Vivitar 135mm f/2.3

[Igor]

Vivitar's fastest mid-range tele lens. Close enough to Nikkor's 135/2 speed demon :) And not only technically: the performance is just great: close focusing ability, pretty sharp even wide open, very sharp stopped down to f/4 already, good saturation. And everything goes for $70 on ebay :)

D2x body, moderate editing :)
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[HulaMike]

Colosal images Igor, looks like you've cracked the D2x code quite nicely. Please give a run down on camera settings, maybe a brief editing tutorial. These are very, very clean and crisp looking.

[Igor]

Thanks Mike.

My regular workflow is:

Stage 1. Photoshop:
levels, Sh/Hi (if needed), Selective color (if needed, to rise/lower a color or two), then USM.
Smart Sharpen settings I used mostly are: amount: 60-80%, radius 0.7-0.9, Remove Lens blur or Gaussian Blur.

Stage 2. Picture Publisher:
Pixel Clean Up - one of three version I uploaded here.
I never know which one will work better, so use all three, then choose the best (or none).
In some cases, if PCU effect is too strong (eats up too much of sharpness) I make a separate object (layer) with PCU'd image over un-PCU'd and blend them about 50% mostly using Luminance or Saturation, depending on image.

HTH.

[HulaMike]

Thanks Igor. I was wondering about the boosted color as these seem more saturated than other D2x images I've seen.

If you ever see this lens on eBay again, would you mention it here?

[Igor]

Didn't boost it (rarely do so). The colors are original + a little boost from levels adjust.

Sure, can post a "heads up", do you want alerts only for this one or Nikkor's "speeders" too?

[HulaMike]

I like this lens I think. Funny, I had the Nikkor 105 2.8 macro and sold it. Dumb.