Nikon 35-135mm f/3.5-4.5 Review

Image © mir.com

After our failed attempt to bond with the Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6VR, next lens into the testing queue is an oldie....the Nikon 35-135mm f/3.5-4.5

Again, the desire is to find a lens that can be an everyday walk about and useful focal length.  While 35mm may not seem wide enough for a lot of people, I find that I crave more for a longer field of view than I do a wider one.

There was not a lot of information out there on this lens, but for the price, it was worth the gamble.

Onward with the testing to see if our gamble payed off!

Majority of the testing was done on a Nikon Df.

135mm | 1/640 | f/4.5 : ISO 200

IQ

Initial testing of the 35-135mm was definitely more favorable than the 24-120/3.5-5.6VR we tested.  Contrast on the lens is very good and the sharpness is there.  No, it is not as good as the newest lenses out today, but it is not far behind.  I was honestly surprised.  I probably should not have been as we have similar performance with the older Nikon 28-85/3.5-4.5.

135mm | 1/640 | f/4.5 | ISO 200

Handling

This is where I thought I would hate this lens, but turns out, the push-pull zoom is not that hard to get used to.  In a way, I kind of like it.

On the Df, I use the lens aperture ring to change the value instead of the control dial.

70mm | 1/400 | f/5.6 | ISO 200

There is even a macro mode at 35mm.  Press the silver button on the side of the lens and twist to put it into macro mode.  In this mode, it is manual focus only.

There is no VR on this lens, so when shooting at the longer focal lengths, you'll want to make sure you keep your focal lengths in the realm of  the hand holding rule.

85mm | 1/800 | f/4.2 | ISO 200

Weight/Size

While a bit on the heavy side(it is an all metal constructed lens) it balanced well on the Nikon Df.  It fits nicely into the side pocket of the Lowepro Transit 250 AW attached to the Df.

135mm | 1/200 | f/4.5 | ISO 200

Auto Focus

Auto focus was acceptable for this lens.  On the slower side, but I expected as much for a lens of this age and design.  It focus' accurately and the slower AF is better than no AF at all.  I'm not going to complain about it!  :D

98mm | 1/100 | f/5.6 | ISO 280

Conclusion

This is a dandy of an old lens and for the sub $100 price tag, it will be able to perform its job admirably and to our needs.  I envision this being used when I want to run with the Df and only take one lens.

135mm | 1/200 | f/8 | ISO 200

135mm | 1/400 | f/8 | ISO 200

Nikon 24-120mm f3.5-5.6G VR Review

Image © NikonUSA

As many of the loyal readers know, we here at Best Light Photo work in 2 worlds - that of Olympus and Nikon.

Today we are going to start looking at some older Nikon lenses.  Why, you may ask?  Our Nikon kit has recently been running one prime and 2 pro grade zoom lenses.  Those pro lenses do not lend themselves to the casual stroll and smaller lenses are desirable.   I'm not so much concerned about the weight as I am being able to fit everything into a Lowepro Transit 250 AW sling pack.

Went to the local camera store and was looking about for a nice, small-ish do it all street zoom.  After looking at the various options available, I decided to give the Nikon 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 VR lens a try.  The f/4 version would have been bigger than we wanted to go at this point and is quite the budget jump.

Majority of the testing was done on a Nikon Df.

32mm | 1/30 | f/8 | ISO 400

IQ

First and foremost, a lens must perform.  It needs to be sharp and provide a good base image.
Sadly, the majority of the internet reviews are very accurate.   This is not a good lens, and dare I say, that this might be the worst lens I've every used on any system.

It is not sharp at any focal length or any aperture.

I tried auto focus fine tuning on the Nikon Df and D700....no go.  I even tried shooting in live view with contrast detect AF to see if that improved things....no joy there either.
On that point alone, the lens fails.  Which is a shame because it is a decent focal range and the contrast seemed very nice.

It's hard to tell where the IQ breaks down on web size images, and I'm not a pixel peeper.

120mm | 1/320 | f/5.6 | ISO 200

Handling

I'm not a fan of the "reversed" focus/zoom rings that Nikon went to with the AF-S lenses.  I always tend to accidentally bump the darn thing. To be honest, I thought that might have been an issue with the AF being so bad.  I made sure that I took that out of the equation during the tests and verified that I was not moving that focus ring inadvertently.

