This is part IV of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Medium primes are lenses in the range of 85-200mm (in FX terms) or 58-135mm in DX.

This segment is very interesting as you find here lenses with with the lowset f-number/focal-length (if we neglect long tele lenses). In other words: These lenses allow for extreme subject separation.

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This is part III of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

A long prime for this article is anything from 200mm up. This group can be subdivided further by a section for super-tele longer than 400mm

If we neglect old glass, most of these lenses are quite expensive, they usually start around $4000 and end in the 5-digit range. This indicates that they aim at professionals that cover sports, wildlife (and celebrities sun-bathing). If you are not a professional, but have one of these passions there are two alternatives:

1. Bite the bullet
2. Find some cheaper alternative

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This is part II of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications.

Wide primes had their day. With a single exception: Nikkor 24mm 1.4G.

Todays wide angle zooms are that good, better than any of the classical primes from 20-28mm that there is no use for them anymore. Still they are fun to use as a walk-around or street-photo lens. I personally love a Sigma 24mm AF I got for €60 from ebay. This lens is very compact, can focus close (1:4 macro!) for interesting effects, but doesn’t play well with the metering system and makes horrible noise when focusing.

The aforementioned 24mm 1.4G is special, as it is price. Look at David Kaplan’s photostream to see what can be done with it. Its brother the 35mm 1.4G is no slouch either, though on DX the 35/1.8 is too much a better value.

This is part I of a series of what glass you will need. Each part will discuss a certain lens type and its applications

Standard prime lenses had been the base of each SLR equipment since the earliest days. Virtually all SLR were sold in a kit with a 50mm f/1.8 and many of us never used anything else. In range-finder world the slightly wider 35mm was the standard.

It is said that a 50mm would give you a field of view similar to our vision (I stick with the FX convention for FOV<->focal-length, for DX divide by 1.5). This is somewhat true. Our field of vision is much wider, but the zone where we  see sharp much narrower. I think the main reason for the “nifty-fitfties” is that they are the widest lenses with a still rather simple design: The focal length is larger than the flange distance.

So do you need it and what do you expect from it.

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I have my own wish-list for the D400, now the rumors are that it will be a 24MP body.

This is a transitive rumor, because Sony is said to bring out a DSLR it a 24MP  APS-C sensor next month. Really?

24MP on APS-C is hopefully the last iteration if not already more than we want. The camera will be diffraction limited at f/8; stopping down further results in more DOF, but you will loose sharpness overall . Most lenses are not be able to exploit the increase resolution at all, so it is aimed at future, better glass?

I am not too optimistic that there will be new a Gold-Ring line up for DX any time soon, but I am concerned that the smaller pixels will reduce the dynamic range - something far more important than resolution.

Wild guess/hope: This 24MP sensor will have pairable photosites similar to Fuji’s EXR sensor. This could boost the dynamik range of the sensor into regions of MF digital backs. The Fuji DSLRs are still top notch for capturing a wide dynamic range, perhaps it is just the question how Sony/Nikon can (or have) circumvent Fuji’s patents in this area

Pentax presented the “Q” with “Toy” lenses. What they had been smoking?

For half the price you get an Olympus XZ-1 - OK, no fisheye lens and retro design and only half the price …

After Real good stuff like the K-5 and the 645d, cameras really made for photographers, now a line for giving a camera to your wife that she can pass on to the 16-year old.

The must be either extremely smart or desperate.

I had been considering Pentax before eventually deciding for Nikon ( I discarded Sony and Canon earlier in the selection*) and I hadn’t been 100% sure if I made the right call. Now I am, the prognosis for Pentax is no good

*in case you are interested how I decided on a DSLR system read on

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“The last thing you want to do is to let the camera decide what ISO setting to use”

Heard/read this already? I am pretty sure. With one exception (see the end of this post) I (naturally disagree.

First thing: It is not true that Auto-ISO (in a Nikon) silently jacks up your ISO. When Auto-ISO wants the camera to leave the base ISO you dialed in the Auto ISO mark will blink in the viewfinder. It is something that moves in the viewfinder - hard to ignore, much harder at least than forgetting the settings from last night’s binging:

So I just got my *** lens this week and I was super excited to break it in today at an outing to the California Academy of Science, which was a lot of fun and presented a handful of photography opportunities. Unfortunately I made a grave error…. I forgot to check my settings and my ISO was set to 1250 the entire day!! it was definitely unnecessary to have that setting so high and it ruined my pictures quality!

Outch.

What is wrong with Auto-ISO: It is in its current implementation too static (Ken Rockwell figured this out years ago *)

• the AS-mode is of very limited use, you have to switch Auto ISO to shoot manual (luckily it gets ignored when using a flash)
• It ignores the focal length - idiotic to enforce 1/250s shutter speed at 18mm
• It ignores VR

What controls do we need

1. Max exp. time (default 1/60)
2. Max exp. adjust: absolute, relative (default relative)
3. VR exp. adjust (default 3)
4. Disable in manual (default on)
5. Max ISO (default 1600)
6. Allow underexposure (default off)

Max exp. adjust absolute is what we have now, relative means that the Max exp. time will be computed relative to a 50mm lense. So the 24mm lens will use a Max exp. time of 1/30 and a 200mm lens will not go below 1/250

VR adjust - dial in 1 (options should be 1,2,3,4,6,8,12,16,24,32) to not prolong the Max exp.time when VR is activated, otherwise the factor is appled- in the default example a 50mmVR lens would let you go down to 1/20. Perhaps a stops scale would be easier to read

Disable in manual - hard to imagine when you want to turn this on…

Max ISO - I think almost dispensable - when we have good control over the exposure time it is really the only remaing variable that decides about getting or not getting the picture

Allow underexposure: Allows the camera to underexpose instead of going over the computed Max exp. time (= better too dark than blurry)

* I usually disagree with Ken Rockwell, but nobody can be wrong all the time

The Kodak Pony II* allowed to dial in the EV. You can do the same in some other way with your D90!

Set f4 to AE-L Hold

Obtain the exposure you want an press AE-L. The metered EV will be stored for some time (you can set the timeout via c2)

Easy Exposure compensation still works and you can vary the aperture in A-mode (or the speed in S-mode) and the D90 will compute the speed (or aperture) for you.

This helps in several situations where you’d consider shooting manual, but retains the convenience of adjusting aperture/speed by a single dial flip

I took me some minutes to learn it - embarrassing that I ignored this option for more than a year.

*Actually they cheated, the Pony II had a fixed shutter speed…But EV is easier to explain than Sunny 16.

Nikon announced the AF-S 50mm f/1.8G. Not so long ago the f/1.4G was introduced. Is it worth it?

The slower lens is priced $220, the faster $480 - if this is already decisive, stop reading.

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Nikonrumors is fun and I especially like the design studies they are writing about, like this one here: http://nikonrumors.com/2011/05/03/nikon-d5r-concept-camera.aspx

Besides our habit how our SLRs look like, is there room for improvement?

Let’s start to analyze why they look like the way they currently do. Of course the history is the 35mm camera:

• Aspect 3:2 (100 year old tradition, Oskar_Barnack used this “hack” to get cheaply film for his new invention)
• Room for the film rolls

For a SLR it turns out that the prism should be located on the long side of the frame to gain space. Look at you SLR and you understand. But wait: Read the rest of this entry »