thanks! craigslist and ebay. i hear people rave about goodwill, but all of them in a 25 mile radius of me just have broken digitals. craigslist for rock bottom prices. ebay can be good too if you know what's up and don't mind tracking and hunting, and then returning 50 percent of purchases. always search sold listings in advanced search to know what you can really get an item for, because most active listings are bullshit. my ebay game is on point, though i just lost two auctions in a row because of slow internet connection at work. i always bid in last four seconds at home. make that 10 seconds at work going forward. i don't care about one, but i lost a mint 50mm nikkor f1.2 to someone who won at base bid. because mine didn't go through. fortunately today for a steal i got a 105mm f1.8 original owner, late serial number, in box, minty looking and described as "immaculate" without even internal dust from a 100% rated seller including for other lenses described steeply. i love ambient light, and this is so fucking fast for a portrait lens. i've seen pics of no-flash girls at night with city lighting as the background with it. shipped to the office to avoid harsh porch weather. arrives thursday. can't wait. i'll replace with some results in a few weeks, but from the listing in the meantime ...
people swear by the 2.5 version of this lens, responsible for that National Geographic cover of the girl with crazy beautiful eyes ...
i have 2.5 version in my camera cabinet right now. imagine how much steve curry, the photographer, could or did get for the exact lens that the light passed through. mine's sold and going in the mail tomorrow to make room for the above 1.8. fast is pertinent to my style. 1.8 to f22 at 105mm. fuck me.
if you click the photo you can see the full size with overdone unsharp mask. i recently took my unsharp for digital publication skills to the next level. high amount, really low radius, and a good bit of threshold. reduce image size by 1/2 util you're at display, adding an unsharp with reduced radius and amount each time.
and i sent my first two rolls of super 8 for processing and scanning yesterday.