SiMuMe wrote:
Super contrast there, Serge. Quite different from the 2.8.
Good eyes, Siphiwe. It does have a very different look compared to the 28/2.8. The colors are more saturated thanks to the contrast boost. It is a great lens assuming one gets a good copy, apparently the CRC on these is quite sensitive.
jimmuller wrote:
I appreciate the responses. I certainly don't claim to be a champion camera handler and admit that my vision isn't as good as it once was. But I'm skeptical. For this study I was seated on the bench of a solid, wooden picnic table, body leaning against the tabletop, both elbows solidly on the table, eyepiece pressed against my face. The slowest shutter speed was 1/2500 sec, the fastest 1/8000 sec, and the Z5ii has good IBIS. (That's the same hardware, Z5ii, FTZ, 300mm, no TC, I used for the hand-held-while-standing moon shot I posted a month or two ago.) Of course there is no mirror shake in a mirrorless camera. Well, there is some shutter movement. As always, I focused by using the viewfinder magnifier. Short of using a very good tripod and the foldout screen instead of the eyepiece so my progressive glasses don't interfere, there isn't much I could do to improve stability, and a poor tripod might be worse. The apertures for the 300mm shots were 8, 5.6, 4.5. Of course the TC shots would be effectively smaller by one click. I suppose I could have done this with smaller apertures. I did botch the second of three for the 300mm sequence, I think I nudged the focus ring when shifting my hand for stability. Finally (though I didn't show it), except for that botched shot the general detail was consistent for each lens. If I mishandled the camera then I did it consistently for each lens, and I would expect the 300 x 1.4 shots to be worse than the straight 300 shots. Ever so slight difference in camera balance? I'm skeptical.
One thing I think I imagine I believe I suspect I've observed is that the 300mm by itself works better in medium light than in hazy bright light. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's something related to contrast (Active D-Lighting?) in the camera settings. The lens is clean with no blemishes and almost no internal dust. It has a NISI (1395 Angstroms) UV-C filter. Or perhaps it's the glass itself. Brightness dependency is not a feature I've studied; it just seems that whenever I've been disappointed in a shot it was in a very bright setting.
The 300/4.5, along with the TC-301, are the only bits of MF Nikkor kit that I have bought and eventually sold on.
Both were boxed and pristine so I traded them in for a Z lens.
I never liked the output from the 300/4.5 and given it was a largish unit to haul around it never really suited my type of photography.
The 200/4 is the max focal length I own in MF land.
SiMuMe wrote:
Looks like you had great weather in Scotland, Regina. I love the light you had.
The weather wasn’t great the whole time. The day I went to the Isle of Skye, it rained pretty much all day. But, the landscape was still absolutely beautiful. See pics below.
D850 45Pmm f2.8
Serge, thanks! I did go to Edinburgh, and although I loved the city, it was way too crowded. I went a few days before the Edinburgh Festival. My mistake! I didn’t spend much time there, but I’ll post a few pictures.
I was not enthusiastic about the recent lunar eclipse because it would not be total and the brightness of the sunlit portion 'eclipses' the darkened red moon, besides, it was going to be cloudy.
But out came the 800mm 5.6, the laptop, and nikon camera control pro. With control pro I need not touch the camera on the tripod and avoid vibration in long exposures, I have learned how to do dark dark moon shots.
This is what a full lunar eclipse looks like, but before my learnings on exposure, from 2022.
At the peak of the eclipse, clouds were not in the way but the sky was still hazy, a good photo but not one I particularly like. The exposure is a lot better than the 2022 photo.
The next photo is here to make a case - NIKON - GIVE US A REAL PHOTOGRAPHY CAMERA - TAKE OUT ALL THE VIDEO STUFF AND OPTIMIZE THE SENSOR FOR DYNAMIC RANGE - so that a photo like the one below can actually be taken.
This is extreme processing given the range of brightness and is not a good photo.
I agree, the cloudy ones are the best, but I'm partial to clouds.
As for a photography camera, when video became the path to brazilion frames per second cameras and that's what people get excited about, it will always be part and parcel of future cameras. A DSLR could, but no company except Rico/Pentax thinks it's worth making DSLRs now.
