What makes a good black-and-white photograph, how do I take one, and why should I try when I have this nifty hypersaturation preset that makes even my lamest photos look awesome? I’ll answer the last question first – your oversharpened oversaturated photos stink. Their gaudy colors may suck the eye in, but then the eye gets stuck, realizes there’s nothing more to look for in the picture and hastily moves on. Effective black-and-white photography relies on form, texture, lines, contrast, tonality and composition to engage the viewer. Without flashy colors to draw viewers in, the black-and-white photographer either masters the principles of composition or perishes. Shooting in black-and-white is a great way to improve your photography skills.

But My Eyes See in Color

True, to some extent. In bright light the “cone” photoreceptors in your eye register color information. But go into a dark room or out at night and then your “rod” photoreceptors take over – they are more sensitive in low light and primarily recognize contrast, shape and movement. So you are already programmed to see those important aspects of B&W pics – form, texture, lines and contrast. This is going to be easy. Let’s get going with some examples.

Form

NIKON D4S + 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ ISO 1250, 1/250, f/6.3

Ah, a grand landscape in the traditional style. The classic form of Devil’s Tower anchors this composition. Form, or shape if you prefer to call it that, works well when you have a large/predominant composition element in your photo. The viewer recognizes the element and it pushes an emotional button. For instance, lets say I was shooting a portrait of Dolly Parton…but I digress, lets move on.

Texture

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ ISO 1600, 1/125, f/6.3

Texture is formed by contrast and tonality changes on the small scale, then repeated to create texture. Some textures we find pleasing, say a cat’s fur. Others trigger the opposite response, such as cactus needles

NIKON D7000 + 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ ISO 250, 1/320, f/16.0

Lines

NIKON D7000 + 500.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 250, 1/1250, f/8.0

Lines lead our eye to move about the composition and not get stuck in one place. When I view this simple composition my eye first goes to the heavy thick trunk of the tree, then shoots up the branch to the perched osprey; the osprey is looking right and this moves my eye to the top to the branch to the right, from whence it travels down that branch to the trunk and right back where it started to take another loop. This takes just an instant. Mapping your eye movements is a cool way to learn about composition – look at some of your favorite pictures and track how you eye moves about the composition – on a good photo it keeps moving. On a poor composition it gets stuck as bad as a piece of legislation in DC.

If lines repeat they can form patterns and a very regular pattern can create a texture. Lines or curves coming together can create forms. I could blather on about converging lines, “V”’s and such for pages, but this is the stuff of any composition how-to. Let’s move on.

Contrast

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 100, 1/200, f/11.0

Contrast – do I need to define this? Suffice it to say high-contrast images tend to give a harsh, sometimes uneasy, feel like in the cactus shot earlier. Low-contrast images have a softer mellower impact. The above shot from Weston Beach has a rugged feel due to a fairly high-contrast rendering. Compare that with this shot of leaves on the forest floor in Kentucky.

NIKON D600 + 50.0 mm f/1.8 @ ISO 1250, 1/30, f/7.1

Here there’s no abrupt intersections of light and dark – it looks smoother and more soothing to my eye.

Tonality

Tonality refers to the range of tones in an image – how many shades of gray there are from featureless black to featureless white. The Osprey silhouette has a very limited tonal range, just black and white. The Weston Beach shot looks contrasty due to the juxtaposition of light and dark lines, however it actually has one of the most complete tonal ranges of the shots in this post with good representation of grays all the way from black to white. The overlapping leaves actually have a lower range of tones as there are mostly dark grays and blacks and very little representation at the white end. This is not a defect, just an artistic decision on my part as to how I want the final output to look – hmmm a bit dark and depressing, maybe my team lost that day. One often hears that a good black-and-white photo contains a complete range of grays from black black to white white but this is one of those rules that once you understand how to practice it, you may feel free to disregard.

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ ISO 1000, 8/10, f/14.0

Mostly black and near black and the tiniest smattering of white (insert your own NBA joke here) – where’s the light gray representation? Not needed in my estimation – I dig this. What do you think?

Composition

NIKON D810 + 24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 640, 1/125, f/8.0

Good composition is essential to both B&W and color photography. The only difference in black and white is instead of using contrasting and/or complementing colors to balance our compositions (or unbalance if that’s our goal), we have to depend on the above elements of form, texture, lines, contrast and tonality to compose our images. Let’s quickly analyze the shot above. As humans, our eyes are drawn to bright objects and sharp objects first. In this case the big dead pine snag on the right and the two aspen trunks on the left, the brightest objects in the image, suck the eye in. These familiar forms create parallel lines encouraging the eye to move up and down each trunk. The horizontal dead pine branches help the eye move left to right and not get stuck on one of the three trunks. They also encourage the eye to visit the leftmost, darker tree and revel in the texture of the spruce needles. There is a full tonal range, but weighted to the dark side – however the eye doesn’t register this (the histogram does) because light objects carry more psychological weight in our mind than dark ones and balance out the composition. This happens too in color photos where warm tones outweigh cold ones – for instance a small figure in a red jacket can balance out a huge blue iceberg.

Okay, that’s a pretty busy shot. Let’s go pine tree again, this time alive.

NIKON D810 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 64, 1/250, f/8.0

This is pretty minimalist. The eye doesn’t have many places to go. Up and down the tree, then left and right along the dry lake and horizon, maybe back up the tree then cut across the empty sky to the right end of the horizon. The one dominant form – a lone pine tree reaching upwards – is balanced with…nothing. Ha! Negative space to the rescue. The vast empty sky to the right of the pine balances the “weight” of the tree. Yes, negative space when used correctly carries it’s own weight. In this case the lack of other trees implies a sense of independence to the single majestic pine. Or one might see it as a lonely figure. Many interpretations to this one.

Good black-and-white compositions don’t need all of the characteristics discussed above to work.

Your Take

Here’s some sample shots you can analyze in terms of form, texture, lines, contrast, and tonality. Feel free to comment on them. Do you like them? Which ones work for you and which ones don’t? Why?

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ ISO 320, 1/100, f/10.0

Canon PowerShot S110 + 5.2-26.0 mm @ ISO 80, 1/60, f/3.5

NIKON D7000 + 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ ISO 250, 1/100, f/14.0

NIKON D7000 + 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ ISO 500, 1/1000, f/7.1

NIKON D4S + 500.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 3200, 1/1000, f/5.6

How To Get Started Shooting Black-and-White

You may have some image files already you can practice with. Any color digital image can be easily converted to black-and-white (all of the above came from RAW files which by default contain all the color information the sensor collects). In Lightroom it’s as easy as selecting an image and hitting the “v” key. This gives a default B&W rendering. Each color is rendered as a particular shade of gray but can be lightened or darkened in the develop module by using sliders in the “black-and-white mix” panel or you can check out the various preset B&W filters and looks in the presets panel. When choosing a file to work with, think about lines, form, texture, etc – find a file strong in these and give it a try. If the file is weak in color or the white balance is whacked, so much the better. Alternatively you can go out and shoot your digital DSLR in monochrome mode (e.g. on my D810 I can go to the shooting menu, select picture control and select monochrome). This will give B&W views of your shots on the camera’s LCD. If you shoot jpeg it will dump your color info. I recommend shooting RAW. The color info will be stored and allow more options when it comes to post-processing later, but you’ll still get to see your in-camera previews in B&W while you shoot and this will help you compose. All of the images in this post were converted in Lightroom, however there are many other programs for B&W processing. Silver Efex Pro is popular and I like how the noise it creates looks more like old school B&W film grain than the more digital-looking post-processing noise in Lightroom.

Two Last Shots

NIKON D810 + 24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 400, 1/250, f/11.0

Fall colors in Black and White?

NIKON D4S + 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ ISO 500, 1/500, f/7.1

Oh, what the heck!

The post Introduction to Black and White Nature Photography appeared first on Photography Life.

WARNING – this contains adult humor of the PG-13 variety, sassy double entendres, and a bunch of my trademark puerile humor too – read at your own risk.

A couple weeks ago Nasim climbed Mount Zeiss with his D810 and returned with Photography’s 16 Commandments (Nasim’s an overachiever, duh). Before Nasim laid down the law, I thought I was doing okay at this photography thing. Now I realize that I’m a really bad photographer, but a golly-danged good sinner. In the hope that confessing my sins in public will lead to absolution, I present the following evidence and beg for forgiveness.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s new camera gear

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 800, 1/30, f/10.0

When you start having affairs with supertelephoto primes you end up not just financially bankrupt, but morally bankrupt too. Trust me, I know.

Thou shalt not give thy subject the mark of the horny Devil

NIKON D7000 + 24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 320, 1/250, f/9.0

D’oh! I really need to pay more attention to my backgrounds

Thou shalt not shoot at eye level

NIKON 1 AW1 + 1 NIKKOR AW 11-27.5mm f/3.5-5.6 @ ISO 400, 1/200, f/5.6

Nasim is so right about this – I shot this pic at eye level and when I look at the result I feel like I don’t even know this person. Fortunately, by following Nasim’s example I learned that by raising the camera and shooting downwards on my subject I could achieve more titillating results.

NIKON 1 AW1 + 1 NIKKOR AW 11-27.5mm f/3.5-5.6 @ ISO 200, 1/100, f/3.5

I wish I could put my finger on what is so much more enticing about this shot than the first one. There’s just something close to the heart that strikes me about this. If I had lowered my camera a few feet this shot would have been a complete bust. I really feel like a boob for not keeping abreast of all the latest camera angle techniques. Why, this is so bursting with potential it could only be better if…

NIKON 1 AW1 + 1 NIKKOR AW 11-27.5mm f/3.5-5.6 @ ISO 200, 1/100, f/3.5

Ahhh, now that’s dreamy. What? I broke another Commandment? – Thou shalt not apply soft-focus techniques? Cancel my order for the Petzval Portrait Lens.

Thou shalt not shoot wide-angle portraits then convert to black-and-white and add grain to disguise the blurry focus

NIKON D810 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 500, 1/60, f/10.0

Just when I finally came out of my shell, conquered my fear of intimacy, and got close to some friends with my 16-35mm. Arrrrrggggghhhhhh. Now you know why I shoot wildlife.

Thou shalt not worship subjective characteristics about your objectives, like the false idol Bokeh

It’s easy for you to say put away the cream machine, Nasim – you’re married.

NIKON D810 + 800.0 mm f/5.6 @ ISO 400, 1/500, f/6.3

I, on the other hand, will pump out all the creamy bokeh I want. Gosh-diggity-darnit, I’m going to Hell.

Thou shalt not center their subject, selectively remove all color except the orange channel, oversaturate that channel, shoot it in natural light because Verm sucks at flash, then slap an impressive watermark over the image so nobody steals it

NIKON D810 + 24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 125, 1/200, f/4.0

This is Nasim smooching (not coveting – oh, no no no) a friend’s 15mm Zeiss prime. After working my standard post-processing magic, I sensed I had a winner here, so I slapped my copyright over the image so Nasim would have to order the non-watermarked wallet-size prints off my website. Furthermore, who knows who will steal my images from the web. Having your images stolen off the web really sucks. But you know what is worse? Doing a reverse image search on Google and finding out nobody is stealing your images.

And Above All – Thou Shalt not Superzoom

My sins in this respect are so numerous they deserve an entire post to themselves.

Thank you, Reader, for being here for me. As soon as I put down this 18-300mm I will recite 100 Hail Nikons and view all images at 1:1 for the rest of Photo Week. Really, truly, I promise I will try to do better in the future. In the meantime remember, a good craftsman never blames his tools – a good photographer always does.

The post Confessions of a Photo Sinner appeared first on Photography Life.

What to do when you are out in the field with amazing scenery to shoot, a handful of exhausted camera batteries, and no electric outlets in sight? Self-disembowlment comes to mind, but wait, there are better options. I was recently on an 18-day Grand Canyon rafting trip and faced with the above dilemma. One option I utilized was a small waterproof solar charging system from Voltaic. The unit I tested was a beta version as far as the waterproof housing went, but other than the housing, it used the components of Voltaic’s 17 Watt Solar Charger Kit ($265 MSRP).

The last thing you want down here is a camera bag full of dead batteries. NIKON D810 + 24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 640, 1/500, f/8.0

The Voltaic system uses a 17-watt solar panel to charge a storage battery, in this case Voltaic’s V72 Laptop Battery. You then use the storage battery to charge your camera batteries or you can also charge camera batteries directly off the panel. As well you can charge camera batteries off the storage battery while the solar panel recharges the storage battery. The storage battery can also be charged from AC or your DC car outlet – both convenient ways to charge the storage battery before heading into the wild. The storage battery is no bigger than a slim paperback such as Brighty of The Grand Canyon, my reading for the trip (the mostly-true tale of a heroic burro – ages 8-12).

Using the Voltaic kit was very simple, just plug a battery cradle into the V72, slip your camera battery into the cradle and in a couple hours you camera battery is charged. When the V72 charge dips, plug the solar panel in, point toward the sun and let the battery pack recharge. Note you will need to get the appropriate DC-powered battery cradle for your particular model camera battery (the charger you get from Nikon, et.al. is probably just AC-powered) – this does not come with the kit, but you can easily find such cradles through Amazon, etc. The only control to set is the 12/16/19 volt switch to give the proper output to the cradle.

Here’s the 17W solar panel and the clear greenish waterproof case holding the V72 Battery.

Does it work? You bet. Voltaic rates the V72 battery as being able to charge 3.5 DSLR batteries before you need to recharge the V72. In practice I actually charged 4 EN-EL15s (used in D7000/7100, D600/610, D750, D800/810) before needing to recharge the V72. I may have exceeded the specs because these batteries were run down to one bar, not to the blinking red “oops I’m screwed” state, before I removed and recharged them. I’ll just say I’m usually dubious of claimed capacities on battery-driven items, so I was happy when the V72 lived up to its hype.

The panel that charges the V72 is fairly stiff and measures 15.5”x 10.75”x 0.25”. I took reasonable precautions to protect it from damage. If you got careless and stepped on it I don’t think it would do too well, but for minor bumps it seemed plenty rugged. Line drop is a big issue for solar systems, so the cord between the panel and battery is kept short.

The waterproof housing kept the battery dry, but was too big for the battery. As stated above the waterproof housing was a beta version and Voltaic plans to use a different housing in future kits. Hopefully the new housing will have a pressure relief port as the one I tested didn’t and I could see air pressure blowing it open if it were submerged more than a few feet underwater.

In practice in the depths of the Grand Canyon, this system didn’t crank out as much as I hoped. This was not the system’s fault, but due to a combination of inclement weather, the depth of the canyon and the twisting nature of the Colorado River, which constantly brought us in and out of shade as well as switching the orientation of the panel strapped to the raft. By the time we got to camp, the sun was often low in the sky. It takes the panel ~7 hours to fully charge an exhausted V72 battery and we rarely got that many hours of direct sunlight to devote to solar charging. I could only get the V72 charged up to 3 of 5 bars while in the Canyon, but after the trip successfully got it charged to all 5 bars by using best practices – unobstructed midday sun and the panel angled at right angles to the sun. Even at 3 bars I could get two EN-EL15s charged, so it kept me in business. According to Voltaic, 2 hours of sunshine are sufficient to charge one DSLR battery – this seems to agree with my results in the Grand.

Even a small shadow over the corner of a solar panel can greatly decrease output.

For a Grand Canyon trip, other charging options exist. You can pack a pair of deep cycle marine batteries with an inverter (total weight over 100 pounds and if you are a heavy battery user, you might exhaust all your juice – these kits rent for $8/day, not including the hernia operation). Alternatively you can bring enough pre-charged camera batteries you don’t run out (big bucks, unless you go the AAs in battery grip route – I estimate I ran through 15 – 18 charged batteries on my trip, but I’m a heavy shooter – don’t forget a lot of memory too). Generator use to charge batteries is not allowed in the depths of the Grand.

