In a pinch for a long lens? Just DX it!

There are moments when you are close, but not enough. And whenever your long lens ain't long enough... Just DX it!

Here's the proof. Possum in my garden, on a snowy December day, with my AF 80-200 f2.8 lens wide open and at the longer end. Any details? Any revealing shot of the antics of Illinois wildlife? Worth the cover of National Geographic?

Of course not!

But then, what do you think of this one below? One can see the hair detail, heck, you can smell the fellow's breath!

Same lens, same focal length, just a few seconds (and some shots) after the one on the top.

Miracle trick? Easy, I "cropped" the sensor, changed the image area from FX to DX.

• Easy as pie! First, you turn on the camera.
• Then, click on the Menu button.
  
• Go to the Shooting Menu.
• Scroll to Image Area and click OK
• You'll find an option whether to set Auto DX or to Select Image Area. Take this latter choice.
• Now you can use the camera as if it had a cropped sensor (and you were using DX glass). Thus, my 80-200 became something like a 112-280mm zoom lens... and the possum was, in fact, photographed at the 280mm end.
  

Now, this is not rocket science and I'm sure most Nikon D700 users figured it out... but I just wanted to post the photographs of my friend the possum, and this was a good excuse.

Care for an indie rocker from Rockford IL? By the way, I didn't DX this one. I was simply very close.

Take care!