Barney’s « 360Photography

RSS

Posts Tagged ‘Barney’s’

Gear of the Year: Barney’s choice (part 2) – Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11

30 Nov

Dan Bracaglia

In Part 1 of my Gear of the Year for 2020 I mentioned that the Fujifilm X100V has been in my hands almost all of this year. This article is about a very different piece of photographic equipment in my collection, which has also seen heavy usage this year. And an item which – while much less practical for the kind of day-to-day documentation to which the X100V is so well-suited – is no less enjoyable (in its own way) to use.

The story of how I ended up with a Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 is a bit complicated, and starts with a very different kind of product: the Coolpix P950, which I reviewed earlier this year, at the height of the Washington state quarantine. Those several weeks of shooting with the P950 turned me on to the potential for a proper super-telephoto photography project, once non-essential travel restrictions were lifted.

And I knew exactly where to start – by the sea.

Re-reading WG.S Sebald’s book The Rings of Saturn this summer (yes, sorry, this is going to one of those kinds of articles), one line really resonated with me. It’s a description of fishermen on the Norfolk coast, in England. Wondering about their motivation at a time when it is ‘almost impossible to catch anything from the beach’ Sebald concludes that they ‘just want to be in a place where they have the world behind them, and before them nothing but emptiness’.

I’ve always found it calming to look out at the ocean, and amid the seemingly never-ending chaos of this year, I’ve been bolting down to the Washington coast whenever time and local regulations allow, to put the world at my back for a little while.

The long telephoto project I originally had in mind was to be centered on the fishing boats that ply up and down the Washington coast. Unfortunately, it turned out that even with its excellent image stabilization, accurate framing with the Coolpix P950 was too difficult with such distant, bobbing targets, and the 16MP resolution was too unforgiving when it came to cropping. That’s where the Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 came in.

The vignetting in this shot, and the others in this article, is optical. I don’t mind it (and haven’t corrected it) in images like these, but it’s one more thing that limits the usefulness of long mirror lenses for more conventional work.

1/2000sec|F11|ISO 800

The Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 is a catadioptric lens, which works by ‘folding’ the light that comes into it using mirrors. This provides a long focal length without the need for a physically long lens barrel. The light travels the same distance inside a mirror lens as it would in a conventional telephoto, it just moves in a zigzag.

The biggest downside to mirror lenses in general is manual focus (in almost all cases – more on that in a minute) and a fixed, slow aperture, usually F8 or F11. This severely reduces the range of conditions in which they can be used. Typically, mirror lenses are also less sharp than conventional lenses, as well as being an absolute pain to focus through an optical viewfinder. They have a tendency to throw off AWB too, and let’s not forget the highly distracting ‘donut’ bokeh, created by the annular mirror.

In a world of high-resolution electronic viewfinders, magnified focus modes and fully electronic shutters, mirror lenses are more practical now than they’ve ever been

For all that, mirror lenses have a dedicated fanbase (and if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get into lunar photography, look no further). But there are a lot of good reasons why this lens costs $ 3,200 and this one can be found on the second-hand market for less than $ 500. And that’s an unusually expensive example of the type – most bog-standard 500mm F8 mirror lenses can be picked up used for around $ 100-200.

This image is a combination of two exposures taken from the same position, moments apart: one exposed for the moon, and one for the wispy clouds.

F11| ISO 1600 (multi-exposure)

Catadioptric lens technology hasn’t evolved significantly in decades (with the honorable exception of the Minolta AF Reflex 500mm F8, which remains unique among mirror lenses for offering autofocus) but camera technology over those decades has come on in leaps and bounds. And it turns out that in a world of high-resolution electronic viewfinders, magnified focus modes and fully electronic shutters, mirror lenses are more practical now than they’ve ever been. Which is why when a ‘Like New -‘ condition example of the Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 popped up on KEH earlier this year I jumped on it immediately.

The British are famous for our sentimental attachment to the coast, maybe just because of its constant proximity – nowhere in the UK are you more than 70 miles from the sea. In the time it takes for me to get to Long Beach Washington from Seattle, I could drive almost the entire length of England.

1/3000sec|F11|ISO 1000

That last paragraph, by the way, was going to form the basis of an opinion article I was planning over the summer. Provisionally entitled ‘Thanks to Mirrorless Technology, There’s Still a Place For Slow Telephoto Lenses’, the air was taken out of the idea by Canon’s surprise release of the RF 600mm and 800mm F11 STM. But hey – I was right. It turns out that there is a market for lenses like that.

Earlier in this article I implied that the Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 is ‘enjoyable’ to use. That needs some qualification: I enjoy using it in the same way as I enjoy hiking up really steep hills. It makes me feel good afterwards, but often, when I’m actually engaged in the task, it’s a bloody nightmare. Oh, let me count the ways…

The Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 lets me get a perspective that would be impossible with any of my other lenses

First, the massive 108mm filter thread is non-standard, which means that there’s no simple replacement option for the fiddly threaded metal (!) cap, which takes ages to get on and off. Then there’s the enormously long focus ring. This is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, depth of field is so shallow at 1000mm you really do need a good, positive manual focus ring with fine-grained control. On the other hand, if you nudge the barrel of the lens (or the massive integral hood, which rotates with the focusing ring) or breath on it, or look at it wrong, you’ll throw off critical focus. And because the focusing ring makes up 70% of the length of the entire barrel (even more when the hood is extended) it’s almost impossible not to nudge it when handling or repositioning the lens. Finally, although smaller than a conventional 1000mm F11 would be, it’s still a big, fat lump of glass and metal that doesn’t fit into a camera bag alongside my other gear.

