Such a beautiful beastie, with lovely brassing and a very interesting backstory as it was used extensively by a well known archaeologist. I am stoked to have it. The Micro-Nikkor-P 55mm f/3.5 Auto is a lovely lens, and the rather rushed test roll turned out well. The Photomic FTn prism is pretty mean looking, the…

I first encountered U1 and U2 user settings back when I owned a Nikon D7000. It was such an incredible shortcut, and I have loved it on the D600 and now the Z 6. I miss it on the D810 and will one day take 10 minutes to understand how custom banks work. My current…

Disclaimer: my wildlife photography skills were basically zero in February, and I have only come a short way in that time, but given the starting point it feels significant to me. There is still a massive hill to climb, and I am aware I am still at the base of that hill. Finding critters to…

After happening on Alan Schaller’s work and his extremely watchable YouTube channel, I was dying to try to replicate the bold contrast, a look I have always loved. Highlight weighted metering does the heavy lifting to recreate the high contrast look on the Z 6. The Z 6 is does not have a dedicated monochrome…

After an OK 90 minutes or so at Zealandia, it occurred to me I should try getting the pin point autofocus point for shooting at wildlife through small gaps in the branches. On the Z 6 that can only be found in autofocus single. I figure this might not be the end of the world…

After an unexpectedly long session where I came within maybe 20 metres of a Kārearea (NZ Falcon), I realised my exposure compensation was set to -2EV. I couldn’t believe it. The images were salvageable, but not to the quality I wanted. The reason I was at -2EV was from a few nights before — seeing…

Ha, a tough couple of days learning the hard way about new stuff. Lens collar During the first day of shooting at Zealandia I would hold the camera body and the lens collar foot. This meant my left hand was too close to the camera body and that the lens was not well balanced. I…