The Voltaic can also be used to charge smartphones (7 charges per full V72) or a laptop (one charge per full V72).

Without months/years to test this system, I can’t comment on long-term durability and battery life.

The Bottom Line

In the right conditions – abundant sunshine with the solar panel directed properly – solar charging is a viable option to keep you shooting when no electric outlets are available. Efficiency drops way down in inclement weather or if the panel gets shaded. Don’t wait to charge your DSLR batteries until they are all exhausted – take advantage of every sunny day to keep your stock charged. Size your system to take care of your needs plus a bit more. I like that the Voltaic system I tested was relatively compact, lightweight (~3 pounds), simple to use and lived up to its published specs.

The post Voltaic Solar Battery Charger Review appeared first on Photography Life.

We’re pleased to have one of Arizona’s top professional photographers, Dawn Kish, share her experience field testing two waterproof DSLR housings on a Grand Canyon raft adventure. Dawn is not only a regular shooter for magazines such as National Geographic Adventure and Arizona Highways, but a former river guide as well. For a quick one-minute video review of these two housings in action, scroll to the bottom of this post. For the more detailed analysis, read on.

Still clip from video of Dawn Kish shooting at Elve’s Chasm.

The two housings Dawn tested are the Outex ($319.96 MSRP – custom priced for minimal kit for a D610) and the Shape Wave full frame ($351.12 MSRP – one size fits most prosumer-sized DSLRs). Dawn tested these for their appropriateness for adventure travel shots in wet areas (such as under waterfalls and in slot canyons) and under shallow submersion such as this half-water, half air shot of “hiking” through the murky water of Silver Grotto.

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 4000, 1/320, f/6.3

She did not test these as underwater housings for snorkeling or scuba diving. Here’s her list of the pros and cons of each housing.

1) Outex

The Outex housing is a flexible opaque blue latex-based bag that rolls over the camera like a loose condom. It has glass ports in front of the lens and behind the viewfinder/LCD screen. The lens screws directly to the front port. It is a modular design that requires the buyer to order the specific cover (the molded blue latex envelope), LCD viewfinder (glass rear port), viewfinder adapter (hooks to eyepiece of camera body) and optical lens (front port) for any given model of DSLR supported. There are also options that allow it to be used with flash, tripod, or a cable. Due to it’s modular design it can be used with different makes/models of cameras/lenses by swapping out one or more of the components, so you need not buy an entire new rig.

Pros:

• It didn’t leak.
• It’s lightweight and packs small, just roll it up.
• The glass on the front port is of good quality that doesn’t scratch easily and maintains good image quality such as in this shot below:

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ ISO 1600, 1/400, f/6.3

• Because the rear port is also quality glass, you can clearly see the LCD to assess focus, etc.
• The housing is flexible/baggy enough to allow zooming, though twisting the zoom ring through the rubber is awkward.
• The optional strap makes it easy to swim with. Without this optional accessory, this would be difficult to swim with. You need to order both the Strap Holder LCD ($24.99) and either the Neck Strap ($29.99) or Wrist Strap ($34.99).

Cons:

• You can’t see many of the camera controls through the opaque housing and need to work by feel. You should be comfortable shooting your DSLR in the dark to be able to work with the Outex. Some controls on the rear of the camera are visible through the rear port and you can slide the eyepiece bracket off and wiggle the body inside the housing to see more, but this is very fiddly and time-consuming.
• It is very difficult to load and unload the camera. I dedicated one body and lens to the Outex so I wouldn’t have to repeat the procedure. If you want to move quickly, load the Outex before your shoot. Use a fully charged battery and high-capacity memory cards as you can’t replace these without unloading the housing.

Shape Wave FF

The Shape Wave FF is a clear polyethylene housing with a hinged aluminum frame. Its modular design allows use of separate lens extensions. It does not allow the use of a built-in or external flash.

Pros:

• It didn’t leak.
• It’s easy to load and unload in seconds via the hinged door.
• You can see the LCD screen and most camera controls through the clear polyurethane body.
• Easy to get to the most used camera dials such as shutter release, command dial, and playback.
• There is a tripod mount that you can also screw other accessories into such as the included pistol grip.

Cons:

• The front lens port scratches very easily both on the inside and outside. I’m not sure what it’s made of – acrylic? Whatever, it sure scratches easy.

Scratches on inside of shooting port.

Scratches on outside of shooting port.

• After a single use the scratching decreased image quality to the point images shot above water or with half water/half air didn’t meet professional standards.

Still from video clip showing decreased sharpness from port scratches.

Still from video clip showing decreased sharpness from port scratches (looks like fogging but is actually flare from the scratching).

• Shape says the WaveFF is suitable for the Canon 24-105mm right out of the box, but lenses with other dimensions require a step-up ring to fit securely. Quoting the Shape website “The lens bracket is design (sic) for the 24-105mm only. More brackets to come later.” This housing was tested out of the box – there is no separate lens bracket in the box so it appears that the item as shipped is supposed to fit the outside diameter of the Canon 24-105mm. A Nikon 24-120mm is the same 3.3” diameter as the Canon 24-105mm lens the case is specified for, and the housing flops loosely about the 24-120mm, causing extensive scratching around the periphery of the port. Even if lens rings stopped the housing from flopping around the lens, the scratching on the outside is unacceptable for shots above water. When completely immersed, the scratches become much less evident due to the closer refractive indices of water and the port material.

Loose fit around 24-120mm lens caused edges of port to be visible. NIKON D600 + 24.0-120.0 mm @24mm, f/4.0 @ ISO 200, 1/50, f/8.0

• The camera wiggles around in the main body of the housing. A “saddle” screws into the camera body and attaches to the housing frame with two pins. However the saddle screw is too long to pull the saddle tight on the Nikon bodies tested. This made the saddle loose and prone to detaching from the housing in use.
• No room to zoom – a 24-120mm lens is nearly impossible to zoom when inside the housing. You can only budge the zoom ring a couple millimeters while gripping it from outside the housing. It takes so many separate gripping/twisting actions to zoom that it’s impractical. Even if you could effectively twist and zoom the lens will only extend to 31mm before there’s no more room. Basically you might as well set the lens at 24mm and stick with that for your whole shoot. When used with a D7000 and 18-105, you can zoom from 18mm to 45mm.
• The connection between the lens extension and main housing body blocks the focus ring on the 24-120 so you can’t manually focus.
• No strap – hard to swim with it because you need to have it in one hand unless you add a strap yourself.
• The view of the LCD and through the viewfinder is poor because of looking through thick urethane (gives wavy look). This makes it hard to assess focus.
• The aluminum frame blocks easy access to some controls, especially the PSAM mode dial on taller bodies. If you use a body like the D600/610/750 that has a locking button on the mode dial, it’s very hard to release the lock button unless you open the case.
• With a D610 inside, the subcommand dial is very hard to work, because the material on the back is stiffer than the material used on the front of the housing.
• The polyethylene would sometimes condense on the outside – like going outside on a cold morning and finding the front windshield of your car condensed on the outside.

Generic Issues with Underwater Housings

All underwater housings are prone to condensation and fogging issues and the Outex and Shape are no exception. For tips on combating these click here.

When shooting half air/half water shots you need to clean your shooting port and get the shot as the camera dips in, not on the way back out as water sheeting off the port will cause blurring.

Sample Images

Still clip from video shot through Outex.

Dawn’s Take

If you want to be an underwater photographer don’t mess around with these types of housings – go for the real deal hard shell housings custom-fitted for each model camera. These often cost as much or more than the camera inside it.

If you’re like me, working outside all the time and occasionally getting wet, the Outex is the better buy of these two housings. What would be ideal would a marriage of the two housings – the easy access hinge-opening and see-thru material of the Shape combined with the quality optical glass front and rear ports of the Outex and the more flexible Outex material used for the lens extension. Call it a Shoutex or an Outape. Happy Shooting!

NOTE: The below star rating is just for the Outex housing Dawn prefers.  Note that the Shape housing would rate 2.9 stars on this scale, primarily because it would only receive one star for optical quality.

The post Outex vs Shape Wave Waterproof DSLR Housings appeared first on Photography Life.

Face it – tripods aren’t as sexy as lenses or camera bodies and shelling out a bunch of dough on a tripod just isn’t that satisfying. After selling my left kidney to pay for my Really Right Stuff tripod to support my super-telephoto wildlife lenses, I wasn’t real eager to cough up ~$900 to get a Gitzo Traveler for my landscape work. But I wanted a lightweight compact tripod I could take on hikes. A tripod that would fit inside my daypack, weighed under 4 pounds and had a working height that on level ground would let me (6’2”) work at eye level when I wanted. Enter the Oben CT-3481 4-section Carbon fiber Folding Tripod and BE-126T ball head. It’s a 3.9 pound, full-featured tripod that folds to 19 inches long and has a working height of 68 inches. As well, it has plenty of adjustments to allow you to work low to the ground or on uneven terrain.

At $499.95 MSRP (currently discounted to $439.95 from B&H) the Oben seemed like it might be a good deal. But I couldn’t help thinking, if RRS and Gitzo are the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the tripod world, might Oben be the Ford Fiesta?

First off, the full disclosure – I just wear this ring to keep the photo groupies at bay. Oh, the other full disclosure – I got to keep this tripod after testing and reviewing so you can keep that in mind if you think I’m gushing too much or being ungratefully harsh.

It matters not how much a tripod costs or how great it specs out, if it fails to hold your camera steady it’s worthless. Fortunately, the Oben CT-3481/BE-126T did fine in this regard as you’ll see in the scenarios below. If it passes the steadiness tests, then assuming it has the features you want, ease of use becomes the judging criteria. In this respect the CT-3481/BE-126T as it comes out-of-the-box suffers from overly stiff joints and controls, but I’ll discuss some adjustments you can do to remedy this.

The CT-3481 legs fold up on themselves as you can see here.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 24mm, ISO 200, 1/250, f/8.0

It takes me about 30 seconds to unfold the tripod and get it set up, minus putting the camera on the ball head. It takes roughly the same amount of time to break it down and stow it. It comes with a nifty little bag that I can’t figure out what to do with. I’m trying to save weight and bulk, why would I pack this in a bag and not just in my pack? I’d rather have no bag and the price knocked down a few bucks.

Let’s evaluate the features, starting from the ground up.

The rubber feet screw in to expose metal spikes for use on ice or other surfaces where the rubber might slip. For my shooting the rubber feet worked fine and I didn’t need to use the spikes. I could imagine the threads getting fouled with grit or salt but you’re going to want to keep these feet clean anyway as when you stow the tripod they rest right next to the ball head and dirty feet could easily rain grime into the ball head.

At first I found the leg collars to feel less precise than those on my RRS tripod. Instead of just a quick single twist to lock and unlock it would take two or three to extend or collapse the legs. However after several days of working with the Oben I got the hang of the different feel and could usually adjust the legs with a single twist (about 1/3^rd revolution).

The legs themselves seemed adequate for supporting camera/lens combinations up to say a Nikon D4s with a 70-200/f2.8. I could grab the tripod, twist and get them to flex, but this was an unrealistic test as it would be near impossible for a camera properly mounted and triggered (cable release, remote, self-timer) to create such torque.

The thumb levers at the top of the legs used to adjust the leg angles work easily and well. In fact, much easier than the fidgety hard-to-grasp adjusters on my RRS legs. The Oben thumb lever does feel a bit wobbly and cheap though. I didn’t have any issues with them, but would guess they might be the first part to fail. Other than this one item, I was impressed with the parts used in the Oben, especially at its price point.

iPhone 5 + iPhone 5 back camera 4.12mm f/2.4 @ 4.12mm, ISO 50, 1/200, f/2.4

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 48mm, ISO 100, 1/20, f/11.0

Next up would be the leg axle joints themselves, which are darn stiff right out of the box. Spreading the legs is a slow and frustrating process reminiscent of my high school romances. Even if you tear phone books in half with your bare hands like I do every morning for fun, this stiff leg action slows you down and if timing is critical, you might miss some shots. On the plus side, the stiff leg action meant I could adjust the legs between stops and have the tripod still feel stable. Fortunately, the Oben comes with a pair of allen keys, the bigger of which can be used to adjust the tension of the leg joints to your liking. In less than a minute I had the tensions adjusted so operation was much quicker.

The center column adjustment collar takes at least half a revolution to lock or loosen hence for me I needed a double twist to secure adjustments. There were several times I didn’t get it cinched down all the way (even with the column fully lowered) and ended up with a wobbling head. When it comes to stability, the center column is the weak link in the system – the design invites user error, but even when cinched tight there is some play in the system because the hole machined into the chassis is too wide. This center column play is the biggest weakness of this tripod and the one place you’re most likely to foster instability. I achieved substantially better stability when I lined the inside of the chassis hole (below the clamping collar) with a piece of duct tape – not a good permanent solution, but shows that this can be fixed.

With no camera mounted, the center column adjusts easily. With a camera mounted it’s a jerky frustrating process. I’ve found this to be the case with other twist collar center posts so no surprise here. For that matter, you’re way better off not extending the center post as it effectively puts your camera atop a monopod atop a tripod – not the steadiest scenario. Nevertheless, I did shoot some shots this way and got acceptable results.

iPhone 5 + iPhone 5 back camera 4.12mm f/2.4 @ 4.12mm, ISO 50, 1/200, f/2.4

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 100mm, ISO 64, 1/10, f/20.0

This set-up was a bit off-center, so I used the spring-loaded, extendable hook on the bottom of the center column to hang my pack on and add some mass. If it didn’t change the composition, this would more effective with the center post lowered (moving the pack mass even lower), but beware your pack doesn’t act like a sail if it’s windy.

Reversing the center column is one of those pesky tasks lazy folks like me try to avoid – after-all it takes 35 seconds away from my life that I will never get back. But when you want to get in-situ shots of owl puke, you’ve got little choice.

iPhone 5 + iPhone 5 back camera 4.12mm f/2.4 @ 4.12mm, ISO 50, 1/250, f/2.4

Now this is a setup that would challenge most tripods. I’ve got some wide leg spreads, a reversed center column, a macro focusing rail attached to the ball head and the camera attached vertically to the macro rail. Add a Micro-Nikkor 105mm that could easily double as a brick and shoot an 11-shot stacking sequence and I didn’t expect much.

11-shot stack, 1/140, f/11, ISO 250.

Lo(w) and behold, the Oben proved capable.

BE-126T Ball Head

Onto the BE-126T ball head. On the plus side, it locks down securely and with only minor tilt-down creep. I got a lot of good sharp shots with this ball head. But out-of-the-box, the darn thing drove me crazy. All the adjustments are super stiff. This is not much of an issue for the ball lock itself – I shoot with heavy bodies (D4s and D810) and some heavy lenses (24-120mm, 150-600mm, etc) so the stiff ball action was often welcome. If I was using this with a lighter setup, say a mirrorless system, I think it would irritate me. What bugged me most about this tripod/head combo was the panning adjustment. Even loosened fully, it was so stiff it, the head would unscrew from the center column instead of pan to the left. I had to make it a practice to always pan to the right (which works best for photoshop when stitching anyway). Nevertheless, you couldn’t work quickly, and clouds could move significantly while you tried to rotate the head to line up your next exposure. What do they lubricate this joint with – bubble gum and molasses? Worse yet is that this could lead to the head unscrewing itself while you walk about with your Hasselblad in tow. Fortunately, if you don’t mind a bit of DIY action, these problems can be fixed. I removed the ball head from the center column, then unscrewed the three allen screws and removed the ball head’s bottom plate. There was a thick smear of what looked like sticky silicone grease. I cleaned this off from the bottom plate, but not the other surface, then put a peppercorn-sized dab of much lighter Phil Wood Waterproof Grease in the joint and voila, it panned smooth and quick. I then applied a drop of blue Loctite to the threads to secure the head to the column. The clamping mechanism for the camera plate is similarly stiff and slow to manipulate. I had minor success trying to re-lube this with Phil Grease. The ball itself sits on a lubricant-free plastic cup. It seemed to loosen a bit with use, otherwise I did no adjustments.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 65mm, ISO 320, 1/125, f/11.0

Thankfully, the clouds were sluggish here as this 3-shot pano was shot before I re-lubed the panning mechanism.

