After looking at my stuff from Day 1, I realized that access was a problem. Even though I was able to get on the convention floor on a rotating basis, an hour at a time–the floor could be very restricting. You can’t often stop since they want you to keep moving and the designated shooting spots are few at floor level, unless you have access to the buffer zone reserved for the big circulation publications.
I knew that I would need more reach so why not take advantage of the Nikon Professional Services (NPS) booth on site at the Wells Fargo Arena next door to the digital darkroom.
When I arrived at the booth, most of the big glass was gone but there on the table was a AF-S Nikkon 200-500mm zoom, the new f5.6 ED lens. It was slow, but I have a D5 so shooting at 8000 ISO is not an issue, the quality is nice.
This would not be my first choice of lenses to borrow, but you know what they say about beggars…so I took it and I’m glad I did. It’s light for a zoom of this range; but most importantly it’s sharp. Photography is about problem solving and this long zoom solved my problem of not being able to get close enough or in the spot that I wanted. For an event like this, I have the freedom to find angles and perspectives that might give the work a fresh look and that’s what I did. Here’s the take from Day 2. Back to work.
