Filtering out the BS

     Traditional photographers think they need to outfit their lenses with UV filters.  Do yourself a favor and skip that.  It just ends up costing you some money and it also makes for worse photos.  In the ancient times, some film had strange effects due to the photoreactive chemicals reacting with the UV light, and hence the UV filter.  Digital camera sensors all have been developed so the sensor is not affected by UV.  All the filter does, is create more lens flare and I also found that it traps moisture more.  There are rare occasions that if you are in a hostile environment, you know.. photographing a volcano, dirt bike race, or in the mist of a waterfall, then it might be beneficial to protect the lens, but for practically all other situations it is not needed despite many people still thinking they need to buy these things and put them on all of their lenses.  Standard Nikon lens coatings are actually very robust.  I sometimes have no choice but to wipe my lens with whatever shirt I am using.  Shocking, yes I know.  Some photographers treat their cameras like their first born and baby them, but to me they are simply tools, and sometimes I have only what I have with me.  Even with this, my old 18-200 lens that has joined me on many adventures has no visible scratches on the outer lens.

     One of the more useful filters I like to use is a circular polarizer.  It makes for better photos especially outdoors by increasing the contrast, increases the color saturation, and reduces or eliminates glare from reflections on water glass, wet leaves, etc., provided you can afford the lower light that it lets through to the sensor.There’s many, many brands of these circular polarizers you can buy cheap starting in the low 20s.  The problem with a low cost one is, while they will be a polarizing lens, they are also likely to cause negative effects too, so what’s the point?  Circular polarizers are difficult to manufacture to get the desired qualities.   And a good one will also have antireflective coatings on them.  Without them, there will be more ghosting and lens flare induced by the filter itself.  Finally, for an outdoor photographer, you are going to get dirt and dust on the lens, so the final coating needs to be scratch resistant.  

     Sorting through many pages of internet wisdom regarding circular polarizer filters leads me to find that the Marumi Super DHG Circular polarizer filter is, if not the best, one of the best circular polarizing filters you can get, so I got one.   The DHG in the name refers to the antireflective coating.  The super refers to the outer coating that is supposed to be very hard, scratch resistant and also has very low surface tension, so it rejects water and oil, beading up on it instead of smearing all over.  Sounds just what I need.  It’s not very cheap, the lowest cost I found was around $100 from my friend eBay… likely much more at your neighborhood store, if you can even find it, but I think it’ll be worth it in the long run for the better quality photos it will be helping with.

Death of a Lens - 18-200mm Nikkor

Well, it looks like my Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom Nikkor Lens has kicked the bucket and I’ll just sell it for parts now.  I used this lens over the last many years on most of my outdoor adventures with my Nikon D300S body.  It’s a versatile lens, able to take wide angle landscapes and zoom in to a respectable 11X to get photos of wildlife or far away objects.  For traveling I certainly wouldn’t take more than that, it’s a good all-in-one lens.  Sure, there are better lenses for a given purpose, but this one fits the bill if you are on the go and want to minimize equipment.  I’ve taken it to the jungles of Borneo, canoeing and sea kayaking, and on backpacking trips.

As I was making my way up silver peak waist deep in snow in Killarney last weekend, the zoom felt very stiff and something broke inside the lens and was rattling around.  It could have been due to the cold, ice, the wear and tear or the (slight) abuse I had given it over the years.  I did bump the end when putting a filter on once and the wide angle was a little ‘loose’ in the 18-24 range.  The zoom tubes were not synced and I could still take photos, but only in wide angle with everything collapsed.  I decided to take it apart.  I found some good photos online from someone from New Zealand taking theirs apart (http://www.boardworld.com.au/forums/viewthread/582/#9637). 

This is a 900 dollar lens - normally I would just send it in to Nikon for repairs.  But Nikon are dickheads about repairs.  For starters, they will only repair a lens that was sold in the same country or region. That means if I bought a lens in US or from Asia off of ebay, Nikon Canada will check the serial numbers and will just send  it back to me and decline to repair.  I think they are trying to enforce some inane regionality plan where they can charge (slightly) more in some areas for the exact same product.  I guess Nikon didn’t get the memo that it is a world economy with the internet and eBay nowadays and Nikon wants to fight it, like they haven’t learned from the record companies.  And I am not talking about warranty repair, I’m talking about paid repair which they would make money on one way or the other.   So instead of working with their customers and making them happy, Nikon and Canon as well seem to like being stand offish, pissing their customers off and threatening them with the prospect of not being able to have their camera repaired if they don’t ‘follow along’ with the master plan and buy from a local dealer…  unnecessarily heavy handed and fascist in my view.  On top of that Nikon flatly refuses to fix some items, picking and choosing the easier ones.  If a part is deemed ‘water damaged’ by a little water detecting sticker inside the part having turned red, they just won’t even try to fix it, even if you pay for it, or if the parts don’t look corroded at all. 

Secondly, Nikon charges a lot for repairs in general, so most items end up costing about the same as buying functional second hand lenses or camera bodies by the time it is repaired.

And then thirdly, Nikon not being content with all of those measures they had in place to screw over their own customers trying to control what they do, both Nikon and Canon (can you say collusion) both recently decided to stop selling any repair parts to anyone going forward.  This effectively puts third party repair shops out of business, and prevents you from repairing your own cameras if you just need a small part or two to fix it.  I wish there was a third large camera manufacturer that actually wanted to make their customers happy instead of screw them over, I’d shower them with money, but unfortunately that’s not the case.  Nikon claims they are doing this because of the complexity and setup equipment required to fix their parts are beyond everyone else’s ability (except theirs) to fix properly..  talk about condescending and false B.S.

But I digress, I was just explaining why I was in the position of disassembling my lens in the first place instead of sending it in for repair – it’s because Nikon Canada wouldn’t repair my lens if I sent it in, I bought it in a kit from eBay, which likely got the lens from Asia. So I did manage to carefully take apart my lens up to the zoom ring.  While I was removing the zoom ring, I unfortunately wasn’t paying close enough attention and I mashed some of the metal sensor fingers (called brushes) for the lens to determine the zoom and focus positions.  These are small and cheap parts - if I could buy some replacement parts from Nikon this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but.  I did get to the offending part.  Like Tony from boardworld’s lens, the pin threads had stripped out of the tube it was attached to.  I did find some brushed on eBay, but they would cost me about $25 for each of them…   $50 total.  I also would have to epoxy the pin in and hope it held.  I still think the initial bump and looseness (i.e. only sometimes being able to focus in the 18-24 range) that the lens had would still be evident.  So I am thinking that I just give up on this lens and sell it for parts on eBay.  I guess if Nikon is not selling repair parts to anyone, there at least should be a good market for selling parts.

      I had wanted to upgrade to a full frame camera, perhaps this is an opportune time although I didn’t want my hand forced in a decision  – I have my eye on the D600, but was waiting for the price to drop a bit.  I would get the 28-300mm lens for it which would be the equivalent of the 18-200mm I have right now on the DX size sensor.  And then I’d have to get a whack of filters – UV, circular polarizer, neutral density, I also like using an expodisc white balance filter, all of which I have in 72mm not 77 as the larger les would be.  We’ll see.








      And a big fuck you goes out to Nikon and their anti-customer service, as it only really can be described as,.