Topping it all off is the camera plate itself. I’m leery of those rubber-padded plates – all my Bogen camera plates didn’t work worth poop. However the one supplied with the Oben surprised me and held my D810 with either 16-35mm, 24-120mm or 105mm just fine in vertical orientation with no twisting. That said I’d recommend L-plates as a better alternative. The clamp is Arca-Swiss compatible and because it’s a screw down clamp accepts my RRS L-plates. The Oben plate however does not fit into my RRS quick-release clamps due to overly thick heads on the stop screws.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 24mm, ISO 64, 2 sec, f/18.0

The CT-3481/BE-126T ball head combo is advertised to hold 26.4 lbs. How they arrive at this figure is a mystery – perhaps the weight at which the ball head will no longer turn? Whatever the case it is a gross overestimate to the realistic working capacity of this combo. For kicks, I tried mounting my D4s with the Nikkor 500mm f/4G VR on it at 11.2 lbs combined weight, and the amount of twist and wobble around the center column, chassis and legs themselves made this impractical. Sure, it supported the combo without the legs busting off, and if I was shooting a static subject and triggering remotely it could yield a sharp image, but if you have your hands on the camera and pressing the shutter release with you finger you’re much better off with a heavier tripod.

Most of the shots in this article were triggered by using my D810 in live view, setting the exposure delay mode to 2 or 3 seconds, and using the electronic front-shutter release. My remote died on me so I used my finger to initiate each shot and counted on the 2 or 3 sec delay to let the camera shake stop before the shutter fired.

iPhone 5 + iPhone 5 back camera 4.12mm f/2.4 @ 4.12mm, ISO 50, 1/240, f/2.4

It even worked in this crazy setup. I didn’t want to mar the dirt in front of the Double Delicate Arch in the foreground so I splayed the legs and rested them on in-situ rocks so nothing touched dirt. The spread of the legs and the way they rested on the rocks created a trampoline effect – add a raised a center column and it couldn’t get worse, but the 3 second delay was long enough the system stopped bouncing and I got the shot.

NIKON D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 25mm, ISO 64, 1/6, f/22.0

Monopod

You can turn the CT-3481/BE-126T into a monopod by removing the center column, unscrewing one of the legs, then screwing the two together. I tried this out and found I could get about two stops advantage over handholding with VR on. I wish the tripod had two legs that unscrewed so you could use them each as hiking sticks (add a rubber hand grip), leave the other poles at home and save a few pounds.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 65mm, ISO 200, 1/80, f/11.0

When it comes to taking selfies of taking selfies, a tripod is essential.

This shot of the Wave was focus stacked from 7 exposures.

Summary

I got good results using the Oben CT-3481 4-section Carbon fiber Folding Tripod and BE-126T ball head. Once I convert all these shots to B&W and tweak to my Lik-ing, they should sell for millions – especially the uber-generic Wave shots. I like the tripod part of this combo – it’s got good stability for it’s size and weight, folds compactly, and even though the center column displays some wiggle, this shouldn’t be a problem if you trigger by cable, remote, self timer or exposure delay (or add a shim to the center column hole). Not a problem for landscape photographers. If you trigger with your hand on the camera and no delay, you might want to look for a different tripod. The ball head’s build quality seems fine, but out-of-the-box, its ease of use is hampered by overly stiff panning and clamping adjusters. If you don’t mind investing a half hour in the DIY fixes I mentioned, then this ball head should work fine. Currently, the tripod and ball head are only offered as a package together. If Oben comes up with a better center column design, then this would be an awesome value. As it is, I still think it’s good deal in its price range if you’re willing to do the DIY tweaks.

All content © John Sherman

The post Oben CT-3481 Tripod Kit Review appeared first on Photography Life.

If there was a 100 MP DSLR announced tomorrow, I would pre-order it, then spend many sleepless nights waiting for it to arrive. I’d suffer nightmares where Imatest monsters would kick Zeiss Otus’s around and laugh at their feeble attempts at keeping up with my high resolution camera. It would get even worse when I put a second mortgage on my house so I could afford the new supercomputer to crunch those images. I’d pace the halls of my house, past my favorite matted and framed 24”x36” lens chart prints, while wondering if I needed a car with a bigger trunk that could carry enough CF cards for a day’s shooting.

But it doesn’t need to be that way. Even if they plopped the Lincoln Monument in the middle of Yosemite Valley I could take the architecture in the grand landscape shot with only a 12-16 MP camera and never know the difference between it and my 100 MP dream machine. How can I say this?

Here’s proof. I took these nearly identical images of these trees on Nasim’s recent fall color workshop. One was shot on the full frame 36 MP Nikon D810 with Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2 ZF.2 – a match made in Mansurov Heaven. The other was the duo from hell – the discontinued 16 MP DX Nikon D7000 sinfully saddled with a Nikkor 18-300mm superzoom, Photography Life’s worst reviewed lens ever. I set up my tripod, framed the shots as equally as I could (zooming to 35mm equivalent on the loser lens), then snapped two frames. When I loaded them into Lightroom, the superzoom shot looked horrid – oops, I forgot to remove the split ND filter. Oh well, I dodged it back into decency then exported both files using Photography Life’s recommended web resolution. I then put the images up side-by-side on my laptop monitor (MacBook Pro Retina) and asked Nasim to tell me which was which. After much squinting and head scratching he pointed to one and said “That’s probably the Zeiss”. He was wrong – it was the superzoom.

“That’s not fair,” Nasim groused, “I need to see these at 100 percent.”

And there’s the rub. You don’t need to see images at 100% because that’s not the way final output is viewed. When you look at a Herb Ritts print in a gallery are you obsessing over seeing a 1:1 cropped scan of the original negative to make sure it’s a good photo? Of course not. All that counts in the end is how good the final output looks.

So my 16 MP shot fooled Nasim at final output (2048×1638 pixels) and it looks just fine on the web. But what about 16 MP vs 36 MP for gallery prints or magazine work? Again 16 MP is just fine because even printed at 300 PPI, for the cover of an 8.5”x11” magazine the file only needs to be 8.4 MP. Oooh, but what about a two-page spread? That would take 16.8 MP at 300 PPI. I hate to break it to you, but 16 MP is still enough as the human eye (assuming perfect 20/20 vision) when viewing a magazine just short of arm’s length can only resolve about 150-220 PPI depending on who’s figure you use for the resolution of the human eye (0.6 to 1 arc-second). That is why Apple calls their laptop display a “Retina” display because we view laptops at the same distance as we read magazines and the Retina display has a resolution of 220 PPI (for us geeks out there the new Mac 5K display is 217 PPI which unless you view it at laptop distance is overkill).

Here’s a recent shot of mine as it appeared in the table of contents in February’s Arizona Highways. It was shot with the 16 MP Nikon D4s and cropped to about 9.5 MP and looks tack sharp (I crunched the dimensions and got 218 PPI as final resolution as published). All those two-page spreads that impressed us five years ago were probably shot with 8-12 MP cameras. They look just as good as those today.

The key to this all of this is the concept of “normal viewing distance”. We view shots on our phones closer than we view magazine pages. We view huge gallery prints from across a room, not tucked in a narrow hallway (my lens chart pin-ups excepted). We view billboards from a block away.

The further away your final output is viewed, the less PPI it needs to be printed at. This is why billboards are printed at ~10 PPI. From half-a-block away you can’t tell the difference between 10 PPI or 1000 PPI. A 16 MP image printed at 10 PPI will be 41 feet wide. I’ve only had one photo published on a billboard and it was taken with an 8 MP point-and-shoot and looked fine at 30 mph.

Even though camera resolution has grown rapidly in the last decade, the resolution of the human eye has remained the same. Unless you’re a cropoholic, a forensic specialist, or working for over-demanding clients, anything more than a 16 MP camera is overkill. With the exception of one of the first two shots (I can’t tell which), all of these were shot on 16 MP DSLR bodies.

I hope I’ve saved you a load of money with this article. When it comes to sharp photos, you don’t need to invest in a high-resolution camera or matching state-of-the-art lenses because your eye will never know the difference. Go ahead and laugh at those fools with their 50 MP cameras and 5K displays. Then you can take all that money you just saved and go over to my website and buy some delicious gallery prints. Goodness knows I could use the money. How else will I be able to pay back for my Nikon D810?

All Content © John Sherman

The post Why 16 Megapixels, When I Could Have 50? appeared first on Photography Life.

It’s been bugging me that I only have a handful of decent insect photos, despite owning a macro lens primarily for that purpose. When they weren’t flying or running away from me, they were biting me, and when I tried the pop-them-in-the-fridge-to-cool-them-down trick – well, let’s just say Mr. Tarantula is still napping. I felt awful about that and vowed never to ice down a critter again unless it was a penguin with heat stroke. Still I’ve been seeing tons of great bug photos lately and it rekindled my interest. If I could just dial in the lighting, maybe I could start nailing some great macro wildlife shots.

Macro lighting can be tough because you and your camera are so close to your subject it’s easy to block out your light source. Ring flashes get around this problem by mounting on the front of the lens.

The Bolt VM-110 LED Macro Ring Light is designed to produce even lighting on close-up subject matter. At $79.00 it seems like it might be a good product for those getting into macro.

Let’s check out the features, but first a couple of quick disclosures:

1) my only experience with ring lights is having my choppers photographed by my dental hygienist.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 1000, 1/30, f/16.0

2) I got to keep the review item after I tested it.

Features

First off, although the VM-110 features a “flash mode” this is not a ring flash and will not perform like one. It’s basically a ring-shaped flashlight that can attach to the front of your lens. It runs off of four AA batteries (not included). The flash mode is more a feature to conserve battery life and not constantly blind your subjects.

It has four modes: Light, Flash, L and R. The Light Mode provides continuous lighting so what you see is what you get. The Flash Mode turns of the light and produces a ½ sec burst of light at the moment you trip the shutter. L and R modes flash from only the left or right half of the ring respectively.

You can adjust the power from -1.5 to +1.5 in unspecified units (This would seem to suggest a three-stop range but my tests came up with about 0.9 stops from lowest to highest power setting).

It comes with four diffuser rings: clear, frosted, blue and amber. It can also be used without a diffuser.

It has adapter rings for 49, 52, 55, 58, 62, 67, 72, and 77mm lens threads.

It mounts to the hot shoe and also comes with a little stand for off-camera use.

Performance

When I first tried the VM-110 it immediately became obvious that this is a poor choice for shooting bugs or any moving subjects. In a word, this light is weak. The specs say it has a Guide Number of 15’ at ISO 100 and using a 50mm lens. Hmmm, GN = f-number x distance, so at one foot distance I could shoot at f/16 with the VM-110 (actually f/15, but to make the math easier I’ve rounded to nearest familiar f/stop). Most macro work is done at f/16, f/22 or smaller to get even a couple millimeters depth of focus. The catch is the flash duration of the VM-110 is a leisurely ½ second, hence why the VM-110 is called a ring light, not a ring flash. Your shutter speed needs to be ½ sec or longer for this ring light to take advantage of the specified GN. (Most electronic flashes have flash durations of 1/1000 sec or less, much quicker than the camera’s sync speed, so guide number calculations are used to set a given f-stop at a given distance and shutter speed does not enter the equation).

Obviously you won’t be handholding a macro lens at ½ sec and even if you’re on a tripod, the lightest breeze will move a subject or the subject might crawl away. 1/125 sec would be the slowest I’d try to handhold my 105mm macro lens, even with the VR on, as at high macro magnifications any camera shake is multiplied. So using ½ sec at f/16 and ISO 100, how far would I have to push the ISO to get to 1/125 sec at f/16? Yep, ISO 6400.   In practice I found the VM-110 beat this, but still I had to shoot at ISO 2500 to get proper exposure at one foot distance and 1/125 and f/16. This was with the clear light diffuser on and a neutral power compensation. Bump the compensation up to full power (+1.5) and I could get it down to ISO 2000. Removing the diffuser to show just bare bulb I could further reduce my ISO to 1250. Unless you are using a very low noise camera like a Nikon D4s, I can’t recommend using this as a sole light source for any macro work that is handheld or of moving subjects, but it could provide some fill light to soften harsh shadows.

Okay, so the VM-110 lacks power. Furthermore, its all-plastic build keeps the weight and cost down but makes it feel a bit like a toy. As long as you don’t beat it up I wouldn’t worry about the plastic except for the adapter rings. These are plastic too, with the potential to cross-thread the rings or have them jam tight and be hard to remove – treat these very gingerly if you want them to last and don’t over-tighten them.

Instead of bashing this product for not being good for bugs, I set out to find some fun static subjects to shoot. I heard there’s decent money to be had in product photography so I grabbed my tripod and let the magic happen.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 2000, 1/4, f/11.0

Note the nice even illumination. The VM-110 delivers a very soft light with the frosted diffuser on.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 100, 8/10, f/32.0

Ah, the classic peacock feather detail shot. This is shot at 1:1 magnification with a 60mm macro lens with a very short working distance. For a weak light such as this the shorter working distance is a bonus as the closer the ring light to the subject, the more you can lower your ISO or shorten your shutter speed.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 2/1, f/32.0

With the longer working distance of the 105mm, there’s about a stop less light to work with. Not a big deal on a tripod, but could be if handholding.

The peacock feathers were shot with the clear diffuser on. Now a comparison of the amber and blue diffusers. Bolt does not provide specific K temps for it’s various diffusers, instead just saying it can vary from 3000 – 15000K. For comparison, I set all these at Lightroom’s default flash setting of 5500K then balanced out the exposures in post.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1000, 1/125, f/8.0

This is how it looks with the frosted diffuser.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1600, 1/125, f/8.0

With the blue.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 800, 1/125, f/8.0

With the amber.

The colored diffusers cut light output a lot so I didn’t find much use for them (I could just shift the WB in Lightroom to get a similar result with out the light loss) other than adding a splash of colored light to something lit with other sources.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 200, 1/4, f/22.0

I snuck this pic of what I think is the camera modulara prototype sitting on a light table at Mansurov Enterprises. By using the blue diffuser I could give it a more interesting techy look.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 200, 1/3, f/22.0

Here’s the same shot, but with the frosted diffuser on.

Bottom line: I would rarely use anything but the frosted or clear diffusers (or none at all) and I would be sure to shoot in RAW as the WB changes a lot between the clear and frosted diffusers.

According to Bolt, the L and R modes can be used for “more dramatic lighting”. If darker = more dramatic, then I guess this is true. These modes turn off half the LEDs (either the L or R side of the ring) and of course cut your light output in half, turning a weak light source into a very weak light source.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 500, 1/8, f/11.0

Here’s a shot in L-mode.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 500, 1/8, f/11.0

Here’s a shot in R-mode.

I don’t find either all that dramatic.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 800, 1/13, f/11.0

Far better I think to remove the light from the lens mount and use it off camera at full power (flash or light mode) and then just point that from one side of the subject, or in this case from above. Now that’s the most dramatic rubber duck shot I’ve taken in weeks.

Though the VM-110 mounts to the hot shoe of your camera, it is not TTL capable. The only communication with the camera is the ability for the shutter to trip the ½ sec flash mode. You need to manually set your exposures to work with this light in flash mode. If you try to shoot in A,S or P modes your camera will adjust exposure based on the conditions before the flash goes off and the flash will create overexposure. Used in the constant light source mode, you can shoot in A,S or P modes at as high a frame rate as you want, but you’ll draw down the ring light batteries quicker.

