Zoom

This blog is about my attempts to get back into street photography but, also, things tangential to that. 

So, for example, I've been rereading one of my favourite and most loved books, Geoff Dyer’s brilliant commentary on 100 of Gary Winogrand’s photos, and was surprised to be reminded that occasionally Winogrand had used telephoto lenses. Not that he did it often or for long, but it gave me reason to scratch the itch I’d wanted to scratch. I ride along a canal trail a few times a week and always spot things in the distance I wish I could photograph. 

The problem was that I only have short lenses, with my ancient cheap 28mm now living on my camera. I was not averse, however, to occasionally carrying something longer in my bag. Hence the reason I’ve been looking at longer zoom lenses, thinking that I might be able to do what I did with the 28mm and apapt some cheap older lense at, say, 300mm or longer. (I really want to try one of those crazy 500 or 600mm mirror lenses).

Did I mention that it had to be cheap?

Anyway, last week, I was nosing around Cash Converters in St Helens when I spotted a Sigma DG 70-300mm zoom lens for not a lot of money. I think it was thirty-odd quid, which is a lot cheaper than the £800-2000 of quality primes or superzooms.

I was still hesitant about buying it since it was for a Sony A mount and would therefore need adapting. But I figured it might be worth a try...

I got it home and gave it a good clean. All the rubber rings were filthy and caked with skin/dirt, but after an hour of going over it with isopropyl alcohol, it looked like new. I reckon it was now worth at least £60 if I wanted to sell it on.

So, my first efforts with a zoom lens…

Down the canal, I had a chance to shoot some birds. I’d always regretted that I’ve never been able to get close to one of the local herons, which I often see from my bike. Well, today I was lucky. No sooner had I arrived than I spotted two herons. I spent the next half hour if not longer shooting them.

The lens is, of course, totally incompatible with my camera’s electronics. It’s made for the Sony A mount and my camera has the Nikon Z mount, which means I can only adapt it using a dumb adaptor (which costs the same as the lens, so this is getting a bit pricey given my current pitiful circumstances...) So that means no autofocus. Luckily, the adaptor has an aperture ring so I can at least alter that which would otherwise have to be done electronically. 

The results suggest it’s not the sharpest glass in the world (zooming in doesn't resolve much detail) but also it’s not bad. It might even be worth £30. I had to take a lot of photos to get a few good ones but I’m pretty pleased with my very first attempts at photographing birds. Might do it more often, though I realised one thing. Street photography keeps you on your toes. You’re always moving or looking to move. You burn the calories and get pretty hot. Standing playing mind games with a heron left me frozen. In the middle of summer...

I’ll keep the lens. It might come in handy. I also have another reason for wanting something longer and that’s for stories I occasionally cover where I like to use my own photos. I’d like to get to some political conferences this year and I think maybe a longer lens would afford me more flexibility… But we’ll see. Might look a bit silly to take out such a cheap lens at one of those events… 

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