Ultimately though I don’t really care about any of those issues, because the Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11 lets me get a perspective that would be impossible with any of my other lenses and, yes, it’s a lot of fun.

From my favorite spot near Long Beach, looking out over the Pacific, the horizon line is roughly 10-12 miles away. Twelve miles is the official limit of territorial and international waters.

1/1000sec|F11|ISO 3200

I shoot my 1000mm F11 lens adapted on a Nikon Z7, with electronic shutter and a cable release, and always clamped to a sturdy tripod with a 10lb weight slung under it. I tried mechanical shutter and electronic first-curtain, but after a lot of experimentation I found that the former can create vibration issues at such a long focal length, and the latter can lead to uneven exposures at the shortest exposures.

With the setup I just described, I can get away with shutter speeds of around 1/200sec in still conditions. If it’s breezy, I’ll increase the ISO and decrease the exposure time accordingly. If the fully-electronic shutter introduces any distortion, I can’t tell. The subject matter would render it unnoticeable anyway.

Water spouts, created by whales breaching in the Pacific close to sunset. These little puffs of water were invisibly small to my naked eye.

1/500sec|F11|ISO 4000

The project I’m currently working on with my 1000mm is a little different to the one I’d originally planned, and a lot more abstract. it’s shot mostly from a single overlook about 100 feet up over the Pacific coast near Long Beach WA, looking out roughly 10-12 miles to the clouds and patches of light which line the horizon, approximately at the boundary of International waters. Since I started working on this project I’ve added a Tamron SP 500mm F8 and a second tripod to my collection for those times when 1000mm is just slightly too long.

Maybe I’ll look back at the whole effort in a couple of years and think ‘well that was a waste of time’ (maybe you think so already – and I’m sure you’ll let me know) but if nothing else, turning my back on the world and concentrating on 1.3 degrees of distant, hazy somewhere else for a few days here and there has provided a much-needed exercise in creative meditation.

Next year’s post-vaccine project: A closeup look at crowds, all shot on a 14mm lens.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year: Barney’s choice (part 1) – Fujifilm X100V

24 Nov

Please note: the images in this article are downsized from the original files. A link is provided below to our full samples gallery.

What a year. I thought 2016 was bad, but then 2020 barged in, ripped a room-clearing fart, handed 2016 its beer and went bananas. Hopefully you don’t need me to list the many horrors of the last 11 months, because I would prefer not to.

It’s surreal looking back now, but in the first six weeks of 2020 I flew roughly 15,000 miles, all of which was for work. The year began with the CES show in Las Vegas, then on to a video shoot in Texas, and another in California, followed by the launch of the Fujifilm X100V, in London. And that’s where this story begins…

…I don’t know why I did the dot-dot-dot thing there, this article is only one page long.

By early February, the novel coronavirus had been a blip on the outer edge of my mental radar screen for a while. In late January our video crew and I had shared some wry jokes about ‘flying now while we still can, ha ha…’, but it was the following month, at the launch of the Fujifilm X100V in London, that I started to sense a more general concern. Speaking to Fujifilm executives at the event (and, significantly in retrospect, those unexpectedly not at the event) it was clear that the situation in China (where Fujifilm has some manufacturing) had become grave, and in addition to the tragic human cost in Asia, COVID-19 was having a profound effect on production and supply chain logistics around the world.

The Fujifilm X100V was launched in February at an event in London. I added a few days to that trip to see family – my last opportunity to do so, as it turned out, for what may still be a long time.

1/60sec|F3.2|ISO 800

I was in the UK for a week, which included a few days spent with my family in London and the north of England. On the darkened plane back to Seattle, I remember wondering when I would see the old country again. Coincidentally, that was also the last outing for my much-traveled and now-expired European Union GB passport.

By early March things were getting serious all over the world (with DPReview’s adopted home state of Washington an early hotspot). Partly to scratch the itch of my own growing panic, I spent a few days researching the impact of COVID-19 on the photo industry. Alongside many reasonable, thoughtful comments on the resulting article are several that have since aged like fine milk.

Oddfellows Cafe in Capitol Hill, Seattle, boarding up after the WA lockdown was announced in mid March. Cafes, restaurants and many other businesses that were forced to close put boards up over their windows and encouraged local artists to decorate the storefronts.

1/420sec|F5.6|ISO 160

We all know what happened next. After March 16th 2020, I didn’t so much as hug another human being for more than 70 days. Things got weird.