The manual says the VM-110 can even be a great product for lighting portraits at close range.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 100, 1/15, f/8.0

Hey, Benji looking good! But seriously, the ring lit portrait can be a cool trendy look with punchy highlights and dark shadowy rims on the subject and even a background halo (assuming no other light source). So I grabbed my favorite model to try it out. Quickly I learned why ring lights suck for portraits – having the flash mounted on the lens really blinds your model.

NIKON D4S + 50mm f/1.8 @ 50mm, ISO 1600, 1/100, f/5.6

Switching from 50mm to 60mm lens, taking a step back and adding some ambient light helped. The “Three Monkeys” series below was done with various diffusers. I tweaked the brightness in post so they’d roughly match, but left the WB at 5500K.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1250, 1/125, f/5.6

With no diffuser.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1600, 1/125, f/5.6

With clear diffuser.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 2500, 1/125, f/5.6

With frosted diffuser.

Uggh, the skin tones go from light jaundice (no diffuser) to full liver failure (frosted diffuser). As well the frosted diffuser is horribly flat and if you check the metadata it’s ISOh-no territory. I had to go back in and tweak both temperature and tint (using Lightroom’s WB picker tool) to get something resembling healthy skin.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1250, 1/125, f/5.6

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1600, 1/125, f/5.6

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 2500, 1/125, f/5.6

Even then, the frosted shot would need a lot more contrast tweaking in post to be usable.  If you choose to use this ring light to illuminate humans, I suggest creating some LR presets for WB and sticking with the clear diffuser.

Another portrait trick you might recognize from the fashion mags is the ring-shaped catchlight in the model’s eyes. These however are the result of using very large-diameter ring lights. A lens-hugging ring light like the VM-110 will only give such a catchlight in extreme close-up.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 200, 1/125, f/5.0

When used at tight head shot distance the catchlight reduces to a point.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 1250, 1/125, f/5.0

As you can see, ring lights aren’t the most flattering for portraiture.  Good thing I have access to supermodels who look fabulous without makeup.

As a constant light source, the VM-110 might be handy for close-up video work, but I haven’t tested this yet.

With the 50mm, 60mm and 105mm lenses I had no vignetting issues. However they all have small barrel diameters. I checked the VM-110 out on some lenses with 77mm filter threads and discovered the following. With a 24-120mm on a full frame sensor I had vignetting through the entire range, but of course more severe at the wider focal lengths. With an 18-300mm on a DX-sensor, there was vignetting at the wide end, but this disappeared after 38mm. Good news there, now if I can just get that darned plastic adapter ring off (yeah I mentioned this before, but these really need to be made of metal).

NIKON D7000 + 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, ISO 800, 1/100, f/9.0

Hmmm, perhaps I could use this extreme vignette for fake periscope videos.  The white ring is the light itself, the black outer ring the plastic adapter ring.

NIKON D7000 + 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 38mm, ISO 800, 1/200, f/9.0

Summary

Despite it’s numerous shortcomings I had fun playing with the Bolt VM-110. On the plus side it’s inexpensive, lightweight, gives even illumination, and as a constant light source, WYSIWYG. For shooting static close-up subjects from a tripod it works fine. Its biggest downsides are how weak it is, the funky white balance issues, and the long “flash” duration. It’s a very poor choice for handholding and/or moving subjects. Because it lacks TTL, you should be comfortable with manual metering techniques to get the most out of this product.

The post Bolt VM-110 LED Macro Ring Light Review appeared first on Photography Life.

When I’m not scratching ever upwards toward the pinnacle of the high-stakes editorial bird photography world I find it helps my bottom line to prostitute myself as an HPLS. It’s not a pretty job, but imagine how ugly the world would appear if it weren’t for the services of us Human Powered Light Stands. When were not schlepping monolights, downloading memory cards, witnessing model releases, or checking to make sure the model’s sports bra isn’t wrinkled, we’re usually found holding the Venerable Shiny Disk.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 30mm, ISO 125, 1/100, f/11.0

The Shiny Disk, AKA collapsible reflector disk, is one of the simplest pieces of lighting gear in the game. It’s a lightweight disk composed of reflective cloth (many types/colors/reflectivities are available) that one uses to bounce light in on a subject to fill in shadows. It can also be used to shade a subject when desired or most importantly, to shade The Boss when she’s chimping and adjusting exposures.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 30mm, ISO 125, 1/250, f/11.0

When not filling in shadows the shiny disk is excellent at blinding your subjects.

As a professional HPLS, I’ve worked with some of the best shiny disks on the market – even the Sunbounce auf Zeissland. They pretty much all perform the same. However the Raya 5-in-1 Collapsible Reflector Disc is dirt cheap compared to the rest. Now time for the full disclosure – I got to keep the Raya 5-in-1 after reviewing it – a $19.95 value for the 42” size! It also comes in 32” ($16.95) and 22” ($12.95) versions.

This 5-in-1 kit is simple, yet versatile, coming with silver, gold, black, white and translucent surfaces. It folds like a dashboard reflector to 1/3^rd diameter and zips into a form-fitting nylon pouch. To change from one surface to another you just flip the disk, or unzip the reflective sheath, reverse it, zip it back on, then continue shooting. If you remove the gold/silver/black/white sheath, you’re left with a translucent disk.

How does it work? Below are a bunch of examples of what you can do with the Raya 5-in-1. My favorite model was unavailable so I had to enlist the help of Psycho Chucky down the hill. First a shot without the disk.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 92mm, ISO 64, 1/200, f/7.1

As you can see, the shadows are so deep you can’t tell much about what the subject feels, but bounce in some light from the gold side and voila…

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 92mm, ISO 64, 1/200, f/7.1

Now you see the remorse as Chucky realizes what he’s done. Then as will happen with Chucky, something snaps.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 92mm, ISO 64, 1/200, f/7.1

Here the fill is reduced by either stepping back with the disk or bending it to throw less intense light on the subject – more on this later.

Flip over the disk to use the white side and the result is a much cooler look to match Chucky’s soul.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 62mm, ISO 100, 1/1000, f/4.0

Silver looks much the same as white (but much brighter if the disk is held the same distance from the subject). One difference is the silver will reflect more of the color of the light hitting the disk – in the case below, the late afternoon light is very warm and hence the warmish fill to the shadows from the silver disk.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 55mm, ISO 64, 1/200, f/7.1

Black can be used for blocking out light on the subject or maybe a part of the background (or the whole background in macro). One nice trick is the underexpose the background a stop or two, then shade the subject with the black disk and illuminate the subject with a flash. First with no flash

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 82mm, ISO 125, 1/640, f/5.6

Next with the subject shaded, background underexposed and a burst of pop-up flash on the subject.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 44mm, ISO 64, 1/250, f/7.1

Uses of this disk are not just restricted to portraits of the neighborhood weirdo. They can be used anytime you want to bounce light around, block it out or diffuse it. I like using the translucent disk for nature detail shots.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 120mm, ISO 64, 1/6, f/18.0

Harsh midday sun makes this look like a hopeless situation, but then shade the subject with the translucent disk…

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 120mm, ISO 64, 1/6, f/18.0

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 120mm, ISO 64, 1/50, f/11.0

Again, this looks bleak.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 120mm, ISO 64, 1/15, f/16.0

Ah, much nicer.

The limitations of the Raya 5-in-1 are those found with any shiny disk.

The shape of the light reflected distorts with any flexing back and forth of the disk. Big deal, all shiny disks do this, even the Sunbounce. It just takes some practice (like everything in photography) to master the use of this piece of gear. And you can even use this to your benefit to stretch and soften the fill light, etc.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 58mm, ISO 200, 1/250, f/9.0

From close range with the disk held flat you get the predictable circle, but when one flexes the disk the pattern can be spread out.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 58mm, ISO 200, 1/250, f/9.0

The reflectivity of the gold and silver panels can be overpowering at close range. The decades-old Sunbounce that has calloused my paws on many a shoot, has a softer yummy feel to its light, but perhaps because so much of its shiny surface has worn away. By backing away form the subject, the Raya kit gives a softer light feel. Problem solved.  Note how the pattern spreads and dims as the disk gets further from the subject.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 52mm, ISO 400, 1/250, f/9.0

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 52mm, ISO 400, 1/250, f/9.0

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 52mm, ISO 400, 1/250, f/9.0

The material seems adequately sturdy if handled with care (don’t let it blow into a cactus). However the zipper sometimes snags, but by pushing in on the springy disk rim you can create clearance and ease zipping.

As with most of our reviews here on Photography Life, we don’t have the luxury of testing longevity of the products – I don’t know how durable this will be, but at $19.95, if it helps me sell a single photo it will pay back for itself many times over. There are many other products that do the same thing, but at greater cost – anywhere from $47 to $200. My suggestion is to do yourself a favor and buy the Raya – you’ll save enough you can hire your own HPLS. Just choose that HPLS with care – you never know what goes on behind the disk.

NIKON D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 24mm, ISO 320, 1/800, f/7.1

Where to Buy

You can purchase the Raya 5-in-1 Reflector from B&H for $19.95.

The post Raya 5-in-1 Collapsible Reflector Disc review appeared first on Photography Life.

My New Year’s resolution not to buy any new cameras or lenses this year is in serious jeopardy. Longtime friend of Photography Life Mark Fagan alerted me to this MEGADEAL. Yes – Hasselblad has sliced prices 70% on selected models, er I mean model. For those of you new to photography, Hasselblad is one of the most revered names in photography. Put it this way, people who can’t afford Hassies buy Leicas to impress their friends.

C’mon Verm, you say, Cartier-Bresson, godfather of street photography, shot with a Leica. Yep, those blurry shots of Frenchmen leaping puddles is why NASA chose to send Hasselblad, not Leica, to the moon with Neal Armstrong and crew. (If you’re a moon-landing denier, the evidence is even clearer – nobody would have ever believed it occurred had it been shot on anything less than a Hasselblad.)

© Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

Leica shot – note fuzzy look and poor color rendition.

Shot with a Hasselblad! USA! USA! USA! Sweden!?!?!

So now that I’ve convinced you that owning the Hasselblad Stellar will automatically inject perfect composition, exposure and mas emotion into you photos, what else do you get with this deal?

Pundits will say this is just an overpriced Sony point and shoot adorned with a Hasselblad nameplate, but they are oh so wrong. No Sony has ever featured vegetable-tanned Italian leather wrist and neck straps. When I visit Mistress Amidol down at the B&D, er. I meant to say B&W, “darkroom” I have to pay a ton extra for those Italian straps.

Granted, the Sony RX100 underneath the inlaid Hasselblad emblem is a capable camera. But whereas, and I quote the Hasselblad sales pitch, the Stellar is “a camera to match those autumn afternoons strolling the Champs-Élysées or a late summer’s final respite to the beaches of Dubai”, I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking the Sony much further than Hollywood Boulevard to see Kim Kardashian’s star followed by a trip to Muscle Beach.

But wait, there’s more! It has a champagne-colored aluminum body with a carbon grip with black accents. This sounds so much better than the beer stains on my D7000 with the charcoal-colored grip from dropping in in that campfire.

If you buy now you also get “a custom wood display box that would not seem out of place at the Metropolitan Museum, let alone as the prized item in your home collection.” Which metropolitan museum they don’t say – I’m guessing Bakersfield?

And that’s not all. It comes with a “a faux velvet cover to protect the wooden box’s finish.” Thank god it’s not real velvet – it’s a bitch to dry clean the drool off that – the faux stuff you just pop in the washer and you’re good to go.

If you’ve been holding off buying a Hasselblad because they’re so awkward to shoot in portrait orientation – they fixed that on the Stellar.

Bottom line is, I’d leave my wife for this camera. You should order it now. What’s that? I don’t have a wife? Hmmm, might have something to do with that D4s…

The post The Most Stellar Photo Gear Deal of the Millennium appeared first on Photography Life.

The Impact Soft and Natural 4 Socket 3 Light Kit is a lightweight three-softbox continuous light source for studio shooting. MSRP is $604.90, but it seems to be perpetually discounted at B&H. As I write this it is priced at $348.95. The kit comes with stands, softboxes, heads and bulbs, everything you need to get started shooting portraits except the model and background (oh yeah, and camera and photographer, d’oh).

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 800, 1/200, f/4.5

Ah, there we have a model and a background. Unfortuantely, this kit doesn’t come with a hair stylist.

A three-light studio set-up for under $350? What’s next? Looking at my hospital bill and seeing they only charged me 20 bucks for that 85-dollar Band-Aid ™ they never applied? If you’ve ever priced studio lighting gear you know this is absurdly cheap. So what’s this kit capable of? Let’s put it in the hands of pro Dawn Kish and check out a number of different looks she achieved with it.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/125, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

When I scratched out “homeless” and wrote in professional photographer, I knew I’d hit rock bottom.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/160, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/125, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

As the frostnip set in, I was wishing these lights got hot like tungsten lamps. As it is, they’re fluorescent lights that get warm but never sizzling.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/160, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Hi Mom!

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/160, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

With a little cleaning up and a bunch of make up this executive portrait landed me a job as Senior Vice President of the Superzoom Review Division at Photography Life.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/200, f/7.1. Photo by Dawn Kish.

When I donned this uniform my posture instantly improved – no joke.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/400, f/7.1. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Well now that I’ve gone this far.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/400, f/7.1. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Disclosure: after the review I got to keep the kit for free – how come it doesn’t feel like free?

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 1000, 1/200, f/9.0. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Here you see the three boxes at work.

After those shots you can be excused for thinking they were lit with lights that cost ten times as much. So what’s the scoop on this kit?

First off, these are not strobes but continuous fluorescent light sources. This has advantages and disadvantages.

On the plus side, continuous light is WYSIWYG. You can move the lights fore and aft, adjust the angles and whatnot and always see how the light is modeling on your subject. If you’re new to studio lighting this really helps when it comes to learning how to illuminate subjects. With continuous light you don’t need to sych camera to the lights, allowing you to shoot at any frame rate or with any camera, even a cameraphone. As well, a continuous light source works for video.

iPhone 5 + iPhone 5 front camera 2.18mm f/2.4 @ 2.18mm, ISO 40, 1/120, f/2.4

I snapped this scary selfie with my iPhone.

On the minus side, you have to control exposure through shutter speed, not flash duration, so if you have moving subjects you want to freeze you’ll likely be cranking the ISO up and dealing with added noise in your files.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/200, f/7.1. Photo by Dawn Kish.

“ISO 640? Drop and give me fifty Maggot.” Fortunately today’s cameras handle higher ISOs pretty well.

Each head in the kit uses four fluorescent bulbs balanced to 5000K. The kit comes with 26W bulbs but the heads can handle four 50W bulbs apiece. There are no power adjustments – if you want dimmer or brighter light you have to either move the light closer or further away (which changes the highlight/shadow ratio on your subject, i.e “the look” of the light changes) or unscrew some bulbs. The lights in this kit are not dimmer-compatible.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 1250, 1/200, f/5.0

Here with the lights further away, I had to crank the ISO up to 1250.

When it comes to performance, even though these are single diffuser softboxes (most higher-end softboxes have double diffusers) they produce a very pleasant light as seen in the sample photos. The boxes measure 20”x27.5”, which is appropriate for lighting a head-and-shoulders portrait, maybe even head-and-torso, but not big enough for full-length portraits. The diffuser material is very light, but gives a pleasantly soft light as intended.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/125, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Note a bit of light dropoff toward the bottom of this shot – this is about as much of the body as the single main light can illuminate.

The heads are bare-bones – all plastic with just an on-off switch. This keeps the weight and cost down or put another way, makes it feel like a toy. But if you’re not shooting hula-hoop or hacky sack action photos or otherwise knocking them over and beating them up I don’t see why this should dissuade one from owning these.

