Things have slowed down a bit here on my site but I'm working on many things soon to be added here. A few things have occurred in the meantime. I acquired the much sought-after Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/2.8-4-KA Macro zoom lens, in exquisite condition at a ridiculously low price. It came nearly complete, probably only lacking a manual. Manual, shmanual. You wouldn't need one to know that this lens is totally worth it once you see the images you can make with it! 2.5:1 macro at 210mm and enough speed to compose with confidence. (I found the needle in the sea of needles at last!) The build quality was amazing, the lens must weigh a couple pounds but its almost "Leica-R"-like, though I've not handled R lenses personally. I suppose due to the manual nature of the Vivitar lens-aside from the automatic aperture- it confuses the automatic exposure modes of the camera into thinking that there is a constant f/2.8 aperture available. I notice that what this causes is 1-2 stops of underexposure at the long end of the zoom range but its certainly workable, this is hardly a complaint. According to information from the Mark Roberts site on this Vivitar lens, this lens was among the best of the breed, built by Komine around the early eighties. The "28" at the start of the serial number is what you'd be looking for, mine is 28600262. There is also a page here: http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/closeups.html that describes apochromatic close-up adaptors, and not the common variety that you'd see with some sort of "digital" in the brand name of. I plan on getting the 62mm Nikon 6T version soon. I also have built a new board out of existing parts and new wheels, called the "Lambro" for that "low gravity, smooth ride". I took a 33"x9" large pool board and mounted Randall R-II 180mm trucks on the front and rear kicks using 1" Shorty's hardware, and to that combinded Pleasure Tool Abec-7 bearings with Retro BigZig Lime 80a 75mm x 58mm wheels for the most comfortable cruising, yet most agrressive carving ride I have ever had the pleasure of owning. The Lambroghini is of course still up and at it, I added Tracker soft angle risers to the front and rear and elongated the wheelbase some 4-6" from the original 2008 setup. A large majority of the parts were purchased locally from the very curteous and knowledgeable Longboard Larry (longboardlarry.net)- he makes awesome boards and carries an excellent selection of gear to match. I'll have pictures up on the Equipment page before too long. |