Where does the Fujifilm X100V tie into all of this? Beyond the fateful coincidence of the timing of its launch in early 2020, it’s the camera that’s been in my hands almost every day for the past ten months.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_4841377113″,”galleryId”:”4841377113″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

It was a preproduction X100V that I took on my trip back home to the UK in February, and which I used to take the last (for who knows how long) photographs of my sister, my nephew and my parents. I subsequently bought one, and my personal X100V was with me all through quarantine. I carried it with me on my daily permitted walks and bike rides through Seattle’s deserted streets, in that strangest, sunniest of springs, where normally busy neighborhoods looked like Edward Hopper paintings and everyone remarked on the sound of birdsong.

I also took a lot of mirror selfies, although in my defense it was a difficult time.

When I finally ventured out into crowds in late May and early June following protests after the killing of George Floyd, it was with X100V. When Seattle briefly became the focus of global attention following the establishment of the short-lived CHAZ/CHOP zone (a much smaller area than you might have been lead to believe, which began a mere block away from my apartment), I visited several times with the X100V, making sure that I had a personal record of what was going on. Even when the circumference of my world had shrunk to the handful of blocks around my front door, photography helped me feel somewhat connected.

Protesters gather near Cal Anderson Park in Seattle in early June – one of many protests that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

1/60sec|F8|ISO 320

Sheer anarchy! Members of the local community paint a mural on the road (now preserved) near the SPD East Precinct, later in June.

1/60sec|F5.6|ISO 800

The X100V is a near-perfect everyday camera because it’s small enough to tuck under a light jacket when I’m out walking or cycling, fast, very simple to use and delivers great pictures. The new lens in the ‘V’ with its two aspherical elements, is far superior for close work to the original version on the X100/S/T/F and it performs much better with the 28mm wide converter attached. The X100V is one of those rare cameras that does exactly what I need it to, without a lot of fuss. It’s as simple at that, really; a reliable companion in a most unsettling season.

A slightly misfocused grab-shot at a spontaneous celebration following the announcement that Donald Trump had lost Pennsylvania (and the 2020 presidential election) earlier this month. In the background to the left is Oddfellows Cafe. This may have been a technically better photo had I taken it with an ILC, but the X100V is the camera I had with me – which is the whole point.

1/60sec|F8|ISO 640

For all the documentation that I’ve done this year with the X100V, I do not describe myself as a documentary photographer. I know several photojournalists personally, and I could never do what they do, especially in the current political climate here in the US, where personal safety is of increasing concern for members of the media. The pictures I take are primarily for me, for the purposes of creative practice, memory and reflection. And while there was much that happened in 2020 that I wish I could forget (and it’s not over yet), there was certainly a lot to reflect on…

…I’m doing that dot-dot-dot thing again, which means I should probably stop before this all gets hopelessly introspective. I think we’ve all had quite enough of that this year.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the year 2019: Barney’s choice (part 2) Nikon Z 50mm F1.8 S

16 Dec

Photo: Dan Bracaglia

We’ve been writing these articles for a few years now, and when it comes time to think about what I would pick as my ‘Gear of the Year’, I tend to go by two main criteria: What (if any) gear in the past 12 months did I actually spend my own money on, and what did I most enjoy using? And if those two criteria happen to be met by a single product, then there’s my answer. No further consideration required.

This year, two products met both of those criteria. The Ricoh GR III (which I wrote about here) and the Nikon Z 50mm F1.8 S. Clearly they’re very different things. One is an APS-C compact camera and the other is a lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras. But both have been in my camera bag almost every time I’ve gone out shooting in 2019.

Of the thousands of frames I’ve shot with the Z 50mm this year, the vast majority have been taken at F1.8

Why do I love the Nikon Z 50mm F1.8 S so much? The boring answer is that it’s just really really good. Historically I’ve not been not a big 50mm fan in general, and I will admit to being a bit of a snob about F1.8 lenses in the past. But the Z 50mm F1.8 S is so good – and so good at F1.8 – that it has changed my perspective on what a ‘nifty fifty’ can be.

I would estimate that of the thousands of frames I’ve shot with the Z 50mm this year, the vast majority have been taken at F1.8. With most of the standard lenses I’ve used during my career, that would not be a particularly smart move. Generally speaking, lenses of this type are at their best when stopped down slightly. But the Z 50mm F1.8 is almost as sharp wide open as it is stopped down, and at all apertures it’s largely free from common aberrations like longitudinal chromatic aberration.

Nikkor Z 50mm F1.8 S | ISO 100 | 1/800 sec | F1.8

There are plenty of 50mm lenses that give a more interesting rendering than the Z 50mm F1.8 S, but few which provide its biting cross-frame sharpness and virtually coma-free images at wide apertures. And it just so happens that those qualities ended up being crucial to me this year, when working on a long-term project down on Washington’s coast, during twilight clam digs. The combination of the Nikon Z7’s resolution and in-body stabilization and the Z 50mm’s sharpness and clean rendering at F1.8 proved invaluable, allowing me to get sharp, hand-held images in near-darkness that I could never have captured with a DSLR.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_5393471639″,”galleryId”:”5393471639″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

The fact that the weather-sealed Z7 and Z 50mm F1.8 S continued to work reliably and accurately for hours in heavy rain and strong winds is another major point in both their favor.