When you fire these up, it takes time to warm up the fluorescent bulbs. Initially, the light will look very dim but wait a few minutes and it reaches full power and stays consistent until you turn them off.

The softboxes are easier to set up than most, but this is like saying it’s easier to shoot a hole-in-one on a long par three than on a short par four. There’s no speedring for the softbox stays, instead you just stick the four stays into holes in the lighthead and try not to drop one while fiddling the other ones into the softbox. The disadvantage is you can’t spin it from vertical to horizontal orientation or vice versa without reassembly. And what you gain by easier softbox assembly, you lose when it comes to screwing in all four bulbs. It takes me about 14-15 minutes to set up the full kit, depending on how recalcitrant those final stays are. You can reorient the softbox by popping the stays out of the reflective shell, rotating the shell, then working the stays back in – this takes care so you don’t break the fragile bulbs you’re working around. Yes, this is a lightweight portable kit (and comes in a nice carrying bag), but it’s time consuming to erect and breakdown simply because of all the time screwing and unscrewing bulbs. Don’t throw out the bulb boxes because you need to remove the bulbs each time you set up or take down the lights. It is possible, but not recommended, to leave the bulbs in the head and remove the softbox by popping out the stays then sliding the box material back over the head and power cord. However, transporting the heads with bulbs in situ is just asking for a lot of broken bulbs.

The lightstands are flimsy and only extend straight up vertically so you can’t angle the light over your subject. Fortunately they don’t have to support much weight and are easy to reposition. If you want more stability, a single sandbag per stand would be adequate for most purposes. Wind will easily blow these over – but as these need to be plugged in, they’re not designed for outdoor use.

These lights need to be plugged in to a constant AC supply. The power cords are 10-ft long so you’ll likely need to supply extension cords.

The bulbs are standard E26 Edison bases so you can find numerous bulbs with different color temperature that will work with this kit. The bulbs that come with the kit are rated for 10000 hours which translates to being on constantly M-F, 9-5 for 5 years – you’ll burn out before they do.

The biggest weakness of this kit is its weakness. The light is from the 26W bulbs is simply weak and when the softboxes are a good distance away for portrait lighting you’ll find you need a Brady Stand for your subjects if you don’t want to crank your ISO up to noisy levels. Did I just date myself? Unfortunately B&H no longer stocks Brady Stands, those handy posts with neck cradles used to hold subjects still for portraits taken during the Civil War era.

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 2000, 1/200, f/7.1

No Brady Stand here, just an ISO of 2000. You’ll also notice a slightly funky white balance here that is easy to correct in post (some perhaps due to surrounding wall color, but it was also apparent when that was blocked out).

NIKON D4S + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 2000, 1/200, f/7.1

I adjusted this from 5000K to 4700K and added +23 tint.

With the stock bulbs this kit is fine for tripod-shot still lifes.

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 100, 1/4, f/22.0

NIKON D4S + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 2000, 1/200, f/11.0

This kit takes up to 50W bulbs. The supplied 26W Eiko bulbs are weak. 40W Eiko bulbs from BH cost $11.95 each. 50W Eiko from elsewhere on the web cost between $17-24/ea. If you want to use this for portraits you might want to swap out the 26W bulbs for 50W bulbs. However, I haven’t tried this to determine if the “quality of light” remains the same.

Bottom line: this kit is lightweight, inexpensive and produces lovely light. However, the stock bulbs are weak for portrait work and there are no power adjustments. For still lifes the included bulbs will work fine. These lights/softboxes are time-consuming to erect, but if you if you have the space to leave them set up, this can be a good beginning kit for lighting small subjects (head and shoulders or smaller). At just under $350, I’d say it’s a decent value for what it does. At the MSRP of $604.90 I’d give it a pass.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/160, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

NIKON D750 + 60mm f/2.8 @ 60mm, ISO 640, 1/160, f/5.6. Photo by Dawn Kish.

Text and photos ©John Sherman except those photos credited to Dawn Kish – those are ©Dawn Kish. Please no reproduction without written permission.

The post Impact Soft and Natural 4 Socket 3 Light Kit Review appeared first on Photography Life.

When Nikon announced the new 24-2000mm equivalent Coolpix P900 it took the world of superzooms and put it into hyperzoom. Or is that hype-zoom? I’ll have the comprehensive review of this intriguing camera done soon, but to whet your appetite until then, wrap your mind around these shots of Grand Canyon’s Desert View Watchtower all taken from the same spot at Lipan Point, 1.8 miles away.

24mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 4.3mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/2.8.

The Watchtower is the very tiny structure in the upper right.  Let’s zoom in.

55mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 9.8mm, ISO 100, 1/2000, f/3.5

124mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 22.3mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/4.0

260mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 46.4mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/4.5

500mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 89.2mm, ISO 100, 1/1000, f/5.0

850mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 152mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/5.6

2000mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 357mm, ISO 100, 1/640, f/6.5

4000mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 714mm, ISO 100, 1/1000, f/6.5

The shots from 24mm to 2000mm equivalent are with the optical zoom. The shot at 4000mm equivalent is with the camera’s digital zoom enabled.

We’ll dig into the P900’s outlandish zoom range and other features like the pre-shooting cache (records images before you fully depress the shutter release) and focus peaking that might soon become standard on the next generation of cameras. Most importantly, I’ll answer the question “should you sell your D4s and buy ten P900’s?” Stay tuned.

The post What does a 24-2000mm zoom range actually look like? appeared first on Photography Life.

When I offered to review the Nikon Coolpix P900 for Photography Life, I told Nasim I felt like a comedian rooting for Sarah Palin to become president so he’d have four more years of material. C’mon, 24-2000mm zoom combined with a 1:2.3” sensor? The comedic potential seemed endless. But what if it didn’t suck?

A box arrived for me with a Nikon D7200 and P900 in it for review. I went straight for the P900. I’ve got a serious case of telephoto-eyetis and I wanted to see just what this baby could do. I’d never shot with a superzoom point-and-shoot (AKA bridge camera) before and didn’t have any photogeek friends who owned one. To me such a camera was only seen around the necks of tourists at the Grand Canyon. So there was just one thing to do – I grabbed the P900 and headed to the Great Ditch.

COOLPIX P900 @ 10.7mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/3.5

Before we jump into the canyon, let’s check out some of the more pertinent and/or compelling features of the P900:

• 83x zoom range 4.3-357mm f/2.8-6.5 lens – a 24-2000mm equivalent. Add digital zoom on top of that and you can get 8000mm equivalent.
• 7fps burst rate at full resolution, 60fps and 120fps burst rates at lower resolution
• Pre-shooting cache – records images before you fully depress the shutter release
• 16mp sensor
• Focus Peaking
• 3” LCD tilt/flip monitor
• Electronic View Finder with eye control
• 5-stop Vibration Reduction
• macro focusing to 1cm
• 18 scene modes including timelapse, bird-watching, easy panorama and moon shot
• and of course wi-fi, GPS, full HD and all that stuff

1) Lens Performance

Let’s get right into the juicy stuff and check out the zoom range and lens performance. Where else can you get a single lens that can go from this…

COOLPIX P900 @ 5.9mm, ISO 100, 1/40, f/3.2

…to this:

COOLPIX P900 @ 170mm, ISO 200, 1/500, f/5.6

Those are both handheld shots from the same spot and that’s not even the full zoom range. The first is 35mm equivalent and the second is 950mm equivalent (the P900 crop factor is 5.6). This was the view from Navajo Point toward Desert View and The Watchtower. To get an idea of the full zoom range let’s double the distance and go to Lipan Point, 1.8 miles from the Watchtower and slap the P900 on a tripod, set the self-timer to lessen camera shake and take some test shots.

24mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 4.3mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/2.8

55mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 9.8mm, ISO 100, 1/2000, f/3.5

124mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 22.3mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/4.0

260mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 46.4mm, ISO 100, 1/1600, f/4.5

500mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 89.2mm, ISO 100, 1/1000, f/5.0

850mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 152mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/5.6

2000mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 357mm, ISO 100, 1/640, f/6.5

4000mm equivalent. COOLPIX P900 @ 714mm, ISO 100, 1/1000, f/6.5

The shots from 24mm to 2000mm equivalent are with the optical zoom. The shot at 4000mm equivalent is with the camera’s digital zoom enabled. Crazy, huh?

At 24-35mm, the corners are definitely soft, but by 55mm this improves a lot and is pretty much gone by 200mm. 500mm looks best to my eye for corner to corner sharpness. By 850mm the corners are softening a tad again, but most shots at this length or longer will likely be wildlife or another subject that likely doesn’t demand or benefit from sharp corners. At 2000mm things get a little soft overall, but bear in mind that we’re talking 2000mm here and shooting through 1.8 miles of atmosphere in a dusty part of the country. Once we go to digital zoom, softness drops a bunch, but even so from two miles away I can tell who’s texting, who’s shooting camera phone pics, who’s got the DSLR, and oooh, I hope that dog’s tail is always up like that.

Overall, the lens from wide to fully optically zoomed is way better than I expected for a lens with such design demands. Any distortion is well corrected (likely with a lot of help from the software). Also bear in mind that any comments as to sharpness are from me resorting to Dummyvision (viewing at 1:1 with my reading glasses on). If I view these at web resolution, they all look pretty decent except for the digitally zoomed 4000mm one. But don’t take my word for it, check out the MTF chart:

COOLPIX P900 @ 14.3mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/3.5

Whoops those aren’t the MTF curves, this is actually a rock abstract and judging by the sharpness I’m guessing the MTF chart looks quite a bit better.

Here’s some more at the long end – these are cropped to keep the subject the same size in final output. The 2000mm shot is cropped to about 35% of the original, the 4000mm one is about 70% of the original file, so this final view is equivalent to 6000mm. I did some sharpening and touch-up on these to see how good I could make them look in final output.

2000mm equivalent (6000mm as cropped). COOLPIX P900 @ 357mm, ISO 400, 1/800, f/6.5

4000mm equivalent (6000mm as cropped). COOLPIX P900 @ 714mm, ISO 320, 1/800, f/6.5

Definitely some noise/pixelation and fine detail could be better resolved, but overall not bad for a $599 camera and certainly good enough for one’s Facebook page. Before all us D810 owners start freaking out, here is the same bird, same final size, shot with the D810 with Nikkor 800mm f/5.6E VR and 1.4x teleconverter cropped and even upsampled a bit to get the same final subject size.

NIKON D810 + 800mm f/5.6 @ 1150mm, ISO 500, 1/1250, f/10.0

We Win! We Win! We Win! The D810 absolutely clobbered the P900. I’m so delighted and relieved that I spent the extra $21,000.

All supertelephoto lenses, even those costing five figures, have issues when it comes to camera shake, heat shimmers and other atmospheric disturbances.

COOLPIX P900 @ 499.8mm, ISO 400, 1/800, f/6.5

The softness of this coyote shot is not due to optical imperfection of even digital zooming (this is at 2800mm equivalent) but to late morning heat shimmers.

What about depth of field? The tiny sensor equates to greater depth of field at any given viewing angle.

COOLPIX P900 @ 4.3mm, ISO 100, 1/100, f/8.0

At 24mm equivalent and f/8 you get everything from inches away to infinity in focus. However at f/8 sharpness is dropping off, likely due to diffraction. However, this is hard to see without Dummyvision.

COOLPIX P900 @ 26.8mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/4.5

Here’s an example at f/4.5 and 100% – looks nice and crisp.

COOLPIX P900 @ 26.8mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/8.0

Here’s the same lichen at f/8 and 100% – pretty good but not as crisp as the f/4.5 version. I would only shoot the P900 at f/8 if I absolutely needed the depth of field like in the rock slab shot above. Greater depth of field equates to more forgiveness in focusing. The flip side is if you want that super-narrow depth of field look (completely blurred out background) like this…

NIKON D600 + 500mm f/4 @ 700mm, ISO 800, 1/500, f/7.1

You need to shoot with a DSLR, preferably full frame like the D600 used for this Avocet shot. You won’t get it with the P900 or any other 1:2.3” sensor camera.

Zooming is power-only and takes 4 seconds to get from 24-2000mm. If you shoot more at one end of the range or another, you can set the start-up zoom position to whatever length you want and when you turn the camera on it will start zooming to that focal length.

The most glaring flaw with this lens is how much flare it suffers from because there is no lens hood and the front element is not recessed.

COOLPIX P900 @ 6.2mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/3.2

I needed to block the sun from the lens with my hand – I ended up doing this a lot.

COOLPIX P900 @ 6.2mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/3.2

COOLPIX P900 @ 4.3mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/8.0

Put the sun in the frame and I got more flare hexes than vultures in my shot. The hexes indicate Nikon used a six-blade diaphragm.

Nikon claims a 5-stop vibration reduction. Not sure about the numbers, but it worked good for me. A tripod worked even better and if you want to utilize the long end of the zoom range (and of course shoot in low light) I recommend one.

When put in close-up mode, Nikon claims the lens will focus to within 1 cm of the subject. However I actually shot Washington’s portrait on a dollar bill with the lens holding the bill flat against a window and it was in focus from about 1.5mm distance (but edges horridly soft).

COOLPIX P900 @ 5.4mm, ISO 110, 1/30, f/3.2

Besides how easy it would be to bump your subject and/or scratch your lens, being this close can cause the camera shadow to partially block your subject and even make a ring light give a bright donut pattern. I’ve been disappointed with soft macro performance in other point-and-shoots, but when I backed up a little, the P900 did admirably. I really like this next shot.

COOLPIX P900 @ 15.2mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/4.0

There’s a bit of softening up and left of the “N” in National Geographic and obvious barrel distortion, but otherwise things look pretty crisp. You can even clearly make out the “void” pantograph, designed to prevent counterfeiters from photoduplicating such checks. So the macro mode won’t pay back for itself that way, but for flowers or bugs where corner sharpness and distortion don’t mean much, it should be fine.

COOLPIX P900 @ 17mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/4.0

This caterpillar looks very sharp. Even cropped at about 50%. But with the inherent great depth of field of the P900 there’s a bit of distraction in the background.

Here’s another caterpillar. Viewed full frame:

COOLPIX P900 @ 17mm, ISO 100, 1/500, f/4.0

And at 100%:

COOLPIX P900 @ 17mm, ISO 100, 1/500, f/4.0

I’m impressed by the sharpness.

COOLPIX P900 @ 18.7mm, ISO 100, 1/800, f/4.0

Here we see an example of using the greater depth of field to include some background for context.

COOLPIX P900 @ 12.5mm, ISO 100, 1/1250, f/3.5

Here I wanted a simpler background so I used the sky.

COOLPIX P900 @ 15.2mm, ISO 400, 1/1000, f/8.0

And here I used the black side of my collapsible reflector as my background.

COOLPIX P900 @ 5.9mm, ISO 400, 1/800, f/6.3

This is about 3”x4” worth of dead prickly pear. At f/6.3 the corners show just a smidge of softness.

The post Nikon Coolpix P900 Review – 24-2000mm and Beyond appeared first on Photography Life.

With the introduction of the D7200, Nikon yet again ignored the desires of wildlife photographers. They didn’t shrink the buffer like they did with the D7100 (in fact they gave it a welcome increase), but they retained the 17% frame rate slashing that started with the D7100 (in comparison to its predecessor the D7000).  Folks hoping Nikon would answer Canon’s release of the 10fps 7D Mark II are certainly disappointed. There are two things Nikon doesn’t seem to get about wildlife photography. First, wildlife photographers don’t want to pick either a DX or FX body to shoot with, we want one of each that will work together as a system – an FX body for great low-light capability and a DX option when we need extra reach. Both circumstances come up on an almost daily basis for the wildlife photographer. The second thing Nikon doesn’t get is that wildlife photography is no longer a pursuit reserved only for rich hobbyists.