On the positives, the zoom throw from 24 to 120 is relatively short so going from one end of the focal range to the other can be a quick trip.  It can also be a little less accurate because it is so close together.

120mm | 1/640 | f/8 | ISO 200

This is a G lens, so no aperture ring.

Weight/Size

For our desires, this lens was a good size and weight for the purpose it was going to be used for.  No real complaints there.  It balanced well on the Nikon Df.

120mm | 1/125 | f/5.6 | ISO 320 VR active

Auto Focus

Auto focus was decent for this lens.  Not slow, but not pro grade lens fast.  It would be fine for the majority of user situations.  This is an AF-S lens with the full time manual focus override.

120mm | 1/125 | f/8 | ISO 1250 | VR active

Conclusion

I REALLY wanted this lens to work out, I did.  It was a good size, had a useful focal range and was a quick, quiet focuser.   Too bad that the shoddy IQ in the sharpness range was a total deal breaker.  After many tests and trying to work with the lens over a 3 day weekend...there was just no salvaging the lens.  It was returned and the money was used to purchase other lenses that might fit the everyday walk around lens.

To get the provided sample images to look even half way decent I processed these images more than I normally have to.  B&W with a lot of grain helped tighten things up a bit.

38mm | 1/40 | f/8 | ISO 250 | VR active

32mm | 1/40 | f/8 | ISO 200 | VR active

110mm | 1/125 | f/5.6 | ISO 1800 | VR active

120mm | 1/125 | f/8 | ISO 3600 : VR active

The Holga Digital - Review

Image © Holga Digital

When people think Holga, they mostly think of the 1981 plastic medium format camera that could be purchased cheaply.  It had plastic lenses and was one of the forefront cameras in the lomography and lo-fi photography groups.

As people changed so did the Holga.  120 film was not as common to find, so 35mm conversion backs were built as were peel apart Polaroid and Fuji instant films.   Now with us being fully into the digital age, T.M. Lee, creator of the original Holga has brought us into the future of Holga with the Holga Digital.

This camera originally started as a Kickstarter campaign.  This is where we learned of it, and for the price of a night out to dinner with the wife, I backed the campaign and received my camera early February 2016.

Here are my thoughts on the Holga Digital.

Handling

This is a small camera, almost too small for me.  If it were any more complicated with buttons or levers, it could be difficult for me to use.  Oddly though, as it is, it handles relatively well.  You turn the top right dial from Off to either 135(4:3) or 120(1:1), which is the aspect ratio.  There is a red LED next to the switch to let you know if the camera is on.

The shutter switch is a lever that sits next to the lens.  It weighs next to nothing so just gentle pressure on the plastic body is enough to keep it in hand.  If you need more grip you could always add a few pieces of gaffer tape or similar item to add friction.

The viewfinder is small, but there is an LED in there at the bottom that allows you to know when the shutter has been tripped.

There is no LCD, so you are not going to see the images you take immediately.  There is support for Eye-Fi cards, so if you have one of those and a smartphone - you can get quicker previews.

The camera uses 2 AA batteries, which is nice.  Battery dies, you can get AA batteries anywhere.  I've not tried the camera with rechargeable varieties.

Settings

Aspect Ratio:

As mentioned above, you have the choice of either 4:3 (135) or 1:1 (120).  This is set when you power the camera on.  Top right of the camera - LED light indicates that the power is on.  There is a small lag between the light coming on or going off after the switch is turned.

Aperture:

There are 2 settings - Sunny, which is f/8 and cloudy, which is f/2.8.  The switch is located at the top of the lens housing.

Shutter Speed:

There are 2 options, which is 1/60 or bulb.  I believe that the shutter release is a digital trigger.  Click it down and release, you get 1/60, click and hold it down and it will keep the shutter open for as long as it is held down.

ISO:

Always fixed at ISO 100 equivalent, according to email conversation I had with Holga Digital team.

Focus

This is a fixed focus camera.  You get one setting which according to the documentation is 1.5m to infinity.

IQ

It sports an 8mp 1/3.2 inch CMOS sensor.  It provides a lo-fi experience as you would expect.  My thought on it is that the shutter must be all electronic as there is a high propensity for the images to have rolling shutter if they are moving.

Some people do not like it, but we are talking lo-fi photography here, so there is another "artistic" choice thrown into the mix that you did not have with the film Holga.

In all honesty, I've seen better IQ in a smart phone, but again, that is not the point of this camera.  If you want superior IQ, then this is not the camera for you and you know that going into it.