DeltaSigma wrote:
...
I never liked the output from the 300/4.5 and given it was a largish unit to haul around it never really suited my type of photography.
The 200/4 is the max focal length I own in MF land.
The 200/4 is indeed a nice piece of glass. (Mine is the version just before they made it shorter and lighter in the mid-70's.) But that's not the point of this reply.
Someone, which is to say I, must be careful when drawing conclusions from that 300mm experiment. It does seem to demonstrate that the TC's larger image at the sensor is worth any possible IQ loss, if any. That's what I was curious about. But it doesn't represent real usage. I copped the same small subject from each of the FLs and upsized the 200 and 300 to match the 300x1.4. Other than for printing, the real usage is the reverse, extract larger croppings and downsize them to fit a computer or Auraframe screen, not upsize them.
The 24Mp sensor is 6048 pixels across, Suppose a subject occupied 1/3 of that, i.e. 2000 pixels, with the 200mm. With the 300mm's larger image that subject would occupy 3000 pixels, and with the 300x1.4 it would occupy 4200 pixels. Then each would be downsized to, say 1200, or 1024 for a Flickr export. Which one wins? I'd guess it depends on the resizing process. It's rare (or never) that I (at least) would extract a cropping smaller than 1200 and then enlarge it. I need to do a downsizing experiment. I expect the three final images would be not dissimilar. Downsizing is the great equalizer.
All that being said, a higher pixel count for the desired subject can still be desirable, for example display on a larger screen. Printing is the big reason. I haven't printed anything for decades and don't expect to, but someone else might. Images submitted for an Audubon calendar have a minimum resolution requirement and IIRC the original source image must be submitted with any cropping. I don't expect ever to have one of my pics accepted, but if an image doesn't meet the entrance rules then there is no submission.
milt wrote:
The weather wasn’t great the whole time. The day I went to the Isle of Skye, it rained pretty much all day. But, the landscape was still absolutely beautiful. See pics below.
D850 45Pmm f2.8
Isle of Skye
Lots of people braving it, I see. One of those places that's beautiful no matter the weather. These are just as cool. The 45mm seemed up to the task.
milt wrote:
Serge, thanks! I did go to Edinburgh, and although I loved the city, it was way too crowded. I went a few days before the Edinburgh Festival. My mistake! I didn’t spend much time there, but I’ll post a few pictures.
Regina, I visited Edinburgh during April and the crowd levels were just about right. The weather was on the cool side but fantastic. I have read it gets super crowded during the summer specially around the festivals.
Another great set of photographs, it is a very photogenic country.
I was not enthusiastic about the recent lunar eclipse because it would not be total and the brightness of the sunlit portion 'eclipses' the darkened red moon, besides, it was going to be cloudy.
But out came the 800mm 5.6, the laptop, and nikon camera control pro. With control pro I need not touch the camera on the tripod and avoid vibration in long exposures, I have learned how to do dark dark moon shots.
This is what a full lunar eclipse looks like, but before my learnings on exposure, from 2022.
At the peak of the eclipse, clouds were not in the way but the sky was still hazy, a good photo but not one I particularly like. The exposure is a lot better than the 2022 photo.
Did you make it to Edinburgh, it is beautiful city.
Well, there is some shutter movement. As always, I focused by using the viewfinder magnifier. Short of using a very good tripod and the foldout screen instead of the eyepiece so my progressive glasses don't interfere, there isn't much I could do to improve stability, and a poor tripod might be worse. The apertures for the 300mm shots were 8, 5.6, 4.5. Of course the TC shots would be effectively smaller by one click. I suppose I could have done this with smaller apertures. I did botch the second of three for the 300mm sequence, I think I nudged the focus ring when shifting my hand for stability. Finally (though I didn't show it), except for that botched shot the general detail was consistent for each lens. If I mishandled the camera then I did it consistently for each lens, and I would expect the 300 x 1.4 shots to be worse than the straight 300 shots. Ever so slight difference in camera balance? I'm skeptical.