NIKON D4S + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 32254, 1/1600, f/5.0

A typical day shooting wildlife for me starts with the D4s for dawn shooting at high ISO, with the faster 500mm if I feel I need it. As light levels increase I might switch to the slower 800mm for extra reach (the D4s not having much leeway to crop). At dusk the D4s comes out again for the same reason.

NIKON D810 + 800mm f/5.6 @ 1000mm, ISO 1250, 1/320, f/7.1

When light levels allow me to shoot at lower ISOs, I’ll switch to my Nikon D810 if my subject doesn’t demand a high frame rate (I consider the D810 in crop mode to be Nikon’s best DX wildlife option). With the D810, I have insane resolution and that gives me more “reach” via cropping. In DX mode with the battery grip (and AAs or a D4/D4s battery) I can squeeze out 7 fps with a huge buffer. But I would gladly switch to a D4s/D7200 kit because the D7200 has better AF, even more reach than the D810, and slightly better low-light performance when downsampled to 15mp and compared to the D810 in its 15-mp DX mode (for equal subject size in final output).

NIKON D7200 + 800mm f/5.6 @ 1150mm, ISO 500, 1/1000, f/9.0

Unfortunately, the D7200’s measly frame rate and teensy buffer could cost me in missed shots.

About that frame rate – the Nikon website says the D7200 shoots 6 fps at full resolution.

But check this out from the D7200 manual.

You only get 5 fps in 14-bit lossless RAW (full resolution plus full color depth = top image quality), which ties the D7200s burst rate for last place amongst their current stable of DSLRs; not good for a wildlife camera.  This 14-bit 5fps frame rate is continued on from the D7100, which on Nikon USA’s website is labeled as 6fps with no indication on the “tech specs” that it drops to 5fps at 14-bit.  You have to download or own the paper version of the D7100 and D7200 manuals to discover this limitation.  I found this misleading.

With the D7100, Nikon kneecapped the buffer to destroy its capabilities as a wildlife camera. With the D7200, they tripled the D7100s buffer, but this is like upgrading from a walker to a cane. A wildlife camera should be able to run like a cheetah. The D7200 limps along like the cheetah’s next meal – the weak, waiting for the strong (Canon 7D Mark II) to remove it from the gene pool.

Nikon doesn’t want the D7200 to negatively impact its D4s sale, er sales. But does Nikon really make that much off the D4s? It’s too expensive and too specialized for most photographers, therefore sells in such limited numbers it surely has minimal impact on Nikon’s bottom line. It’s mostly out there to shine as a flagship of technology and boost Nikon’s reputation. It seems that Nikon feels that to get in the wildlife photography game that one should ante up 15 grand minimum for a D4s and a super-telephoto prime like the 500mm. But with the introduction of the very capable Tamron 150-600mm (read our in-depth review of the Tamron 150-600mm) for just over a grand, and Canon’s 7D Mark II for just under 2K, one can get into shooting wildlife for just $3000. OMG, who invited the hoi polloi to play? It’s no longer a rich hobbyist’s pursuit.

NIKON D810 + 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 2500, 1/320, f/8.0

What about the D400? Did Nikon dumb down the D7200 not to protect D4s sales, but to protect D400 sales? Us Nikon faithful remain ever hopeful that Nikon will listen to consumer demand and release a high-fps, big buffer, pro DX D300 replacement (and competitor to the 7D Mark II). Sadly, I think we’ll see this before we see a D400.

Much as I’d be thrilled to see Bigfoot riding Nessie, I hope I’m wrong about the D400. Nikon killed off the pro-DX line 6 years ago and has not given the slightest hint that they will bring it back. I think the best hope for a wildlife capable DX body will come in about 2 years when the D7200 is due for an upgrade. By then the EXPEED 5 processor and next generation sensors will make a 24mp 12 fps DX body a cinch to produce. But will Nikon do that? They didn’t get to be Number Two by listening to consumer demand.

The Answer

Release a D7200w – all it would take is increasing the buffer, which is just RAM. With more RAM to offload sensor data to, the frame rate could be boosted to 7 fps at full image quality (we already know the mirror/shutter will handle this because it can rip 7 fps in 1.3x mode). The one thing that could stop this is possible limitations with sensor offload speeds, but I’m guessing the sensor is capable and Nikon simply dumbed down the performance to a feature level they deem appropriate for a $1200 body. A 7 fps DX body with a 100-shot RAW buffer would make me stop fantasizing about that 7D Mark II over at Best Buy. I would gladly pay another $200 or so for the added RAM, just like I buy added RAM for my computer. It wouldn’t be the body for everybody, but Nikon has released narrowly targeted products before like the D810a for astrophotography. A D7200w plus 150-600mm would introduce lots of customers to the joys of wildlife photography, getting them hooked not just on the hobby, but on the Nikon system as well.  Eventually, the D7200w would be the gateway drug leading consumers to invest in a D4s or D5 down the road.

The best solution right now? I might just go with a two-camera system – the D4s/7D Mark II. Sounds crazy. I can get into a 7D Mark II and a Tamron or Sigma 150-600mm for 3-4K. Just leave that lens on the entire time and it becomes my go-to second body. My biggest worry is teaching my fingers to go to the right controls when switching back and forth.

When it comes to action photography Nikon’s D7200 proudly claims “I Am Challenge Ready”. I reckon a lot of wildlife photographers will be saying “I Am Switching To Canon”.

Text and all photos ©John Sherman.  Please no reproduction without written permission.

The post Dumbing Down the D7200 – What Nikon Doesn’t Get About Wildlife Photography appeared first on Photography Life.

The Nikon D7200 is Nikon’s newly released top-of-the-DX-line DSLR. With the D7200, Nikon is holding firm in their conviction that their flagship DX model should cost $1200, the same price as the D7100 at its introduction. Compared to the D7100, the D7200 has nearly three times the buffer, an improved AF-system, the latest EXPEED 4 processor and a bunch of other nice features, especially for video shooters. Let’s check some specs, but first a warning – Nikon released the D7200 right at prime mating season in Arizona. Birds and bees were being birds and bees.  This could be our sexiest review yet.

1) Key Features and Specifications

• DX-format DSLR – 1.5x crop factor
• 24 MP CMOS sensor without an optical low pass filter
• Up to 5 fps continuous shooting in 14-bit RAW
• Up to 6 fps continuous shooting in 12-bit RAW or JPEG
• 1.3x crop mode gives 13.5 MP images and up to 6 fps in 14-bit RAW or 7 fps in 12-bit RAW
• Buffer: 13-22 shots in 14-bit lossless (as tested – Nikon advertises 18 shot 14-bit lossless buffer), 97 shot large fine JPEG (as tested)
• New Multi-CAM 3500 DX II AF system with TTL phase detection, 51 points with 15 cross-type sensors. Center sensor is capable of focusing f/8 lenses
• ISO Range: 100 – 25,600 (full color), boost to 51,200-102,400 (black and white only)
• Metering Sensor: 2,016-pixel RGB (3D Color Matrix) sensor
• EXPEED 4 processor and 14-bit A/D Conversion
• Twin SD Card Slots with SD, SDHC, and SDXC memory card compatibility
• Eye-level Pentaprism Single-Lens Reflex Viewfinder with 100% frame coverage
• Full 1080p HD video recording at up to 30p (1x mode) and 60fps (1.3x mode)
• Up to 9999 shot in-camera time lapse with exposure smoothing
• Detection Range: -3 – +19 EV (ISO 100, 20°C/68°F)
• Body Type and Shutter: Magnesium-alloy body, superior weather/moisture and dust seals and a 150,000 cycle-rated shutter system
• LCD: 3.2 Inch, 1,229K-dot LCD Monitor
• Built-in Wi-Fi with NFC
• US Price: $1,199 – body only

2) Build and Handling

If you shoot with a D7100, D810 or D750, the D7200 will feel familiar. I like how it fits my hands and I always feel like I have a secure grip on it. Most of the key buttons are in the same location and I found I could go back and forth between my D810 and the D7200 almost seamlessly. The biggest difference would be the rear-AF button placement on the D810 that has always driven me nuts. I much prefer having just one button there like on the D7200. I shoot in manual a lot and by assigning the video record button to adjust ISO in still mode, I have shutter speed, aperture and ISO controls all quickly adjustable with my right fingers. In comparison, my D7000 is much slower and clumsier to set the ISO on, requiring that I take the camera away from my face. A check of the D7100 owner’s manual and firmware updates indicates that the D7100 doesn’t allow this either.

Nikon D7200 + 800mm f/5.6 @ 1000mm, ISO 800, 1/2000, f/8.0

The D7200 is better weather-sealed than the D7000, but seeing as my D7000 has lasted 200K+ shots and I usually shoot in very dusty outdoor locales, build quality wasn’t an issue there. At 674 grams (23.9 ounces) the D7200 is reasonably light and balances well with lighter lenses, but not as well with heavier lenses like a 24-120mm, 18-300mm or 150-600mm. The D7200 lacks the crappy low-res plastic LCD cover found on the D7000. It does however have the same eyepiece cover that snaps off way too easily and wants to get lost, just like on the D7000, D7100, D600 and D750. Lastly, my pet peeve about all Nikon DSLRs; the D7200 comes with the painful D-Kapitator neck strap, except this time it doesn’t even have “D7200” embroidered on it. WTF? How will I know how many Nikon’s I’ve owned if I can’t look in my box full of discarded straps and read off all the model numbers?

The post Nikon D7200 Review appeared first on Photography Life.

If you’re an enthusiastic still photographer who’s started to dabble with video a bit, you’ve likely run into issues with fine visual footage, but substandard audio. Crappy audio can ruin the viewer’s experience every bit as quick as lousy visuals. It soon becomes apparent that your camera’s built-in microphone records not just your subject, but also the camera’s noises (focus motors, VR, heavy-breathing operator) as well as the nearby highway, airport, dragstrip, playground or pig farm. The first step taken usually involves buying a hot shoe-mounted directional mike, AKA shotgun mike. This is great for emphasizing the sound coming from the direction the camera is pointed, but it gets not just the subject speaking or softly purring, but also the jackhammers in the construction site across the street behind your subject. It is a poor choice if you want to record dialogue. For recording talking subjects, the next step is to add a lavalier microphone system. A lavalier microphone, AKA lav, AKA lapel mic, is a tiny microphone that clips to the user’s lapel, collar, or ZZ Top beard. It is very sensitive to sound coming from very close to the microphone and not to sounds further away. Therefore it is ideal for recording the wearer’s words without too much interference from background noise.

The Polsen ULW-16 is a wireless lav system that comes with the tiny lav mic, one transmitter and one receiver, a storage case and all the various cords you need to connect it to your DSLR, camcorder or other audio recorder. This is a simple system to use if you’re familiar with audio recording.

Lav systems with one microphone/transmitter and one receiver can run you anywhere from just over a hundred bucks all the way to 1500 clams for the sort of rig network weathermen use when giving you blow-by-blow from inside the tornado’s funnel. At $229, the Polsen system tested is one of the more affordable options and not designed for hurricane conditions. Cheaper systems usually only have two channels, thus have trouble avoiding interference. More expensive lav systems have more rugged construction, weathersealing, longer working distances, more channels, and features like auto-scanning for open frequencies, etc.

1) Sound Quality

We gave this system to working pro Dawn Kish to test out and give us her feedback, which I’ve summarized here. This test/review is aimed at how well the ULW-16 works when shooting with a DSLR.

Under favorable conditions, the Polsen ULW-16 system produces good quality sound with little or no hissing or popping. As with any microphone, direct wind wreaks havoc. The lav mic itself needs to be carefully attached to the subject to avoid bad noise from rubbing on the subject’s clothing or beard. The omnidirectional mic allows the speaker to turn his/her head and keep the sound coming in evenly (you can see this in the test video when I turn to shoot and keep talking).

Using the headphones in the receiver gave an airy hiss, but reception was clearer when the headphones were plugged into the camera. Our reviewer was happy when the recorded sound came out much clearer than it sounded during monitoring.

2) Range

When we tested range from well over 200 feet away, the sound came out loud and clear. There was a noisy lawnmower working just 100 feet from the camera recording the action and you don’t hear it at all.

3) Test Video

A few notes before playing the video. For your convenience, the editor put the bloopers at the front of the video so you wouldn’t have to fast forward to get to them. Also, wind is the enemy of any microphone used outdoors – give the video 90 seconds and you’ll hear the difference between the three systems.

As you can see and hear from the video, you’re better off just using subtitles when the wind kicks in. Nevertheless, there is a dramatic improvement going from the in-camera mic to the shotgun mic, then an even more dramatic improvement when we recorded on the lav system.

4) Other Notes

There are dials to adjust the signal level going from the transmitter to the receiver and from the receiver to the recording device (in this review, sound was recorded on the DSLR used, not a separate recorder).

With 16 channels to choose from, it’s easy to find one with minimum or no interference. To change channels you press the up/down buttons on the front of the unit – these don’t lock so it’s easy to accidentally bump the button and lose the signal.

The transmitter and receiver each run on 2 AA batteries that are easily accessed from the front of the unit.

The belt clip is quite stiff so a bit hard to attach to a belt or pocket. However as these aren’t ruggedly built, you’ll appreciate the belt clip’s aggressive grip so you don’t drop the transmitter.

Construction-wise, you get what you pay for here. It’s nearly all plastic. The parts seem well fitted together, however the antennae feel delicate. I wouldn’t want to sit on these or drop them, but they come with a foam-lined hard plastic storage case. To bring a lav system with these features to the market at this price, Polsen had to make some compromises. Fortunately they decided to go with good performing electronics in a cheap box, not the other way around.

5) Summary

The Polsen ULW-16 is a good entry-level lav system for the money, but not professional grade. It’s easy to use and delivers good sound, but you need to treat them delicately as they are somewhat fragile.

Here are the main pros and cons:

Pros

• Good sound quality
• Easy to use
• 16 channels to find one without interference
• Good distance performance
• Plosives well-controlled
• Line level output
• Lightweight
• Inexpensive

Cons

• Easy to accidently change channel
• Not weatherproof
• Not durable – cheap plastic construction – flimsy antennae

6) Where to Buy

You can purchase the Polsen ULW-16 Wireless Microphone System from our partner B&H Photo Video for $229.95 (as of 05/08/2015).

The post Polsen ULW-16 Wireless Microphone System Review appeared first on Photography Life.

The Elvid RigVision CM-7L is a supplemental monitor designed for field use with video cameras and DSLRs. I tested it for still photo usage and gave it to Dawn Kish to test for video work.

Elvid CM-7L RigVision mounted on Nikon D810.

Features

• 7-inch diagonal screen
• 1024×600 resolution
• HDMI and Composite Inputs
• HDMI Loop Out
• Flip-up sunshield
• IR remote
• Right-angle HDMI cable with clamp
• Headphone jack and built-in speakers
• Shutter release, bulb and AF buttons
• MSRP $449.95

Still Photo Usage

I know of few better ways to beat up on myself than by trying to photograph wildlife. Sometimes, though, I prefer to relax. That’s when I shoot landscapes and nature abstracts; i.e. subjects that won’t run away.

When you have plenty of time to create your compositions, a field monitor can be handy. The large view makes it much easier to work with than squinting through your viewfinder or ducking in to peruse your camera’s LCD with a Hoodman or other such device. Furthermore you can adjust the angle of your screen to your convenience. All this leads to tighter compositions and a much better chance to spy the stray soda can or plastic bag lurking in the landscape to ruin your prize-winning shot.

How does the Elvid RigVision score for stills?

