A handy street snapper.

There were five people in the coffee shop, each using a MacBook Pro. I imagine that if you came in here with a Windows machine you would probably be asked to leave. This is the Mission District of San Francisco, after all, and Windows is very definitely not cool here. On grounds of good taste alone I would have to agree with that sentiment.

I had gone to the city in search of late shadows in setting sun, and after a thrilling hundred minutes snapping just that I was kicking back with a cappuccino when the young chap sitting next to me leaned over.

“What sort of lens is that?”

I explained to him that it’s an old MF Nikkor 20mm and let him handle the outfit. The small optic almost disappears on the bulky D2X body and the APS-C sensor in the latter makes it into an effective focal length of 30mm. Ideal for street snaps, in other words.

“It’s fairly wide” I explained “meaning even in narrow streets you have no difficulty getting your subject in the frame. And you can always get in closer, if need be.”

I complimented him on his MBP and asked about the funky colored keyboard skin.

“It’s for FCP” he answered, assuming that I would know that means Final Cut Pro.

“Don’t the Coen Brothers use that for editing their movies?”

“Absolutely. I’m a documentary short movie maker and it has almost everything I need”.

That’s one of the best things about San Francisco. Whereas in NYC all you meet in coffee shops is larcenous bankers looking to steal from the working man, here you meet real people looking to create something of worth.

Here are some snaps from those hundred minutes.

All on the 20mm Nikkor except the seventh where I used the 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor. The 20mm delivers outstanding definition and contrast and my tailored lens correction profile removes the barrel distortion which comes with this otherwise fine lens. Owing to the high contrast lighting I set the D2X to matrix metering and let it do its magic. (A related benefit of installing a CPU in this old MF lens is that matrix metering is enabled). Not a single highlight was burned out, the meter tending to underexpose by half a stop if anything, making for very little need to change anything in Lightroom.

I’m finding the sensor in the D2X is a joy to use, having a special way with color. For whatever reason, I consistently do less processing on files from the D2X than those from the D700 and there is no practically visible difference in the grain/noise levels at ISO 400. Unless you need ISO1600 or something like it, the D2X may just be the greatest bargain available for the avid pictorialist, and most are unlikely to test it’s 200,000 lifetime shutter activation expectancy. Me? I’ll be about 197 when I hit that milestone ….