I’ve also come to really appreciate the Z 50mm F1.8 S for portraiture, despite its relatively short focal length, which discourages very tight framing. Bokeh isn’t the smoothest at wide apertures, but it’s smooth enough, and virtually free from colored fringing.

Nikkor Z 50mm F1.8 S | ISO 64 | 1/80 sec | F1.8

Of course, I’m lucky. Like almost all professional photography reviewers I get to try all kinds of different equipment, at no cost. When I do spend my own money on something, it’s because I’ve used it, probably quite extensively, and I’m very confident in my investment.

That means that I have to be careful to stay grounded when talking to our readers, especially when it comes to making value judgements about the cost of new gear. Personally, having used a lot of lenses, I think that the Z 50mm F1.8 S’s price of around $ 600 is exceptionally good value, but I understand the complaints from some of you that $ 600 is a lot to pay for a 50mm F1.8. And a large-ish one, at that, by traditional (if not current) standards.

The point I would make (and which I hope I made in this article) is that $ 600 spent now, on a modern lens designed for mirrorless, buys you greater performance than $ 600 ever has before. We are very lucky, as photographers, to be on the cusp of a new era in optics, where some of the old paradigms are being overturned. In the case of this particular lens, it’s probably the only 50mm I’ll ever need for my Z7. Not bad for $ 600.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_9560366311″,”galleryId”:”9560366311″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year – Barney’s choice part 1: Ricoh GR III

05 Dec

Photo: Dan Bracaglia

I’m of the opinion that if you use a phrase like ‘shut up and take my money’ in the title of an article about a camera, you’d damned well better buy it. It’s not about gear acquisition (honest it isn’t) it’s about reader trust.

Yeah, right. But either way, I was serious. It wasn’t long after writing our review of the Ricoh GR III that I bought my own, right before a trip to Japan this summer. I’ve been to Japan a few times for work, but this was to be a proper vacation for once. Just me, a couple of guidebooks, some depressing podcasts and a sturdy pair of hiking boots. And the GR III.

In the end, it didn’t end up being all vacation (one of those “Hey, so we’re planning a video project in Japan, and since you’re going to be there anyway…” things) but I did get in a decent amount of hiking, and the GR III was with me every step of the way.

ISO 200 | 1/400 sec | F5.6

The GR III wasn’t the only personal camera I took to Japan (I also grabbed my Nikon Z7 with a 24-70mm F2.8 lens, just to be on the safe side) but it was the one I ended up using most. Partly that’s because it’s a great camera and I love the images that come out of it, but that’s equally true of the Z7. Mostly it’s because the GR III is small enough to fit into a shirt pocket.

In terms of image quality, the new sensor in the GR III offers a useful resolution boost over its predecessors, but more important to me is the addition of stabilization and a major increase in usable Raw dynamic range.

ISO 160 | 1/400 sec | F7.1

There’s no doubt that 28mm equiv. is a limiting focal length, but it also turns out to be perfect for trail landscapes and for quick grab shots walking around cities. Considering that the GR III is barely any bigger than my phone (albeit thicker) it’s hard to imagine a better traveling companion, provided of course that you don’t need to shoot video.

Downsides? Naturally there are a few. The aforementioned uninspiring video mode, for one, but aside from that, the GR III’s maximum aperture of F2.8 means there’s very little scope for creative depth of field control, and while built-in stabilization helps, low light shooting often ends up meaning high ISO shooting.

ISO 640 | 1/40 sec | F4

There’s no built-in flash, which I know some GR/II fans will sincerely miss, the battery is tiny (but offers more stamina than you might expect in normal use) and there’s no EVF. Outside on a sunny day it’s not always easy to get an accurate idea of composition on the shiny rear screen, and it’s hard even to make out the horizon level indicator when shooting in especially bright conditions.

It’s a pocketable and silent camera with a very sharp lens, which can get you pictures that larger, louder cameras simply cannot.

Of course you can boost the screen brightness, and you can also add an optical finder. Neither are a perfect solution though. Bumping up the brightness kills battery life, and with a finder, framing becomes approximate, there’s no shooting data in your eye-line (obviously) and the GR III suddenly gets less pocketable.

Being such a small camera, the GR III’s controls are also rather cramped in general, but that comes with the territory.

Like many cameras of its type, the GR III is arguably at its best when used as a point and shoot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t (or shouldn’t) take full control. The GR III offers full manual exposure control and retains the top control dial from previous generations, which for an aperture-priority photographer such as myself is probably the most important single control point. A large, responsive touchscreen takes care of almost everything else.

ISO 1600 | 1/40 sec | F2.8

Although some GR/II fans will miss those cameras’ dedicated +/- rocker switch for exposure compensation, the rear jog switch on the GR III can be set up to do the exact same thing, and users of previous generations will be reassured to know that it’s just as easy to accidentally hit.

