Category: Photography

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A Twitter campaign that actually worked (sort of)

I was recently the recipient of a twitter campaign that actually kind of worked.  And it was from, of all places, The Weather Channel.

Every day I get the random follower on Twitter.  A lot of times it’s spam in the form of some woman’s name followed by some random characters – these accounts are just that, spam.

But every now and then, there’s a ‘legitimate’ account that’s trying to reach out.  These are usually sites of one kind or another that are following me because of the keywords found in my bio (hiking, traveling, photography, skiing, etc.,).  Clicking through to these accounts usually results in a lame twitter page with a bunch of crud tweets.

Recently I was followed by @TWCFromtheEdge and today I decided to check it out.  It’s actually a new show on The Weather Channel that follows a nature photographer around.  The twitter account is pretty active.  The tweets are not that great and the account is not maintained by the actual photographer (lame).  But it’s clearly active, it’s targeted and there’s a link to the show’s website where there are videos, photos, etc.,

This is the first time that I can say that I was actually interested in a random follower – the site was actually pretty compelling (to me) and I would consider watching the show.

Unfortunately, they only make the shows available on TWC on cable, and not available streaming online so I don’t imagine I’ll actually watch.  (Who can remember to sit down at 8pm every Wednesday and tune in to The Weather Channel?)

But good job The Weather Channel for actually making a compelling pitch.  I wouldn’t have pegged you as the first.

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wanted: new Nikon lens designs

As I patiently (or not so) await the announcement and eventual arrival of the Nikon D700 replacement, it got me thinking about what ideal lenses I’d have for that camera.

Over the years many lenses have served the role as ‘primary’ on the various cameras I’ve owned.  Generally these days that falls to the 18-55 f/2.8 (- or something like that – My D300 hat the 1.4x crop factor and I still think in terms of 35mm focal lengths, so I actually think of that lens as my 24-70.. I can never remember the actual focal length..).

I like the lens well enough, the issue I have is the bulk of the lens.  The ‘pro’ series lenses are always large, I get that.  The problem is, there’s often a big step down from the pro lenses.

My understanding is that this is an area where Canon does well, offering a stepped down version of their top-of-the-line that is still really nice.  So that’s what I’d like to see from Nikon.

Nikon recently introduced an f/4 zoom lens, which sounds just about right.  The problem? It’s a 24-120.  I’ve owned one of those in the past (albeit the not-as-well-designed predecessor) and I had 3 primary problems with it:  First, the lens had pretty bad distortion; Second, it’s nearly as large as the F/2.8 lenses (because of the additional focal length); Third, because of the large focal length zoom the controls didn’t provide a solid feel.

So, what I’d like to see is this:

First, a 24-70 f/4.0 lens with the same handling and build quality of the pro f/2.8 line but smaller and lighter (because of the larger aperture).

Second, a refresh of the 70-300 incorporating the same f/4 aperture throughout the range.  If need be, restrict it to 200, but really that shouldn’t be necessary.  This can be a little larger than the current lens, but ideally not much.

Third, both lenses should share filter size so that 1 walk around set of filters can be applied to either

Finally, the 70-300 should be compatible with the latest 1.4x teleconverter for longer shots (and to obviate the need for something like the 80-400, itself in desperate need of a refresh)

OK Nikon, I’m waiting.