Its 1024×600 resolution is good, beating most other available 7-inch monitors that tend to sport 800×480 resolution. However, when composing in Live View with my D810 the Elvid indicates it is at 480p at 60Hz. When in playback mode it says 1080p at 60 Hz. I tried changing HDMI output settings on my D810 and still got the same figures. Even at 480p, I found composing easy.  As well, focusing was good when I used the D810’s Live View focus zoom at 1:1.

It took about 15 minutes for me to go into the Elvid menu and tweak the monitor to match the color and white balance on my D810. I set the RigVision picture control to “standard” mode instead of the default “user” mode. This seemed to get closest contrast-wise to matching what my D810 screen at Nikon Standard Picture Control was outputting. Then I went to User settings under white balance and fiddled back and forth until I decided on Red 61, Green 38, and Blue 50 as a close match.

The hot shoe mounted ball head is complete junk. It can barely support its own weight, much less that of anything connected to it. If I was shooting in vertical mode, it flipped over no matter how hard it was screwed down. Even in horizontal mode and screwed down tight the monitor would spin freely. I would recommend replacing it with a different hot shoe ball head – even bubblegum would probably work better.

The RigVison with battery, HDMI cable and ball head attached weighs 1 lb 10.9 ounces. The construction is mostly plastic, but doesn’t feel cheap (except the ball head) – the buttons, HDMI wire clamp, battery latch, etc., seem reasonably sturdy.

You need to be in Live View to use the RigVision. Turning on the RigVision would turn off the camera’s Live View requiring you to hit the Live View button again. I had to press Live View two or three times to get the RigVision up and working. Overall it takes about 30-35 seconds to get booted up. Once it was working it was great for composing and focusing. Then I would snap a picture using the camera’s shutter release and a 2- or 3-second exposure delay to let things settle. The RigVision has a built-in shutter release button, but because the HDMI cable is only about a foot long the RigVision will usually be attached to the camera anyway. I didn’t see any advantage to using the RigVision shutter release. Ditto with the AF button on the RigVision, which works as well, but seems redundant unless you have a longer HDMI cord and use the unit off camera. It would be nice if you could use the RigVision IR remote to trigger the shutter, focus or video recording, but it doesn’t allow this. The remote only controls on-off, volume/mute, and menu scrolling/choices.

After snapping a shot, the camera’s Live View screen comes back on, but the RigVision display needs another second to recognize the signal and go from blue screen to the live camera feed. Ordinarily this would be no issue, but if working with multiple exposures to either stitch a pano, focus stack or shoot HDR, then changing light conditions, cloud movement and the like could become problematic.

The sunscreen works good in horizontal mode, but can be good or bad in vertical mode depending on light source location.

In windy conditions any field monitor will act like a sail on your camera. This is not an Elvid issue. I did testing in windy conditions on a sturdy tripod and needed to crank up the ISO to get fast enough shutter speeds to counteract the additional camera shake this caused.

The screen itself is quite shiny which was disconcerting when trying to view a beautiful landscape and seeing a bunch of gray whiskers reflecting back as well. When did that happen? As when using the camera’s Live View for composition, it helps to wear a dark shirt.

Some of the problems I experienced with the CM-7L might have been user error, which is highly likely given how skimpy the owner’s manual is. There are no troubleshooting lists and if you check Elvid’s website you just get a “coming soon” page. Email them for technical help and instead of answers to my questions I got an offer for an RMA to return for a replacement unit. Hopefully this will change as Elvid matures as a brand.

Overall, for still shooting of still subjects I dig the big screen and good resolution to help with composition and critical focus. I like that you can adjust the screen angle with a field monitor to minimize reflections and ease working at awkward low or high angles. Using a field monitor gives me a much better feel for how my finished product will look compared to using a Hoodman that emphasizes how pixelated my LCD screen looks. However the Elvid RigVision has a bunch of quirks (Live View lag, crappy ball head, no remote triggering, no tech support, etc.) that make it frustrating to work with.

Video Shooting

Dawn liked the view the screen gave and how it made manual focusing much easier than working off her D750’s LCD monitor. She also liked how it was easier to compose using a field monitor instead of the camera’s LCD monitor.

Even though video is shot horizontally, the ball head sucks for this too. Dawn describes it as feeling “chintzy”. All her testing was tripod mounted as any movement, such as following a subject or panning, would send the CM-7L flopping about like “a dying fish on the deck of a boat”.

The built-in “Banshee” speakers create hideous wailing feedback when video Live View is engaged and the CM-7L is mounted on-camera. The RigVision should default to mute when used with video Live View, but it doesn’t. The only cure Dawn could find was hitting the mute button on the Elvid remote. There is no mute button on the monitor itself so if you lose the remote or its battery dies, you’ll probably be losing your client as well. Dawn ended up Velcro-ing the remote to the RigVision sunscreen to be able to get to the mute quickly. Even then you have to remove the remote and point it at the screen for a clear line-of-sight to stop the squeal.

The CM-7L needs to be used with headphones when recording (good policy anyway) and mute engaged. Dawn plugged her headphones into her D750 as the sound was better than through the Elvid headphone jack. The Elvid speakers are really just for listening to recorded clips during playback so you don’t have to use headphones then.

In video mode the RigVision says 1080i at 60Hz.

The Li-ion battery life is listed as 6 hours and proved adequate for our test sessions. You can also shoot with it using the AC adapter. It is compatible with Sony L-series batteries.

Summary

When it comes to delivering a large clear view for composing and focusing for stills and video the Elvid RigVision CM-7L does a good job. Out of the box, the color balance is not a good match with the Nikon D810 or D750, but can be customized in the Elvid menu selections. When it comes to shooting stills or videos the CM-7L has a lot of nasty quirks like the screaming banshee feedback and the repeated Live View shutoffs. This is a product that needs refinements such as a mute button built in to the monitor, shutter release and AF ability from the remote, a decent owner’s manual and actual tech support. I would expect those qualities from a field monitor costing $450. If you buy this, order a different hot shoe ballhead and throw away the Elvid one.

Otherwise, just save yourself the trouble and get the Atomos Ninja 2.

Where to Buy

You can purchase the Elvid RigVision CM-7L from our trusted partner B&H Photo Video for $449.95 (as of 05/15/2015).

Text and photo © John Sherman

The post Elvid RigVision CM-7L Review appeared first on Photography Life.

12-bit image files can store up to 68 billion different shades of color. 14-bit image files store up to 4 trillion shades. That’s an enormous difference, so shouldn’t we always choose 14-bit when shooting RAW? Here’s a landscape I snapped, then found out later I had shot it in 12-bit RAW. Better toss this one out, right?

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 100mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/8.0

Depending on which class you took at the University of Google, the human eye is only capable of distinguishing between 2.5 and 16.8 million different shades of colors. If this is the case then wouldn’t 12-bit be plenty? Even 8-bit JPEGs can render 16.8 million colors.

There are many upsides to shooting 12-bit instead of 14-bit. The files are smaller, hence your camera’s buffer doesn’t fill up as fast, allowing longer action sequences to be caught before buffering out. 12-bit files take up less space on your memory cards – great for if you are on vacation without the ability to download your images every night. You can save money because you don’t need to purchase as many gigs of storage. Likewise, 12-bit hogs less space on your drives at home and the same number of 12-bit files load faster than if they were 14-bit. Lastly some cameras, such as Nikon’s D7100 and D7200 achieve higher burst rates when shot in 12-bit than in 14-bit.

So if the human eye can’t discern the difference and 12-bit has so many advantages, why doesn’t everyone just shoot in 12-bit? For the same reason brides want a real diamond, not a cubic zirconia. Admiring an engagement ring from a normal viewing distance, few people can tell the difference, but give that ring to a lab technician with a refractometer and they can distinguish the two (Note to readers: I will cut off your shutter finger if you forward this to my fiancé).

When given the choice I’ve always shot 14-bit, because as an American I know bigger is better and besides it’s my constitutional right to fritter away as many redundant bytes as I please. I went to the internet (I sense trouble coming) to validate my feelings and found a lab test where someone shot a lens chart with a DX body at 4 stops underexposed then zoomed in to 200% and sure enough, you could see a difference. Then I checked another site where test shots showed no difference. This was getting confusing for my puny brain so I decided to field test 12-bit versus 14-bit to see if I could tell any difference. I started out with landscapes – if anyone is picky about file quality it’s us landscape geeks. Bear in mind that these tests are in the field, not the lab, and though I tried my best to keep all parameters the same, there may be some slight variations due to Nature and/or the tolerances the camera is built to. I shot with a D810.

Here’s a nice yucca shot in 14-bit and properly exposed.

Nikon D810 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 64, 1/2, f/22.0

And here’s the same yucca in 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 64, 1/2, f/22.0

I can’t tell a difference.

Next I tried a shot that would test the camera’s dynamic range with sunlit clouds and a shadowed foreground. I exposed not to blow out the highlights, which then resulted in the shadows being pretty underexposed, requiring me to pull the shadow detail back up in post. Here’s the original 14-bit file with no post-processing. (I won’t bore you with the 12-bit original – it looks identical.)

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/10.0

And here’s the 14-bit with the shadows recovered.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/10.0

And the 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/10.0

Here’s 14-bit cropped in on some shadow detail.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/10.0

And the 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/10.0

Oh crop, there’s no difference I can tell. I showed this to a photographer with more critical eyes than mine and she couldn’t tell a difference either. Maybe the difference is only visible in a final print. So I printed the two versions and still couldn’t tell a difference.

So far my tests were with well-exposed shots. It holds to reason that if I were to be able to tell a difference it would be in the dark values as when you’re courting the left side of the histogram, you’re dealing with a lot less raw information. After all, in dark conditions such as underexposure, fewer photons are being counted at each pixel site than when it is bright. (See Spencer Cox’s article about the theoretical advantages of having more data to work with by exposing to the right side of the histogram.)

I was driving through Northern Arizona late one afternoon and there were some clouds so I had to detour to The Mittens. Sadly the clouds started shrinking to where I would have a mediocre sunset shot. Rather than pack up and leave, I thought “ah ha”, time to run some more 12-bit versus 14-bit tests. But this time I’ll bracket the exposures and see what happens.

Rather than go through 30 samples of original shots, tweaked in post shots, and tweaked and cropped to 100% shots, lets fast-forward to the most underexposed sample.  First the unprocessed 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

And 12-bit unprocessed.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

14-bit tweaked and cropped to 100%.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

12-bit tweaked and cropped to 100%.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

What’s a guy got to do to see a difference? These are virtually identical, especially given that this was natural light, which isn’t always even and there could be slight exposure variations due to tiny shutter speed and aperture differences. If I can tell any difference at all it might be a teensy bit more contrast in the tweaked 12-bit samples.

The above tweaking was from letting Lightroom auto-tone the images. Not really the best presentation of this file so I went in and tweaked more to my liking and applied the exact same parameters to each file.

14-bit tweaked.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

And 12-bit tweaked.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 75mm, ISO 64, 1/400, f/5.0

Squinting real hard I’m learning two things. First, I can’t tell the difference between these 12- and 14-bit images unless I look at the metadata. Second, my 24-120 Nikkor is pretty soft in the corners – I should have shot my 50mm.

You may have noticed all of these so far are at base ISO. Maybe I need to go to higher ISOs where the camera will have to amplify the signal hence we might encounter some noticeable differences. I went inside to get low enough light.

Again, instead of running you through dozens of tedious samples, we’ll cut to the chase. These are at ISO 3200. The scene has a ridiculous dynamic range from sunlit bushes outside the window to deeply shadowed pillows inside.  First the untweaked 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/100, f/16.0

Now the untweaked 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/100, f/16.0

The 12-bit looks a tad brighter. The following had identical tweaks save the exposure of the 14-bit was boosted a tad to match the 12-bit.  Tweaked and cropped 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/100, f/16.0

Tweaked and cropped 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/100, f/16.0

Just maybe an eensy bit more constrast in the 12-bit, but I reckon if you printed these out and swapped them around and showed them to me I couldn’t pick out one from the other.

I guess we’ll have get ridiculous and head to that special place where histograms go to die.

Here’s the 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/3200, f/16.0

And the original histogram. Oh my, even Michael Moore doesn’t expose that far left.

And 12-bits of despair.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/3200, f/16.0

Again the 12-bit looks a tiny bit lighter so this is perhaps a 12-bit/14-bit D810 thing, not any variation in light levels or shutter speed/aperture tolerances.

14-bits cropped and tweaked.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/3200, f/16.0

12-bits cropped and tweaked with the same parameters.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 40mm, ISO 3200, 1/3200, f/16.0

At last, a difference I can see – the 12-bit file after extreme processing is having some trouble holding highlight detail. However I can see a tiny bit more shadow detail in the 12-bit file. This might be due to the f/16 aperture not closing as far on that particular exposure, hence letting a few more photons reach the sensor. Or maybe not.  Either way, both 12-bit and 14-bit files look like they drank too much and puked all over themselves.

Let’s try again. Here’s a scene in Petrified Forest. I’m underexposing heavily and stopped way down trying to get a small, tight sunstar and seeing just how much I can retrieve from the shadows in post.  (This would be a much better candidate for exposure blending, but we’re running a test here.)

Here’s the untweaked files.  First the 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 125, 1/400, f/16.0

Now the 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 125, 1/400, f/16.0

And now with identical post processing. -100 highlights, +100 shadows, +2.45 exposure, and various other tweaks.

The 14-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 125, 1/400, f/16.0

And the 12-bit.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 125, 1/400, f/16.0

At last, I created a practical field test that is showing a difference.  The 12-bit version has got an unpleasant greenish cast and the 14-bit is trending slightly magenta. Also it looks like there is more shadow detail in the 12-bit. Let’s fix the color in the 12-bit shot as seen below.

Nikon D810 + 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm, ISO 125, 1/400, f/16.0

Voila. Looks great now and I like the extra shadow detail recovery. As I’ve already gone to +100 in the shadows there’s no further global adjustments I can give the 14-bit without blowing out my sunstar. I’d have to do local dodging and burning to match the two.

The takeaway I got from all this is that worrying about having 14-bit files instead of 12-bit is silly if you expose well or even just don’t mess up too bad. Good post-processing can give results that make it hard if not impossible to distinguish between 12- and 14-bit files. I did these tests to mimic situations I might encounter. I encourage readers to do their own tests with the sort of subjects they shoot. Feel free to share your results in the comments section.

All said and done, will I switch to shooting 12-bit? Psychologically this tears me apart knowing my files won’t be all they can be. Furthermore I like to photograph birds. They have four cone types in their eyes versus three for humans, hence have far superior color vision, up to ten times better. What if I want to sell family portraits to this Mallard mom?

Us humans can’t see the difference, but Mama Mallard sure will. Aw, those Mallards are pretty stingy anyway. I’ll just switch to 12-bit and increase my chance of getting the shot (through shameless spray and pray tactics) rather than getting a bigger file I can’t appreciate. And I can always switch back to 14-bit when conditions dictate I should – like the next time I’m shooting handheld candlelit test chart shots and forget to remove my 6-stop ND filter.

Text and photos ©John Sherman

The post 14-bit vs 12-bit RAW – Can You Tell The Difference? appeared first on Photography Life.

Many times in my travels I’ve happened upon a beautiful scene spread wide before me with a huge dynamic range that just begged to be photographed. It would require HDR to capture the range but also need to be stitched together as a panorama. I’d set up my tripod, snap the sequences, then get home and say “Verm, it’s time you give HDR another try.” Which would last about two minutes until the first bracketed set of shots made it into Photoshop HDR Pro and gave me a result that looked like someone painted a coat of gray primer over it.

I’d look at the slider panel and have no idea where to start.

I’d randomly play the sliders until I felt the stomach contents crawling up my throat then give up in disgust.

Those files languished about until now. Enter Lightroom 6.