That was sarcasm. For the most part, the GR III does exactly what I want it to, when I want it to, and it’s exactly in line with what Ricoh has aimed to provide from the very beginning of the GR series way back in the 1990s. The GR III is a pocketable and silent camera with a very sharp lens, which precisely for those reasons can get me pictures that larger, louder cameras simply cannot.

Like all cameras, it has some limitations. Many of these are inherent to the design and form factor, but all are forgivable and in my opinion none devalue its main selling points.

For all of these reasons, my first choice for Gear of the Year is a camera that I’ve carried with me more than any other in 2019, not including my phone: the Ricoh GR III.

Watch out for Part 2 of my personal ‘Gear of the Year’ in a few days.

Ricoh GR III sample gallery

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_7380089310″,”galleryId”:”7380089310″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year 2018 – Barney’s choice: Nikon Z7

24 Dec

This year seems like it went by in a flash (although thinking back to some of the news headlines I’m still tempted to say ‘good riddance’). In the photo industry, 2018 has definitely felt like a year of transitions: not least because this was the year that Canon and Nikon finally entered the full-frame mirrorless market, and in so doing began the slow process of moving beyond their respective legacy EF and F mounts.

Appropriately, perhaps, I sold a lot of camera equipment this year too, including my long-serving/suffering DSLR and several lenses. It’s always hard to say goodbye to gear, but there’s no point keeping expensive cameras and lenses around if they’re not getting used. The end result is that without a ‘main’ camera to reach for I’ve been feeling a little transitional myself. Of course I’m lucky that I can raid the DPReview gear cupboards when I need to, but more often than not I’ve been grabbing one of my old film cameras when I want to go out shooting. Sometimes I’ll even remember to grab a roll of film, too.

But enough about me – let’s talk about me!

My pick for Gear of the Year is the Nikon Z7, which is actually one of the few digital cameras released in the past 12 months that I’ve enjoyed spending any significant amount of time shooting with. That doesn’t mean I’m writing about it by default, just because I can’t think of anything else – far from it. For the kind of photography that I do, it’s close to being the perfect camera.

When the light gets low, the Z7’s autofocus system can start to struggle. Usually, though, if you can point it at a contrasty line or point of light (like the frames of the windows reflecting the sunset in this shot) it’ll lock on just fine.

My preferred style of photography (“interesting boring” to quote a friend whose opinion I don’t remember asking) rarely stresses any camera’s continuous autofocus system. I actually shoot manual focus lenses much of the time, and I almost never need to fire off images faster than 1-2 frames per second. As such, two of the major shortcomings of the Z7 are pretty much irrelevant to me. I’d love a taller handgrip, but I’ll take the Z7’s rather short, stubby one for the sake of a smaller and lighter body. Ditto a single card slot.

Speaking as someone who lugged a D850 (my favorite camera of last year) up and down four mountains in a day in 90+ degree heat in Japan this August,* I can tell you that the Z7 is a very pleasant traveling companion by comparison. And shooting the production of a music video back in August, coming from a D810/D850 I was very impressed by how easy the Z7 was to get to grips with, too, even without an instruction manual (the camera was still strictly embargoed at the time and the manuals were still being translated).

It’s only been very recently that electronic finders have started to compete with the best DSLRs in terms of sharpness and responsiveness

Jumping back to earlier in the summer, when Nikon first briefed us on its then-unnamed camera, it was clear that the company’s engineers had set some pretty tough internal benchmarks for what became the Z7. One of those was image quality, and another was the viewfinder experience – both of which had to be comparable to the D850. I’ve never been particularly nostalgic about the optical viewfinders in DSLRs – the sooner they’re replaced by good EVFs the better in my opinion. But note my use of the crucial word ‘good’ in that last sentence. It’s only been very recently that electronic finders have started to compete with the best DSLRs. The Z7’s EVF is one of the sharpest and most detailed out there. So sharp and detailed, in fact, that I often find myself forgetting that its electronic at all, except in really high-contrast situations.

Ruby Beach, on the Olympic Peninsular, a few hours’ drive west from Seattle. Shot with the compact Z 24-70mm F4, this shot demonstrates the lens’s high contrast and almost clinical sharpness.

Where I tend to run into the Z7’s limitations, though, is with low-contrast subjects in subdued light when, even in AF-S mode, its autofocus system becomes… let’s say… unpredictable. If you’ve ever used first-generation Nikon AF systems such as those found in the likes of the F/N90X and F4, you’ll be familiar with the need to find a bright point of light or a contrasty line or something around the desired plane of focus for the AF system to lock onto. If you can’t find one, good luck and happy hunting. Literally.

Fortunately, the Z7’s EVF remains sharp and contrasty even in poor light, so if autofocus gives up completely I just pop it into magnified manual focus mode and do things the old fashioned way. The effort is usually worth it, especially with the 35mm F1.8, which – while it might not have the nicest bokeh around – is sharp enough for landscape work at F1.8.

Another shot taken with the 24-70mm, in Japan. At F13 (for the sunstar) diffraction is taking a bite out of critical sharpness.

