My first lens from the Nikon Trinity

I woke up early in the morning as I am meeting Edmund (eawtan) at 7am for a shoot at Sungei Punggol area. He likes to shoot birds so I believe that it will be a good location for him.

We started off at the Matilda House to do some IR (in fact only 2 to 3 shots only) then we proceed to Sungei Punggol. To my surprise, the once tar tracks were now covered with sand and there is even a tractor at the beginning of the winding tar path. This is a disturbing sight as it shows that there are plans for developing the area and building up of man-made structures which is no good for the nature landscape here. :(

Edmund and I stayed around the area for 2 to 3 hours trying to shoot some birds, it is really tiring but quite a fun experience and I have really learnt alot from him about birds and nature shooting. After the outing, we took a short break at the Punggol Bus Interchange coffeeshop then we parted for home.

After reaching home, I have a quick wash-up and a short rest before heading out again to collect my new lens, one of the lens in the Nikon Trinity, the AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED.

The Nikon Trinity consist of AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED, AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED and the AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED. Not very sure why people address these lenses or give the name Nikon Trinity to them. Maybe because of the large and constant aperture of f2.8 through the zoom range, good quality image and fast/silent characteristics these lenses that earn the title for them.

For me, I thought of getting a good zoom lens as my current zoom lens, the Nikon AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6G is still not sharp and clear enough. I manage to realise this some time back when I took a picture of the bird resting on the branches. I tried cropping and enlarging the picture but the quality and sharpness start to drop. The good thing about this lens is the zoom range of 300mm, but this is still not enough for birds shooting as Edmund had mentioned when we were shooting in the morning.

The other motivation for me to get this lens is that I will be needing a good, fast long zoom lens for the upcoming Nikon TNP Big Walk Shoot Event and to get some good pictures that is to be submitted for the competition (just another excuse). My next plan will be to sell away my AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6G and get a 1.7X teleconverter to give me the zoom to around 300mm.

Alright, back to the collection. I met up with Michael (aka espn) and Sykes (aka Sykestang) at the Spinelli at Penisular Hotel to collect my lens. There are quite a few people who got this lens too, in fact, two of them order a White version which is very rare, but they have to pay more. I prefer the Black version because all my lenses are black in colour. :D

I tested the lens and found it really to my satisfactory, the sharpness, clarity, speed and quality is simply amazing. This is worth every bit the price and really deserve the title of the Nikon Trinity. This really makes me crave to have the other 2 pieces of lens to complete my Trinity Collection. But I manage to suppress that desire (for now) and told myself to focus on getting the Nikon AF-S DX 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED instead which is best for landscape and wide-angle shots. Maybe I will consider getting the other 2 lenses for next year then. :P

So much for now, going out to enjoy and practise on my new zoom lens. Will try to update my blog more often. Cheerz.