For a long time the only wide-angle auto-focus prime lens that Nikon had available, was the remarkable 28mm f1.4D … which caused the lens to reach astronomical prices eventually on the used market when it was discontinued. I sold my copy of the 18mm f1.4 a few years ago – a move I still regret – but I couldn’t pull the trigger on a $4000.00 wide-angle prime lens when Nikon’s wide-angle zooms were so incredible. The Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 AF-S (B&H), for example, set a new standard for how good a wide-angle zoom can be, surpassing pretty much ever other lens, including primes. But still there was a gap in Nikon’s line-up with a fast aperture wide-angle prime lens. Until now … enter the Nikon 24mm f1.4 G (B&H) which I was happily able to use at a wedding this past weekend.
review: lightstands – Manfrotto 1051BAC and 1004BAC
I recently updated the lightstands that I regularly use, to the – if you could use this words in relation to light-stands – the quite sexy Manfrotto 1051BAC (B&H), and the taller, but equally sexy Manfrotto 1004BAC (B&H).
Previously I had used the self-collapsing Red-Wing light-stands. The Red-Wings aren’t made anymore, but the clever design has been taken up by the Cheetah Stand. (I think the Kwik-Stand was a similar design.) These self-collapsing / self-expanding light-stands are an innovative design that makes the moving of the light-stands a breeze. You pick one up, and it collapses. Great. The only problem is that the center column of the stand, which acts as the opening mechanism, acts like a 4th support to the stand. Now, the entire idea why a tripod is stable on uneven ground, is because it has three legs. You add one more, and work on uneven ground, then the light-stand is wobbly. Super-annoying. (As an example, check my comment #25 in the review of the Canon 200mm f2 IS lens, where I used a tall Red-Wing stand.)
Back to the Manfrotto light-stands. They have a few interesting features ..
I’m impressed with how easy it is to set up, and how compact it is. There are no metal rods to insert. The softbox flips open, held into place by internal plastic ribs, typical of the Lastolite reflectors. It is lightweight because of this lack of metal rods and other metal parts. The clamp holding the softbox to the light stand or monopod, is mostly made of plastic. Even the speedring is made of plastic.
The cold-shoe for the speedlight can swivel around and lock into different positions. This makes it perfect if you use wireless TTL flash, and need to turn the slave flash around so that the sensor faces your master speedlight.
The speedring simply clips into position. The setup is very simple, although we’ll have to see how durable it will be. The softbox and clamps and speedring all fits into a surprisingly compact zippered bag.
Details for the images:
1/250 @ f5.6 @ 200 ISO for both images.
I used wireless TTL flash for the entire session. My on-camera / master speedlight’s output was disabled, only firing the slave flash held with the softbox.
Flash exposure compensation: 1st image, -0.3EV // 2nd image, -1EV
Nikon D3; Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S II (B&H); Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S (B&H)
Courtesy of B&H, I had a copy of the brand-new Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS II lens to play with for review purposes. The lens is touted to have improved optical quality, faster auto-fousing, and much better stabilization than the much-loved previous version of this lens. Using the lens on different shoots and walkabouts and tests, I got a fair idea of how the lens performs. In short, the lens is all that .. faster, sharper and with better image stabilization. Noticeably so.
The bokeh of this lens is pleasant. Easily seen in this portrait of my little model, where she is busy collecting feathers. (And to go off-topic for a moment: shallow depth-of-field is not the same as bokeh.) Anyway, this lens has pleasant bokeh. Other lenses might render the background even smoother, but the bokeh in this image above isn’t harsh and intrusive. The image above was shot at f3.2
My main disappointment with the lens is that it looks so much like the previous version. The focusing grip is slightly different, and the lens is a touch longer by a few millimeters. They are quite hard to tell apart. The disappointment would come in that no one would really know you had just spent a small truck-load of money on a new lens. Unless they bothered to read the numerals on the front lens barrel. At least Nikon had the courtesy to make their new lens look substantially different. Easier to swagger with the new gear. ;)
I’ve been very happy with the older 70-200mm f2.8 VR telephoto zoom. Even even though the edges are softer than the center, it never bothered me. With weddings, I am mostly only interested in the center portions of the image being super-crisp. Similarly, the vignetting didn’t bother me. I usually add more vignetting in post-processing anyway.
Doing a few test shots around the house, and was immediately impressed. It is sharp! I like sharp. Every thing about this lens is good news. Focusing is faster, and flare is very well controlled. There has been considerable debate about the shortening of focal length with this lens as you focus closer and closer. Yet, I would never have noticed it if I hadn’t been told about it. For my work, a total non-issue.
One of the features of this new lens, is that it has even more aggressive vibration reduction / stabilization. So even though I do take my shutter speeds low at times, my advice is always that if you want sharp images, the first thing you need to do is make your shutter speed much faster. Now, I’ve never been one to really be able to hold my camera steady without careful control or with steadying myself against a wall. So for me, vibration reduction is an essential feature on long lenses .. especially since I don’t work with a tripod for the style of photography I do.
At a wedding on Saturday, where I was the second shooter for a friend, I was able to see how the VR worked during an actual photo shoot. During the ceremony I took photos of the guests sitting in the dark temple. How dark? 1/6 th @ f2.8 @ 2000 ISO kinda dark …
The specialty of a macro lens is in allowing you much much closer to your subject than a normal optic would .. with the ease of continuous focusing from infinity to the closest distance. No need to screw in additional rings or lenses or reverse your lens. A macro lens works as a close-up lens, and as a more usual optic. And that’s the versatility of it.
hands-on review: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS lens
The main feature of the new macro lens is that it offers stabilization. Now this might not seem such a big deal to photographers who work with a tripod and photograph more static subjects – but the moment you want to shoot on the move, and play around fluently with your composition and angles – then using the lens hand-held becomes a huge advantage.