In fact, Nikon appears to have designed all three of the new ‘S’ lenses for optimal sharpness, with admirable success. The result is images which are phenomenally detailed across the frame, but lack the pleasant bokeh of certain Nikon and third-party F-mount lenses. Of course, if you have a favorite F-mount lens that you want to use instead, there’s an adapter for that.

Thanks to the built-in stabilization and wide, shallow dimensions of the Z mount, the Z7 has a lot of potential as a 46MP digital back

What I’m most looking forward to, though, is trying out the Z7 with my collection of older third-party primes. High quality adapters from the likes of Novoflex are slowly starting to become available, and thanks to the built-in stabilization and wide, shallow dimensions of the Z mount, the Z7 has a lot of potential as a 46MP digital back. I have a Leica M to Nikon Z adapter on order, and I can’t wait to try out: there’s an uncoated 1936 Leica 50mm Summar on my shelf just crying out for some love…

The Z7 pictured next to one of my personal cameras, a much-used mid-60s F. As you can see, the new Z mount is significantly larger than the old F mount, despite covering the same imaging area. This gives Nikon’s optical engineers a lot more flexibility when designing certain kinds of lenses for the new mount.

Nikon could have played it safe with the Z7, but its engineers decided to aim for high-end and professional photographers and launch the Z7 with their best sensor. It was a risky decision, and I can completely understand why some of the photojournalists I’ve spoken to haven’t taken to the Z7. Without a doubt, its autofocus isn’t on a par with the D850 or D5, particularly in dull, low-contrast conditions. Speaking to wildfire photographer Stuart Palley recently, it’s obvious that Nikon has some work to do before he’ll feel comfortable leaving his DSLRs at home. But while the Z7 isn’t quite the ‘mirrorless D850’ that we had hoped for, it’s close enough for me. I think I might buy Stuart’s.

Nikon Z7 Sample Gallery

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_4819511289″,”galleryId”:”4819511289″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

—

* Impressed? I think I was trying to prove a point about how much of a pain DSLR photography is, with the intention eventually of writing an article about it. I suppose this is that article. [Return to text]

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

DPReview Instagram takeover: Barney’s photos from Mexico

18 Dec

Have you followed us on Instagram yet? Now’s a great time to, since over the next three days we’ll be turning our account over to Barney, where he’ll be sharing photos from a recent trip to central Mexico. It’s the trip that cemented the Leica M10 as his Gear of the Year, and provided plenty of opportunities to photograph the beauty of the region – from the captivating architecture of Queretaro to the jungle of San Luis Potosi and points in between.

Give us a follow and stay tuned!

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year 2017 – Barney’s choice (Part 2): Nikon D850

26 Nov

In the first part of this article, I wrote about the camera I’ve used most in 2017 – the Leica M10. In Part 2, I want to write about a camera that I’ve used very little. In fact, aside from bringing it to my eye and playing around with the reviewable sample that came into our office earlier this year, I’ve barely even managed to get my hands on it.

That camera is the Nikon D850. Undeniably one of the most important products of 2017 (and in terms of traffic, definitely among the most popular on DPReview) the D850 is an impressive DSLR by any measure.

The Nikon D810 is one of our favorite DSLRs of the past several years

It used to be the case that if you wanted high-resolution stills, you had to make do with a relatively slow camera. And conversely, if you wanted high-speed capture and ultra-long battery life, you had to drop $ 5000-6000 on a pro-grade camera that didn’t have the pixel-count required for really demanding applications. The Nikon D810 is one of our favorite DSLRs of the past several years, but its excellent resolution and unrivaled dynamic range at ISO 64 came at the expense of relatively slow continuous shooting, and (somewhat mysteriously) poor low-light autofocus performance compared to the flagship D5.

The D850’s wide dynamic range at its low ISO sensitivity settings enables shots like these (taken at ISO 125) which contain detail and true color everywhere from the deepest shadows to the highlight areas. Shot from a moving vehicle (hence the slightly softness at very close examination), this image is a great illustration of the D850’s versatility.

Photo by Carey Rose

On paper, the D850 offers the best of both worlds, and in practice, it generally lives up to its potential. A pixel count of 47MP almost matches the Canon EOS 5DS/R for resolution, while a maximum frame-rate of 9fps with an accessory grip and D5 battery means that in terms of speed, it’s not far off Canon and Nikon’s flagship pro-grade DSLRs (albeit for an additional premium of $ 1000). The D850’s 153-point AF system is lifted from the D5, and while the D5 has the edge when it comes to tracking (possibly thanks to its greater on-board data processing power) the D850 generally performs well, and definitely outperforms its nearest competition. In low light, the contrast between the D850’s autofocus performance and that of its predecessor is pretty stark.

The D850’s large, bright finder is a beautiful thing

I’ve been shooting with a Nikon D810 for several years as my primary camera, and there isn’t a single area of its feature set which Nikon has not upgraded in the D850. Even the viewfinder experience has been improved; the D850’s large, bright finder is a beautiful thing. So why haven’t I spent more time with it?

Can you see this too? OK, good.

Photo by Carey Rose

The short, boring answer is that I’ve been kept busy with other projects (and other cameras) and unsurprisingly given its performance, the D850 is also in pretty high demand among our writers when it comes to weekend photography trips and events. But there’s another reason.

