I'm not sure if it should be "singularity" or "unity", but it's not that big a deal.

Nikon has/have (another linguistic ambiguity; "Nikon" as a noun screams "singular", but it's certainly made up of more than one person) a set of three lenses which are referred to as their "holy trinity". They are the 14-24 F2.8, the 24-70 2.8 and the 70-200 2.8 VRII. I now have one of them, hence the title.

If you know who Brian Eno is, you might also know what Oblique Strategies are. They're a set of cards he co-produced and they're supposed to give you ideas when you run out of them. They are couched in simple phrases, one of which is "simplify". 

I also subscribe to Kelby Training, a website aimed at photographers, photoshop people and other such digital-visual types. It's an excellent site, as it manages to combine the artistic, Bacchus side of art with the technical, Dionysus side of Photoshop (which I've had on my computer for ages, but without some kind of training it is intimidatingly complex). One of the things they have on there is a number of classes with Jay Maisel, who I've mentioned on this blog before. He's a photographer from New York, he's a little over 80 years old, and he's pretty awesome. His ideas about photography are even more interesting than his pictures (which are in themselves fantastic). One of the things he mentions is "take one camera, one lens, and go out shooting". The idea behind this is that the more lenses and gear you have, the more you risk "option paralysis" (inability to decide which lens to take or which camera to use). 

I took Brian and Jay at their word, and apart from the Digilux 2, I now have one camera and one lens. The D3S and the 70-200 2.8 VR II. I traded in two lenses for it and it still cost a chunk of savings, but you only live once and the reputation of the 70-200 precedes it. I did pick up a 2X extender, but I'm only going to use it when I have to. It's nice having an effective 140-400 lens, but the real performance comes when you leave it off. I'm not much of a wide-angle shooter, so 70-200 is pretty much ideal for me as a focal range, and the potential to double it is useful from time to time as well.

I've had it for a few weeks now, and I have to say that the reputation is pretty well deserved. The autofocus is fast and accurate, and the performance  wide open at 2.8 is really something (and stopped down, it's extraordinary). One of the lenses I traded in for the 70-200 was the 105 DC, which was famous for its bokeh (and was indeed designed for it). Well, the 70-200 may not match that, but its bokeh more than acceptable and more than makes up for it with the zoom range, speed and insanely good AF.

But I'm rambling. Here are some early examples of what this thing can do.

This was one of the first times I realised how good this lens is wide open. Other than the fact that it's a gorgeous animal (the lens and the dog both), if you were to zoom in on the eyes, you'd be pretty impressed how sharp everything is.

This one's also at 2.8 and worked better as a b/w conversion. Again, the OOF backgrounds are pretty smooth and I don't find them a bit distracting.

This wasn't wide open, but it was so nice that I wanted to put it here.

This is an example of what can happen if you follow Jay Maisel's advice for getting better at photography: "Carry a camera everywhere you go". This is a nondescript street in a nondescript area of Nagoya, but the light was just so (as Syrio Forel might have put it).

If I happened to be angling at a major art prize, this next picture is where I would write something like:

"The juxtaposition of the flowers and the steel building make subtle reference to the great Sufi poets and the lesser writings of Wittgenstein, while superimposing the artist's own concepts onto them in a thrillingly postmodern way". But I'm not angling for a major art prize (yet), so here's a picture of some flowers and a building.

This is another 2.8 shot. I didn't have much time to think about it, but I liked the green of the bag against the green of the escalator. The autofocus was absolutely dead-on.

You have to love maneki-neko on baggage claim belts.

Lucky with the colours here

Two shots from a plane. One out of the side....

and one aimed at the ground below

There should be quite a bit more to come from this very impressive lens, so keep an eye out.

Thanks for looking!