THIS is why I LOVE Nokton 35/1.2 !

Krosya

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Well, over last weekend me and my wife decided to take a small trip - just to get out of town, do something different. After some thinking/researching we agreed on doing some caving - i.e. visiting some caves. The ones we had in mind were some of the prettiest and longest in the world - Mammoth Caves in KY, USA. there many different caves in that Mammoth Caves national park, - some prettier than others, with Diamond Cave being the prettiest in my opinion and Mammoth Cave being the longes in the world. There other caves, with underground river tours, etc. We spens a couple of days there - one of them being very much physically demanding - we took a 5 hour walking tour - all inside the Mammoth cave - many places you have squeeze through tight places, go up and down different elevations. All turned out to be great fun.
Ok, so here is the photography part of it. While my wife had her little Casio digital P&S - which btw delivered some very good results, I wanted to keep things pure - no flash. I tell ya - it's very hard to do when you are in a cave that is far from well lit. Many places it was impossible to handhold camera at all. And they dont allow any bags, tripods, etc. So my kit had to be simple - one camera, one lens. And of course the lens I used was Nokton 35/1.2. Wide open at all times. And even at ISO 800 or even pushing it to 1600 I had a fair share of blurry shuts. Yet - I'm VERY impressed bu this lens. At times it was not as wide as I would like it to be, but since f1.2 was the only useful setting w/o a flash - I feel I had the best lens availible.
Well, let me stop talking - here are the results - all at 1.2 - lights just whatever lights they use in a cave:

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Larger size photos can be seen on my flickr page - link below.
 
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What film did you use?
when I was in the cave, I used DSLR set to ISO 800.
color films of such sensitivity (like Portra 800) are too grainy for my taste
 
Nice photos! Nice lens!

Do you use it with or without the hood? I took the hood off mine and enjoy it more that way.
 
Lovely pics ... what can we say about the lens that hasn't been said?

It's the pick of my lenses bar none and and combined with my M8 makes a combination that's hard to match for low light shooting!
 
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Nice photos! Nice lens!

Do you use it with or without the hood? I took the hood off mine and enjoy it more that way.

Hood is always on - to protest front element if nothing else. Was handy in a cave too - as there was several spots with dripping water/liquid that could land on the glass, but ended up on hood. Nothing much but still..

a couple more pics:
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These look great! I recently visited a cave too, but since I didn't have a really fast lens, I went for wide and used a 24/2.8 with 400 ISO film. I haven't developed it yet, but I'll be surprised if any of my shots are as good as these.

Paul
 
Thank you for all the comments!.
Mammoth Caves and National Park as well as other caverns around there are absolutely fantastic and beautiful and I recommend everyone to come and visit there!

And here are the photos of the photographer (me) taken with my wife's Casio digicam- as you can see it's not really nessesary to have some super expensive camera gear to bring home some nice pics.:
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Here I am right under famous Cave Bacon:
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