Taken at one of the Obama campaigns in Orlando

D40 & 30mm Sigma @ f/2.2, 1/250s, ISO 200, -1/3 EV, CWM 

I’ve been waiting to get nice telephoto to replace the manual focus zooms that I use for the telephoto range. I currently use the following lenses:

• Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4
• Nikon MF 50mm f/1.8E
• Nikon MF 70-210mm f/4
• Sigma MF 75-210mm f/3.5-4.5

I was debating between a 50-150 2.8 and a 70-300 VR.  I got a hold of a nice sharp copy of the 70-300 VR and I love it.  However, I am addicted to my 30mm 1.4 mostly wide open.  Debating wether to sell/trade the lens for a f/2.8 or keep it, I decided to give ExposurePlot a try to analyze my use of focal lengths.  I ran it on my D40 folder so it analyzed all of my photos.  Then I spent some and highlighted the ranges that are covered by other lenses that I am considering.  Note that in 3 major outings, the 70-300 VR was heavily used and the focal length statistics were similar in all three outings.  The result of the analysis is shown below: (click to enlarge):

I’m trying to determine what option would be ideal.  Notice the heavy use of the 30mm Sigma which was acquired after a long time of owning the camera.  The 16-85 VR would cover a nice range, but @ 5.6 max aperture, it will not satisfy my aperture needs/likes.  Also, the 18-55 shows a lot of use @ 55mm which to me is just a sign of wanting more zoom so I would not want to say that is a key number to use.  My suprize was really using the 70-300mm @ 70mm more than anything else. I’m assuming that I just got accustomed to the medium focal lengths.  I love shallow depths of field and background separations.  Only a 2.8 zoom or another prime would be able to satisfy that, the downside is that I own a D40 and the primes are limited.  I would like to limit the spending to $600.  These are some of the lenses I’m considering:

• Nikon 105mm 2.8 VR
• Sigma 50-150mm 2.8
• Sigma 70-200mm 2.8
• Sigma 150mm 2.8
• Nikon 60mm 2.8
• Nikon 50mm 1.4G
• Sigma 50mm 1.4
• The new Sigma 24-70 2.8

Originally, I uploaded the photo with nothing but the title and it received several hits. Managing Change is a hot topic these days and I wrote a short paper about it for a course. I will go ahead and share the conclusion with everyone online…

Technology advances continuously over time. In the last decade, the flattening of the world brought people to a new and accelerated way of doing things. Face-to-face communication reduced significantly with the rise of internet and wireless technologies. For many, the new technologies are hard to cope with. In order to lead organizations into the future, leaders must study emerging technologies ahead of time and identify the technologies that would leap their organizations forward. Implementing new technologies in an organization usually require significant change in organization and its culture. Organization cultures take a long time to develop and will take a long time to change. To understand how people will resist change and know how to transform their fear of change into a thrive for success, leaders must apply change on themselves and think about the organization as a whole using systems thinking. They will set an example for their subordinates and reduce some of the cultural resistances and obstacles to change. The change implementation must be tailored to the organization and suitable to its culture. These are essentials for successfully transforming organization cultures into the future.

Rawshe Rocks in Beirut, also called Pigeon’s Rocks. Its the classic look I see in most posters. I took the photo when I was in Lebanon in August 2007.

You can buy it as a calendar or a set of postcards from my shop

The complete set can be seen on my flickr page:

http://flickr.com/photos/3ammo/tags/islandsofadventure/

Burj eL 3arab, Dubai