A new lens

I tried to post larger versions of the color and B/W images from the other day, but Typepad won't let me. Instead, I thought I'd share the news that I picked up a new lens and it arrived on Monday. It's the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D. I knew before I purchased it that auto-focus would not work on my Nikon D40x but for the price (a bit over $100) I thought it would be nice to have. Well, suffice it to say that you don't really know how much work auto-focus does for you until you no longer have it. My first hundred or so images were all blurry even though they looked sharp in the viewfinder.

Last night I went outside when it was sunny and played some more. I actually started to get the hang of it. I captured the following images and was pleased with the sharpness. I don't want to say they are tack sharp (you couldn't see it in such small, resized images anyway), but compared to the kit lens it is much, much sharper. Normally I have to do some sharpening to my images but I don't think it will be too necessary with this.

These aren't good photos... consider them illustrative. These are straight out of the camera, only resized for the internet.