For me the biggest new addition with Lightroom 6 is its HDR and Panorama features. Both are very basic and easy to use. But do they yield good results? Let’s drag some of those old files out.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 31mm, ISO 125, 1/30, f/5.6

Ah, sunset over the Grand Canyon. Bright sun, deep dark canyon, huge dynamic range. As you can see, capturing the glory in one shot is a losing proposition. The above was shot at 31mm with a 24-120mm. The sky’s blown out in parts and what you can see of the canyon doesn’t look all that grand. So I set up a tripod, leveled the head (bubble level in head), then took five sets of bracketed shots, each set having five exposures a stop apart for a total of 25 shots. I panned between each set of brackets yielding about 50% overlap, which in this case was overkill (30% would have been fine).

Back on the computer I opened the 25 shot group in Lightroom 6 and went through the following steps:

1. Select all 25 files, go to develop module and check “Enable Profile Corrections”:

   This straightens out any distortion. Click “sync” at the bottom of the window:

2. Select first set of five bracketed images:

   Go to Photo>Photo Merge>HDR and click HDR:

   You can do this straight out of the library module if you wish.

3. In HDR mode you will get this screen:

   Even though I was shooting from a tripod I leave auto align checked in case there was some subtle shift between exposures. Note: I have tried auto align with some handheld HDR attempts and it did a good job lining up the shots – handy to know if you leave the tripod at home or don’t have time to set it up. When it comes to auto tone, sometimes I like the result, sometimes I don’t. It doesn’t hurt to leave it checked because if you don’t the result, just take the HDR file into develop module and hit reset. This will remove the auto tone, but leave all the data to work with giving you the same file you would have had if you didn’t check the box.

4. Choose how much deghosting if any. Deghosting tries to correct for the presence of moving objects. For example, if there is a person in the sequence who doesn’t stay perfectly still or if there is wind blowing leaves about. If no moving objects, click none. Click low for slight movement, medium for medium movement and high for lots of movement. Checking the deghost overlay box shows a light red overlay on the image where deghosting has done its magic. This red overlay does not show in the final HDR file so it doesn’t hurt to check it and it’s kinda cool to see how the program picks out data to merge into the final file.
5. Click merge, wait about a minute, and out pops your first HDR file.
6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the other bracketed sequences.

After following the steps above, I’ve got five HDR files to stich into my pano. Here’s one.

Nikon D810 + 24-120mm f/4 @ 31mm, ISO 125, 1/125, f/5.6

What’s great is these HDR files are DNGs, meaning they are still RAW files I can nondestructively edit to my taste later. Had I created my HDR’s in Photoshop, I would have ended up with TIFFs which would be huge and cumbersome to deal with or JPEGs I couldn’t tweak nondestructively.

Note: at this point, if I forgot to apply lens corrections I still can to the HDR DNGs.

7. Select the five HDRs.
8. Go to Photo>Photo Merge>Panorama and click “Panorama”

   Again this can be done from library module.

9. You only have a couple choices to make. Insert screen shot. Going with auto-select projection usually yields good results but let’s learn what the other choices mean. Adobe’s website explains them thusly: “Spherical: Aligns and transforms the images as if they were mapped to the inside of a sphere. This projection mode is great for really wide or multirow panoramas. Cylindrical: Projects the panorama as if it were mapped to the inside of a cylinder. This projection mode works really well for wide panoramas, but it also keeps vertical lines straight. Perspective: Projects the panorama as if it were mapped to a flat surface. Since this mode keeps straight lines straight, it is great for architectural photography. Really wide panoramas may not work well with this mode due to excessive distortion near the edges of the resulting panorama.” Shortly I’ll show examples of how all three look with our Grand Canyon pano. Before that we need to decide on auto-crop. Again you can check this and change your mind later (to do this don’t hit reset as this will reset any other changes like auto-tone – just go to the crop tool and you’ll see the entire uncropped file). I leave it unchecked in this case because it looks like my tripod is a degree askew and I’ll need to go into the crop tool anyway to straighten it later.
10. Click merge.

A couple minutes of computer crunching and out pops this.

Looks pretty good and it appears auto-select chose spherical projection this time. From step one through step ten only took 10 minutes.

Here’s what cylindrical projection looks like:

And here’s as close as I got with perspective:

Super stretched and distorted at the corners and when I tried to save an uncropped version it crashed Lightroom each time.

So both spherical and cylindrical gave great results but a different feel. For the feel of the wide-open expanse of the canyon, I like the spherical projection. However, the cylindrical projection gives the canyon depth and that vertiginous feeling you get leaning over the lookout railing. Either way it comes down to a matter of taste.

Now we get to the part I really like about how Lightroom 6 handles HDR and DNG. The HDR-pano it just cranked out is also a DNG file, so I can mosey over to the develop module and fondle my beloved sliders as much as I want.

Add a little contrast, a nip of vibrance and a dash of saturation to get rid of the RAW blah and voila:

Photos all © John Sherman. Text © John Sherman except as attributed elsewhere.

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For ages I’ve heeded the warnings from camera manufacturers that inserting non-OEM batteries into my camera could make the camera explode or at the very least give it a nasty case of shingles. But a year ago I purchased a Nikon D4s and wanted a spare EN-EL18 battery. The Nikon battery was 150 bucks – why I could get a fifth of 25-year old Glenfarclas for that much. I saw positive reviews of the Wasabi batteries and decided to try one of those at a third of the price of the OEM battery. It worked just fine so I got more batteries, both the Wasabi and the Watson brands, for my D4s and my D7000 and D810 bodies. I’ve been using the Wasabis for a year and the Watsons for 7 months. For the first few months, they worked so well I never give a second thought as to whether I’d grabbed the Nikon batteries or the third party batteries when I went out on a shoot.

Since giving Wasabi and Watson batteries a chance, I’ve shot over 100000 exposures so they’ve been charged and discharged a lot. As well they are properly chipped so the camera display shows how much charge is left and how many shots were taken on the charge, just like with the OEM batteries.

At the time of writing, one of my Wasabi EN-EL15s will only charge up to 22%, the other Wasabi makes it to 65%. My Watson EN-EL15 bit the dust as described below (all my fault). My Watson EN-EL18 charged to 93%, while both of my Wasabi EN-EL18s and my Nikon EN-EL18a charged up to 100%.

After all that shooting I’ve only had one complete battery failure and that was from a Watson EN-EL15 that was submerged in water for over an hour (the “waterproof” ammo can turned out to be less than waterproof). Under those circumstances, I really can’t blame the battery for being pissed off and deciding never to work for me again. Interestingly it was in the same ziplock (also leaky) with a Nikon EN-EL15. I shook a lot of water out of both and dried them for days in the sun. The Nikon actually survived and continued working.

I haven’t had issues charging the Wasabi and Watson batteries in the Nikon chargers.

Some of the bigger concerns about using third party batteries are:

• Leakage
• Swelling causing difficulty inserting or removing
• Shorter useful life than OEM equivalent
• Incompatibility with camera and/or OEM charger
• Incompatibility due to firmware updates
• Voiding your camera’s warranty

All batteries are not created equal. Some third party manufacturers use better quality cells than others. I strongly doubt that any camera manufacturer makes their own cells. Instead they purchase them from a battery manufacturer, just like the third party companies do. How good a cell is used has a lot to do with the eventual retail price of the battery.

One difference of note is that the Nikon EN-EL 18a battery weighs 158 grams, a few more than the Wasabi (152g) and Watson (150g). Other than the 2g weight difference and the labels the Watson and Wasabi look identical – they have the same case. The Nikon EN-EL15 weighs 86g, the Watson weighs 75g and the Wasabi weighs 73g. The Watson and Wasabi batteries look like they are the same battery but with different labels. The very slight weight difference suggested otherwise. One way to find out.

Here’s a Watson (black label, light green cells) and Wasabi (white labels dark green cells) EN-EL15 broken open. The circuit boards are identical, but the actual cells are indeed different. Please disregard the rust evident in the Watson as that was the battery that got sacrificed to the river gods.

In addition to the weight differences, the mAh rating of the batteries differs. In theory, a battery rated at higher milliamp-hours should give more shots per charge all else being equal. From lowest to highest mAh for the EN-EL15s it goes like this: Watson 1800 mAh, Nikon 1900 mAh, and Wasabi 2000 mAh. For the EN-EL18s it goes like this: Nikon (EN-EL18a) 2500 mAh, Watson 2600 mAh, and Wasabi 2800 mAh. In practice, most of us slip in a spare before fully exhausting our batteries, and I never noticed any appreciable difference in how much I was getting per charge until they aged.

Most batteries have a chip in them. This communicates charge info to the camera. It also communicates if it is an OEM battery or not. Both Canon and Nikon have been known to issue firmware updates for their cameras that have disabled third party batteries (the charge meter no longer shows and perhaps other issues). As of this writing, all of my bodies have the latest firmware installed and the Wasabi and Watson batteries are working as they should. This is no guarantee that a future update might not knock them out.

One thing you get from the Nikon brand battery, besides an expensive “Nikon” label on the side, is the assurance that your camera’s warranty won’t be voided if there is battery related damage. I would be leery of third party batteries that are really inexpensive.

Other than reduced capacity over age, my experience with Wasabi and Watson batteries has been positive. I want to emphasize that these are the only brands of third party batteries I’ve tried and that my positive experience with them is not an endorsement of third party batteries from other manufacturers. Because the OEM batteries last longer, they are more economical if you shoot a lot. If you shoot sparingly you might find the Wasabi and Watson batteries to be adequate. Another reason I would consider third party batteries is if you are going on the trip of a lifetime and need a bunch of spare capacity because you won’t be able to recharge during the trip. For instance, my Watson battery drowned in the Grand Canyon – an 18-day trip with no electrical outlets. Fortunately I had a bunch more batteries so I could keep shooting for the entire 200-mile raft adventure. In this scenario, I got just as much shooting out of the brand new third party batteries as I did my OEM batteries. Moreover, I saved enough by getting cheaper batteries to defray some other trip expenses. However, half a year later the OEMs are showing their superiority. With the EN-EL15s, the Nikon wins at cost per shot over the lifetime of the battery. It’s too early for me to say if this is true with the EN-EL18s.

That sums up my experience with third party batteries, but because third party battery horror stories abound out there, I thought it would be more informative for our readers if we were to conduct a poll of their battery experiences rather than to just rely on my experiences with a handful of samples. Whether you have had good or bad luck with third party batteries, please consider taking a minute to answer these poll questions.

The post Third Party Battery Review – Watson and Wasabi Batteries appeared first on Photography Life.

And I guess the follow-up question would be “Could Verm come up with a more provocative title?” To put you at ease, these sample pics are all saved at web resolution so you needn’t don eye protection. This last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting with the new AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4E FL ED VR. Here are some quickie sample pics and comments from the first few days of shooting. There’s more to come as I’ll be doing in-depth field tests and comparing results with the “old” Nikkor 500mm.

Is it sharp? I’ll let this spike answer.

NIKON D4S + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 2000, 1/125, f/5.6

This was handheld at 1/125 sec in the new “sport VR” mode. Sport VR is designed for objects that move in multiple directions, say a football player dodging a tackle or a cheetah chasing dinner or a football player dodging a cheetah chasing dinner. Speaking of eating…

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 2000, 1/200, f/5.0

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 3200, 1/400, f/5.6

No complaints with these pre-dawn breakfast shots. And finally the sun crests the horizon.

NIKON D4S + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 3200, 1/320, f/8.0

Looks like the deer on the right is fawning over the other one. Yes the 500 FL is a sharp as my wit is dull.

NIKON D4S + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 25600, 1/60, f/4.0

This bull elk was polishing his antlers and taking off some oak leaves in the process. It was pre-pre-dawn, and I was shooting wide open at 25600 ISO and 1/60^th of a second. Pretty soft. Alas the VR didn’t provide a miracle here. Here’s a better result (sharpnesswise) at 1/80 sec.

NIKON D4S + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 25600, 1/80, f/4.0

Let’s stop ruminating over the ruminants and get onto some bird-in-flight action. The nearly two-pound weight reduction compared to the old 500, makes the 500 FL eminently handholdable.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 1250, 1/1250, f/8.0

This Turkey Vulture is making the rounds wondering when the next tourist will slip off the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 1250, 1/1250, f/8.0

I’ve been standing in the sun for quite some time now and smelling a bit ripe. The vulture comes in for a closer inspection. AF-tracking with the D4s is giving a very high hit rate so far.

Nikon D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 640, 1/1250, f/9.0

And a young one comes by for a portrait shoot with the 500 FL attached to a D810. Let’s zoom in.

Nikon D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 640, 1/1250, f/9.0

Focus looks spot on the head in this one, not the easiest task with the bird coming nearly head on. Nevertheless, my initial impression is that my keeper rate was lower with the D810 than the D4s, which is strange given the have the same AF-module. I’ll be doing more testing on this.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 1600, 1/2000, f/9.0

What have we here? A vulture imposter. This is a Zone-tailed Hawk (juvenile). The Zone-tail has a clever hunting strategy. It looks nearly identical to a turkey vulture – similar size and markings and flying style. Chipmunks, mice and the like know Turkey Vultures only eat carrion and are no threats to a live critter. The Zone-tail takes advantage of this, mixing in with a flock of vultures all the while keeping a sharp eye out for tasty meals that have let their guard down. The 500 FL is tracking well as the hawk flies perpendicular to the lens axis. This despite a complex background that could easily throw the AF off.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 1600, 1/2000, f/10.0

And here it is coming straight on to the camera, giving a very narrow target to focus on, but again the 500 FL nails the shot.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 700mm, ISO 1600, 1/2000, f/9.0

And once more coming straight on, but this time the 500 FL is paired with a TC 14E II, which is not the latest version of 1.4x teleconverter (TC 14E III). Focus is looking good, though so far my keeper rate for BIF shots with the 1.4x was lower than without. I hope to try out the newer 1.4x with the 500 FL for the in-depth review.

NIKON D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 3200, 1/640, f/8.0

Looks like something died. The full crop (pink chest bulge) on the perched vulture indicates it recently ate.

From one scavenger to the uber-scavenger – the California Condor – largest flying land bird in North America and one of the rarest (only about 200 in the wild).

Nikon D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 700mm, ISO 400, 1/320, f/7.1

Here’s the handsome #87 giving the camera sexy. And this is where my too sharp question raises its ugly head. This is cropped way in to 100% and otherwise the untouched RAW file.

Nikon D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 700mm, ISO 400, 1/320, f/7.1

And here it is tweaked to get rid of the RAW blah. Eek, I can see every pore in it’s neck. Moreover, this was shot with the old 1.4x TC attached. I used a tripod on this – all the other prior shots in this post are handheld.

I’m okay with shots this sharp, especially pushing out to 500mm with the 1.4x, but upon close inspection I noticed this.

Nikon D810 + 500mm f/4 @ 700mm, ISO 800, 1/1000, f/6.3

No, not the dandruff.  The 500 FL is resolving the individual parallel barbs on the feathers so well they are creating interference with the pixel grid of the D810 sensor – in a word, I got moire. The luminance moire shows up as the wavy dark banding on the feathers and I’ve got color moire (hard to see in this output, but evident on my monitor) with repeated prismatic color splotches also evident. This is the risk you take shooting a camera without an OPLF (optical low pass filter, AKA anti-aliasing filter). The OPLF intentionally blurs the image before it reaches the sensor to reduce the possibility of moire. Of course, shooting a softer lens would probably do the trick too and the contrast between feather barbs wouldn’t show up. The cure? Shoot a body with an OPLF, such as the D4s. Better yet, don’t view your files at 400%.

Nikon D4s + 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, ISO 1250, 1/2000, f/9.0

So is the 500 FL too sharp? Hey, this is Photography Life and in This Life, no lens is too sharp. Sorry to worry you and I’ll get back to researching the full review.

Text and all photos ©John Sherman.  Please no reproduction without written permission.

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