I’ve called the D810 and 24-120mm F4 combination ‘boringly capable’ in articles on DPReview in the past and I really meant it. While obviously there are things that a constant-aperture F4 zoom can’t do, that lens, attached to the D810, lets me do pretty much everything I need to – from quick grab shots on the street to architectural and landscape studies. When the 24-120mm can’t cut it (distortion can be an issue in some situations, for example, and it’s a bit limiting in poor light) I switch for my 35mm and 50mm primes.

I know that if I grab the D850 for a weekend I will probably end up wanting one

While the D850 is clearly greatly improved over the D810, I’ve never had a reason to curse its predecessor, or wish for much in the way of improvement. If I still shot live music regularly I might feel compelled to spend the extra money just for backlit controls and improved low-light AF, but I don’t, so I won’t.

At least for now, my D810 is as ‘boringly capable’ as it always was. In all honestly, I know that if I grab the D850 for a weekend and shoot a few hundred frames with it I will probably end up really wanting one – and not having $ 3000 burning a hole in my pocket, or a third kidney, I can’t afford to do that right now.

I don’t know who these people are, but they’ve spent more time in close proximity to the D850 than me.

Photo by Carey Rose

So I don’t own one (even though I’d like to), and I’ve barely used it. I didn’t take any of the pictures in this article, or in the gallery linked below. Then why on earth is the D850 one of my two picks for the best gear of 2017? Well, just look at it, for heaven’s sake. It’s such a good camera. I mean seriously, it’s hard to imagine how much more advanced a DSLR could be. For all of the improvements that have been made in mirrorless cameras over the past few years, the D850 still offers a combination of power, image quality, and luxurious handling (including that gorgeous viewfinder) which is hard to argue with.

I say ‘hard to argue with’ rather than impossible, because I’m sure that some people will still argue about it (feel free to jump to the comments), but this is my article and I can write what I want. In my opinion, for all of the doom and gloom spoken about the company in the past couple of years, the D850 proves one essential fact: Nikon knows how to make great cameras.

Nikon D850 Sample Gallery

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_5682971467″,”galleryId”:”5682971467″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”standalone”:false,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”startInCommentsView”:false,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year 2017 – Barney’s choice (part 1): Leica M10

11 Nov

My choice for Gear of the Year is a pricey camera with niche appeal. The Leica M10 is not a camera that many people are likely to buy, when compared to other major DSLRs and mirrorless products released in 2017. Leica knows that, and trust me – Leica is fine with it. The M10 probably isn’t a camera that will suit the majority of photographers, either – even those with the funds required to purchase one.

The M10 is a curious beast: a highly evolved throwback, which combines some very old technology with a modern 24MP full-frame sensor to offer a unique user experience with some unique quirks. It’s awkward, tricky to master, and lacks a lot of the bells and whistles common even in much cheaper competitors, but I love it all the same.

I could have taken this picture with pretty well any camera. But I took it with the Leica M10, because that’s what I had with me. (I didn’t promise you an exciting story).

There is a certain magic to Leica rangefinders, which is hard to properly explain. A lot of their appeal comes down to the quality of construction, which is obvious the moment you pick one up. While other brands have thrown their efforts behind high-tech mass-production (with admittedly impressive results), Leica has never aspired to market saturation and still makes its M-series cameras in much the same way as it always has done; relying heavily on manual processes, and the accumulated years of experience of its small workforce in Wetzlar, Germany (with a little help from electronics suppliers in Asia and a facility in Portugal).

A lot of Leica rangefinders’ appeal comes down to the quality of construction

I’ve been pretty cynical about some of Leica’s digital imaging products in the past (I still can’t get excited about the TL-series, for instance, despite the considerable improvements that have been made to that system since its introduction) and I make no secret of it. In the days of hybrid autofocus and 4K video, the M10 is clearly an anachronism.

But…

The M10 and current 35mm F1.4 Asph., makes a powerful and unobtrusive combination. Many DSLRs and ILCs are technically more versatile, but few are as discreet while still offering a full-frame sensor.

Ironically, the M10 has won a place in my heart (and my camera bag) precisely because it isn’t trying too hard to be something that it isn’t. In contrast to the slightly bloated Typ. 240, the stills-only M10 is stripped back to the essentials. Presenting almost the same form-factor as the M6 TTL and M7, and an identical footprint to the original M3, the M10 is noticeably slimmer than previous digital M-series rangefinders while offering a simpler digital interface and tweaked image quality. In fact, with the M10 I can comfortably shoot at ISO 12,800 and higher without worrying about banding, or any particular image quality gremlins. The sensor isn’t quite up there with the best 24MP sensors on the market, but it’s more than good enough.

It’s been a long, strange year but as 2017 draws to a close, the M10 is probably the camera I’ve used most. While undoubtedly not as versatile as (say) a Nikon D850, the M10 does have the advantage of being considerably more convenient to travel with.

