farlymac
PF McFarland
As the chief asked Little Big Man what Custer meant when he said that.
In late 2016 I bought a Sigma 170-500mm f5-6.3 APO in Nikon AF mount to use on my D80. It worked fairly good, considering I was shooting it hand-held at times, and it was designed before the digital SLRs came out. It is a bit screwy at the edges though.
Anyway, the gent I purchased it from had a storefront that really was just a warehouse for his collections. One of the rooms has photography gear scattered among the model trains, and that's where I found the lens. I was somewhat excited to find it at such a decent price that I completely overlooked the fact the hood was missing. So after getting home I called the seller asking if he would give a look see for the hood.
About a month later I called him again, and he reported he couldn't find it. So every time I was in the area, I would stop by to see if he was in the store, usually without much luck (he makes his money with a consulting business).
The other day I was back in the area earlier in the day than usual, but still no luck on finding him in the store, so I called him, and he said he'd meet me in an hour or so. Since I figured the "or so" could mean about another hour, I drove around taking some photos, then got lunch at a little dive I frequent when in that town.
Arriving at the store meant waiting another half hour until an associate of his showed up, and opened the door so I could wait inside. Now while I had been pacing back and forth in front, I would take a few glances in the windows to see what else I might be interested in just in case the hood did not show itself.
And there was the box the lens came in. So when the owner showed up, I immediately asked to take a look in the box, but only found the papers that came with the lens. The next thing was to go back in the side room where the lens had been, and look around in there, but I still didn't see it anywhere. I had given up, and selected a brown Nikkor leather lens case that was in excellent shape as a consolation, when I spied a square looking off green case sitting on the floor in a corner that had a bright yellow sticker on top that said "170THRU500".
Ah ha! I picked that up, and took it into the other room asking the owner how much he wanted to bet. I opened the case, and dug out the hood, still in its factory wrapper!
You see, the original owner had only used the lens twice (without the hood, mind you), set it down on the counter where I found it, and that's where it sat for years. In the meantime everything else got scattered around (kind of reminds me of my apartment).
I just never in my wildest dreams thought it would take so long to get that hood. Sigma never bothered to label the hoods on that series of lenses, so when they get separated from the rest of the package, no one knows what they belong to, and they get thrown in a box lot. In all my Internet and camera store searching I never found one for sale unless it was with the lens, and I didn't need two of those. I could have bought a generic screw-in version, but vignetting was a possibility with one of those. Nothing but the original bayonet type would do as far as I was concerned.
If I could just figure out which box I packed the lens away in...
PF
In late 2016 I bought a Sigma 170-500mm f5-6.3 APO in Nikon AF mount to use on my D80. It worked fairly good, considering I was shooting it hand-held at times, and it was designed before the digital SLRs came out. It is a bit screwy at the edges though.
Anyway, the gent I purchased it from had a storefront that really was just a warehouse for his collections. One of the rooms has photography gear scattered among the model trains, and that's where I found the lens. I was somewhat excited to find it at such a decent price that I completely overlooked the fact the hood was missing. So after getting home I called the seller asking if he would give a look see for the hood.
About a month later I called him again, and he reported he couldn't find it. So every time I was in the area, I would stop by to see if he was in the store, usually without much luck (he makes his money with a consulting business).
The other day I was back in the area earlier in the day than usual, but still no luck on finding him in the store, so I called him, and he said he'd meet me in an hour or so. Since I figured the "or so" could mean about another hour, I drove around taking some photos, then got lunch at a little dive I frequent when in that town.
Arriving at the store meant waiting another half hour until an associate of his showed up, and opened the door so I could wait inside. Now while I had been pacing back and forth in front, I would take a few glances in the windows to see what else I might be interested in just in case the hood did not show itself.
And there was the box the lens came in. So when the owner showed up, I immediately asked to take a look in the box, but only found the papers that came with the lens. The next thing was to go back in the side room where the lens had been, and look around in there, but I still didn't see it anywhere. I had given up, and selected a brown Nikkor leather lens case that was in excellent shape as a consolation, when I spied a square looking off green case sitting on the floor in a corner that had a bright yellow sticker on top that said "170THRU500".
Ah ha! I picked that up, and took it into the other room asking the owner how much he wanted to bet. I opened the case, and dug out the hood, still in its factory wrapper!
You see, the original owner had only used the lens twice (without the hood, mind you), set it down on the counter where I found it, and that's where it sat for years. In the meantime everything else got scattered around (kind of reminds me of my apartment).
I just never in my wildest dreams thought it would take so long to get that hood. Sigma never bothered to label the hoods on that series of lenses, so when they get separated from the rest of the package, no one knows what they belong to, and they get thrown in a box lot. In all my Internet and camera store searching I never found one for sale unless it was with the lens, and I didn't need two of those. I could have bought a generic screw-in version, but vignetting was a possibility with one of those. Nothing but the original bayonet type would do as far as I was concerned.
If I could just figure out which box I packed the lens away in...
PF
back alley
IMAGES
chief dan george...a favourite movie character.
congrats on you stamina and luck!
congrats on you stamina and luck!
Richard G
Veteran
Wow. Well done.
Good story of persistence and discovery!