is it´s Bokeh ( the way the lens renders out of focus areas ) and it´s color saturation and shadow detail. Especially the Bokeh makes the difference in the image. It´s the soft, smooth and almost creamy quality of the out of focus parts that give the images taken with this lens a very professional look. It´s like a 1.4/85 or the 70-200VR - it´s special. For everyone who pays attention to professional looking backgrounds I can only recommend to give this lens a try.

The image was taken on the first day I used this lens. It was nothing but a quick test shot. I used flash because I took this in the evening. Well - flowers are nothing special but this lens make them special. It´s a shame but a 600 pixel image on the web does not do justice to this image. I made a large print of it and it looks just great. I bought this lens to do portraiture and already made some very nice ones. But as they show my better half ( without make-up, taken at the breakfast table ) it would not be wise to post them here. But you have to believe me: they are really stunning. A wonderful natural expression and a very impressive 3D-look thanks to the soft and creamy rendered background. As you can see: I love this lens.

settings: A-Mode, 1/60@f4, 200 ASA, SB800 bounced against the ceiling, WB in Capture