In 1948, the Library of Congress purchased a collection of colour images taken by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). Taken during a series of surveys of the Russian Empire on behalf of the Tsar prior to World War I, these photos were produced by taking a series of black-and-white photos through red, green and blue colour filters; Prokudin-Gorskii created colour images by combining the images with a special projector using the same filters. (This method is still used by astrophotographers, who use specialized monochrome CCDs to take a series of images through special filters.) The result, when processed with modern-day tools (hello, Photoshop), is a series of stunningly vibrant colour photos from a period otherwise remembered in sepia, and from a part of the world not often seen in the West, even at the time. A total of 2,607 images are available in the LOC’s Prokudin-Gorskii Collection; an online exhibition from the LOC and The Big Picture offer some of the more stunning examples. Above: a portrait of the Emir of Bukhara.

Last week I bought another new lens — Nikon’s 105mm macro lens. (That makes seven, in case you’re wondering.) I took advantage of the Henry’s eBay channel and got it for more than $200 less than it would have normally cost, but it’s still the most expensive lens I’ve ever bought. (I have another lens that costs more new, but I bought it used.) It’s also the heaviest: at 750 grams, it weighs more than the camera it’s attached to. The thing is a tank — no surprise there, it’s a professional, full-frame lens.

I’ve had a chance to run it through its paces a bit; here are my test shots. I bought this lens for four purposes: as a macro lens (natch), as a portrait lens, as a fast telephoto prime, and for astrophotography. I haven’t gotten good results using it for macro photography: a fast macro lens isn’t much good, because there’s absolutely no depth of field at f/3, so I need to stop it down and throw some more light at my target (one of these will probably be necessary at some point). There’s a lot of focus travel, so it can be a bit challenging keeping moving snakes in focus; I imagine I’ll be suffering some frustrations there. But as a portrait lens and telephoto prime, it’s fantastic — so scary-sharp that I can crop like crazy and still end up with a great image. I haven’t tested it for wide-field astrophotography yet, but I’m betting the ED glass will yield good results.

I expect to use this lens a lot — a good thing considering how expensive it is. Probably the last lens I buy for a while. (Yes, you can point to this blog entry later on if I backtrack on that statement.)

Here’s a picture of Doofus, taken while I was messing around with my new lens. Not that the AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D is itself new per se: it first came out in 1988, and is old enough that its instruction sheet refers only to film cameras. But it’s relatively inexpensive (and even at that I got a reasonably good deal on a new lens via eBay) and it generates really good results. I’ve been thinking about a new lens for a while, but it’s taken me a while to make up my mind about which one to get first. Looking forward to taking pictures of something other than our cats with it.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been using the Canon PowerShot SD 780 IS (see previous entry), and not always when I should — i.e., at home, indoors, without a flash, in low light. Let me tell you: four years shooting nothing but digital SLRs really makes you forget how much noise is in an image generated by a compact camera with a tiny sensor in low light with high ISOs. Really, it’s an outdoor camera. I have to remind myself of that.