I was going to visit the Welcome in Tziganie Festival again this year, but somehow our schedules got muddled and we’ll be in our dearly beloved Hérault that weekend (Our first this year, and well deserved!)
I thought that this would be a good opportunity to get the Z8 out and see what I could come up with but that will have to wait another year now.
Nuria visited us in here in Auch in late March, and it was great to see her again, and also see how she performed on our microscopic stage! She needs space when she dances!! In the end she solved the problem by moving off the stage and into the public – brilliant move.
She came with the Haïdouti Orkestra and I imagined that as this was a warm-up concert prior to this years Welcome, that we would see them back at the festival at the end of April – not the case – neither she nor the orchestra will be here this year.
However, La Caravane Passe will be at Seissan – and I’m slightly sad to miss them – very dynamic and very good musicians.
The only other thing of note is I’m pretty sure I can hear someone wrapping up a large box in Toulouse and preparing it for a short ride with Chronopost….what could this be?? A clue…
This is the ‘Z’ and ‘S’ version of the old AF-S 80-400 zoom. Virtually identical in size to the 70-200 f/2.8 S this will confirm the title of this article – a change in dimension. As a general rule I’m very much a wide-angle fan, and buying a lens that goes all the way out to 400mm is a huge stretch for me!! This model is optically a lot better (according to Thom…) than the previous AF-S version, but as I didn’t own the older version I have nothing to really compare it to.
One frustrating thing is the tripod foot – NIKON just can’t seem able to design a tripod foot with ARCA chamfering – and it seems so simple. So off we go to eBay and spend 30€ on a Chinese version of the same foot, but with an ARCA base. (As it happens it’s the same as that used on the 70-200 S f/2.8 lens) Of course, the fact that I got 150€ off due to my NPS discount helps pay for that!!
I’m keen to try longer lenses – I can’t hold them still, so they will be on a tripod obviously, but I like the compression of the images and we’re blessed to have such wonderful countryside here, particularly towards the south with the Pyrénées in view – I feel this could be interesting…time (and good light!) will tell.