Instead of photographing the usual macro subjects – flowers and insects – I decided to test the Canon 100 mm f/2.8 IS macro lens (B&H), during a portrait session with a model, Annisa.
In the photo above, my settings were 1/200th @ f3.2 @ 400 ISO. In testing the lens with and without the IS enabled, there is a clear difference in the crispness of the (handheld) images. There’s no doubt that the IS works, and is a major improvement on the previous generation of this lens ..
In testing cameras these days, they are rated not just for specification, but for their primary qualities in helping you take great photographs. And for that, judging the camera according to handling, image quality and auto-focus speed and accuracy, becomes even more important than just the list of specs.
Nikon D5000 hands-on review
So with that in mind, when I recently got my hands on a brand-new Nikon D5000, I thought I’d hit the streets and see how it performs. I took it for a late-night stroll around Times Square in New York, armed only with a Nikon 50mm f1.4G AF-S lens to see how the camera handled the low light levels there.
Nikon D5000 image quality
And of course, late night in Times Square is when you see and even meet the interesting people, the gorgeous people and the usual mix’n'match that Manhattan throws at you. So let’s see how the 12.3 megapixel Nikon D5000 performed in low light, at high ISO settings; all hand-held, using just the light from the billboards ..
Here is Blueberry Studmuffin, posing for the camera.
1/250th F1.8 @ 1000 ISO; no flash
As you can see, the camera responds fast enough for a candid portrait in low light.
Impressive so far …
With D-SLRs having ever higher resolving power, and lenses just getting better in terms of optical quality .. and digital photography giving us the possibility of looking at images at 100% resolution, we are becoming ever more aware of slight discrepancies in focusing and sharpness. Especially so with lenses that have very wide apertures.
Quite often a camera will be within spec, and a lens be within spec in terms of their individual tolerances, but combined, they might be outside of tolerance. Or perhaps a lens wasn’t quite within spec .. but for whatever reason, we might end up with a camera and lens combination which juuuuust isn’t quite as sharp as it could be.
For example, with the one lens I recently bought, the Nikon 200mm f2 VR, I frequently felt that I could touch up the focus manually a little better than the camera had focused. And checking on the camera’s LCD screen, I could see that. From the most recent shoot where I used this lens, (which I’ve shown in earlier postings), here is an image where the lens back-focused. And it appeared to do this consistently.
[ click on the image to see a larger version ]
Now at normal web-size and even small print enlargements, you wouldn’t be able to discern that the image isn’t quite focused accurately on her nearest eye. But as soon as you go to 100%, you can see the focusing error …
A few times a year I’m fortunate enough to photograph a destination wedding, where I fly out to a more glamorous location than New Jersey. The Bahamas, Aruba, Jamaica, and even locations within the USA are choice destinations for couples who are looking to have their weddings in an exotic locale.
The choice of equipment to fly out to photograph a destination wedding, as well as the way to transport them becomes a real concern. You have to have a flexible selection of gear with you, with a certain amount of redundancy in case something goes wrong with a piece of equipment. Yet it all has to fit into a portable camera bag or case – and one that can be taken on board a plane as a carry-on bag. This really is of great importance, since if you read some news reports it would even appear as if thievery from luggage at airports are rampant.
So there is the delicate balance – a sensible choice of equipment that has to fit into a bag that is the right size for international carry-on luggage …
This is not quite so much as a review as it is a preview – I managed to get hold of a set of the new PocketWizards – the miniTT1 and FlexTT5- and got to play around with them a bit.
The first thing that is impressive about the mini TT1 and Flex TT5, is that they will do away with sync cords. That constant struggle to figure out a way to use the older PocketWizards while you have a speedlight in the camera’s hotshoe, is now a thing of the past. Both the mini TT1 and Flex TT5 units have a remarkably low profile on top of the camera’s hotshoe – and can take a speedlight.
A minor hiccup was that I first tried this with the Canon 5D mk2. After being frustrated in not being able to consistently get results from the on-camera speedlight while mounted on top of the camera-mounted miniTT1 or FlexTT5 .. I bothered to read the instructions and noted that the 5D mk2 can’t yet be used like that. Such are the problems when reverse engineering and improving existing technology. These types of incompatibilities will occur. Hopefully the PocketWizard crew will be able to sort this out in the future with a software update.
So I borrowed a friend’s Canon 5D to test the new PocketWizards out further.
One of the things that makes the new PocketWizards so interesting, is that they are designed to expand on the current wireless TTL flash technology and make it more reliable, and workable over longer ranges .. while offering you all the advantages of wireless TTL flash. One of those things would be high-speed flash sync.
1/800th @ f2 @ 100 ISO
Canon 5D; Canon 85mm f1.2 II
Where high-speed flash sync shines is in allowing us to use wide apertures for a specific look. Photographing my model, Allison, in Hoboken, I wanted the Manhattan skyline to be just a softly out-of-focus haze in the background. This meant a wide aperture like f2 on the 85mm lens. This in turn implied a shutter speed of 1/800th.
The PocketWizards were simplicity itself to use here.
Slide them into position, and switch them on. Dead simple.
But there was more to it than this …