The sensor provides an adequate platform.

Other Miscellaneous Items of Note

EXIF information:

I've noticed the EXIF information to be a little weird at times.  From the documentation and website, you are supposed to get either 1/60th or BULB.  Looking at the EXIF, it is reporting something "weird".  I've not looked at trying to nail down how it is calculating exposure, but I'm pretty sure that 1/950th of a second and 1/10560 is not the equivalent of 1/60.

Rolling shutter:

This can be very pronounced at times, either shooting from a moving vehicle or making the mistake of moving the camera before the shutter is done.  It is very easy to get rolling shutter if you are not careful.

Add-On Lenses:

Yes, it is possible!  While the attached lens is not removable, there is an adapter to add on the original Holga plastic lenses.

Hot Shoe:

Yes, there is one and can work with Holga flashes or any hotshoe flash - although given the size and weight of the camera, I don't see people using anything other than the plastic Holga lenses on the camera.

SD Cards:

Not sure how large of an SD card you can use. Currently it has a 2GB Kingston in it.  It is supposed to be wi-fi card compatible, so we will test the Eye-Fi card sometime in the future.

Parting Thoughts

I really do like this little camera.  No one really seems to take it seriously.  Not seeing your images right away takes me back to the days when I was shooting with my Nikon N90s.  It can also be a little frustrating not knowing if you got the shot.  That can be mitigated, however, with the use of a wi-fi enabled SD card.

I will definitely be using this along with my other "lomo" type cameras.  It is something different and interesting for me.  Others may not enjoy it, but that is a subjective thing and I will let you decide what you think of it from the images I share here as well as the impressions above.

For the price, though - you can have this little camera for the price of a higher end meal.

Full disclosure: some images are straight out of camera while others have been tweaked in Lightroom.

What A Silent Shutter Gives Me

As a lot of you know, along with portraits, events and weddings, I also shoot street photography. 

I wanted to talk today about a feature on some cameras that you might overlook.  That feature is the silent shutter.

Don't mistake this with the "Q" or quiet mode on some cameras.  It doesn't really make the camera any quieter, it just spreads the sound of the mirror box moving and the shutter over a longer period of time.

I'm referring more to the silent or electronic shutter mode or a camera with a leaf shutter.

Of these kinds of camera, I have my Olympus Micro Four Thirds and a Fuji X100T.

The Olympus shutter is by no means loud when compared to a DSLR camera, however, if you want to go dead silent, there is an option of doing so.  In the menu, pick the shutter option with the heart next to it.  This puts the camera into electronic shutter mode.  This disables the mechanical shutter and uses only the sensor readout.  You get bulb through 1/16000  of a second shutter speed.  So, why would you not use this all the time?  Sensor warping, a.k.a. the Jello effect.  The sensor scans each line individually and if you have a fast moving subject, then they might get distorted.
Another issue with electronic shutters are flash sync speed, or shall we say, a lack of ability to use flash in those modes.

The Fuji X100T is unique in that it has a leaf shutter as well as an all electronic shutter.  The leaf shutter is so quiet that you would hardly ever need to use the electronic, unless you are needing that 

extra bit of shutter speed in super bright light.

I was up on a balcony, quite a ways away, and even as quiet as the shutter on the EM5 Mk II is, the front desk staff at this museum was able to hear it.  As you can tell from the body language, they do not mind that I am taking their picture, but they are "working the camera".  Not exactly the candid, natural acting image I was looking for.

So, when would you want to use these kinds of camera/shutter devices?

I could see using then during a wedding ceremony that was small and intimate and discretion was wanted.  I've been to events where my Nikon D700 shutter sound actually made multiple tables of people turn around and look at me.  I've also used it on occasion to shoot street photography.  Now before anyone starts screaming, "perv" or creeper, let me explain my position on this.

I make no secret when I am out shooting street that I am there.  I don't hide in corners, I don't sneak up on people.  From my years of shooting, I've found that a lot of people act differently when they know they are being photographed.  When shooting street scenes, I want the people in that scene to be as honest and natural as they can be.  So there are times when I will shoot street with a long-ish telephoto or with a silent mode or leaf shutter camera.

Without that, I would not be able to get images like these.

There is no cropping to these and I was never more than 6 ft away.  The silent shutter made this possible without disrupting the subjects focus and without making a lot of noise within the museum itself.