I still get a bit uncomfortable carrying what amounts to almost a year’s rent around my neck

I’ve done a lot of traveling this year, and the M10 has been with me almost everywhere I’ve gone. I love that I can fit a full-frame camera and lens outfit covering 28-90mm into a small Domke F6 shoulder bag without feeling like I’m going to pull my arm out of its socket. I still get a bit uncomfortable carrying what amounts to almost a year’s rent around my neck, but – touch wood (or rather, hand-laquered wood soft shutter release) – nothing bad has happened yet.

This started out as an attempt to quickly ‘de-bling’ a chrome M10 for my recent trip to the jungles of central Mexico. I might have got a bit carried away. Watch out for the ‘Britton Special Edition Jungle M10’ and remember – you saw it here first.

Partly that’s because I’m careful about who I point my camera at (and where I do it) but partly it’s because a black M10 in a black half-case, accessorized with some carefully applied black electrical tape, doesn’t actually draw much attention. The eye-catching chrome version looks absolutely beautiful by comparison, but it’s the kind of beautiful that makes me nervous.

The whole process of taking someone’s picture is less confrontational than it might be with a larger and louder camera

I’m not a huge proponent of candid portraiture, but the subtle click of the M10’s shutter means that even for casual snapshots of friends and family, the whole process of taking someone’s picture is less confrontational than it might be with a larger and louder camera.

The flip-side is that it’s also harder to use. For all of the smug chin-stroking of whiskery old salts who cut their teeth on M3s and M2s back in the Good Old Days, the suggestion that M-series rangefinders are as functional – or as practical – as SLRs “just as long as you know what you’re doing” is nonsense. I still shoot film occasionally and I love it, but compared to a 24MP full-frame sensor, even the finest-grained film is a pretty low-resolution medium. I’m much more prepared to let minor focus errors or even camera-shake slide when I’m flipping through scans from my film cameras than I am when examining digital files at 100% in Lightroom.

One of my favorite lenses on the M10 is actually one of the oldest that I own: the tiny 1950s-vintage Nikkor 2.8cm F3.5, attached via an LTM-M adapter. At F4, the center is sharp enough for this kind of (slightly) off-center composition, with just enough out of focus blur fore and aft for some subject separation. Newer Leica and 3rd party 28mm lenses are unequivocally sharper, but they’re also much bigger. This portrait was taken using Live View to ensure off-center sharpness using this vintage lens.

The M10 can turn out excellent results, but truly accurate focusing and composition can be extremely challenging – even for those with long experience of shooting with rangefinders. Yes, there’s always Live View, but on this point I tend to agree with the whiskery old salts: you don’t buy a rangefinder to use Live View (which doesn’t mean that I never do, because like every good whiskery old salt, I am also a hypocrite).

Perversely though, its inherent trickiness is one of the reasons I enjoy shooting with the M10 so much. Compared to an auto-everything DSLR or mirrorless camera, it’s very challenging. When I capture an image that I really like, I appreciate it more because I feel like I’ve worked harder to get there.

Leica M10 real-world samples

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter / magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review), we do so in good faith, please don’t abuse it.

Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution. Because our review images are now hosted on the ‘galleries’ section of dpreview.com, you can enjoy all of the new galleries functionality when browsing these samples.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_6037658348″,”galleryId”:”6037658348″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”standalone”:false,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”startInCommentsView”:false,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Gear of the Year 2016 – Barney’s choice: Nikon D500

19 Dec

From almost the minute it was announced, somewhat incongruously, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January (well, it does have a touchscreen, I suppose), the Nikon D500 looked like it was going to be a hit with DPReview’s readers. After so many years we had almost lost hope that Nikon would replace the D300S, which soldiered on well into its dotage, and well beyond the point where it was able to keep up with the likes of Canon’s EOS 7D II.

But replace it Nikon did, and in impressive fashion. I won’t waste your time listing specifications (you can find all of that here) in this article, but suffice to say it’s unlikely that the D500 will look outdated any time soon.

The D500 boasts a 153-point AF system, of which 55 can be manually selected. But it doesn’t just boast a lot of autofocus points, it also offers them across most of the width of the frame.

Despite its obvious appeal, I was a little hesitant to make the D500 my choice for Gear of the Year because of all the people on the DPReview team, I’ve probably used it for the least amount of time. But my experience of shooting with it for our September Field Test, with National Geographic photographer, friend to the wolves and all-round man-crush Ronan Donovan was a definite highlight of 2016.

Most of our video shoots are organized far in advance, and planned almost down to the last detail. Camera features are carefully aligned with shooting situations, locations are scouted ahead of time, and the shoot proceeds predictably, and more or less according to plan.

Most Field Tests are like that, but some are not. The D500 shoot was not.

A combination of factors including limited availability of D500 bodies, limited availability of Ronan, an already packed pre-Photokina schedule, the vicissitudes of rural Montana’s postal system some inconveniently-positioned wildfires meant that we weren’t able to plan the shoot quite as carefully as we might have liked.

A Tight Timeframe

In fact, we ended up with a mere 24-hour window of time in which to work with Ronan, filming at a remote wildlife reserve in Montana, more than 10 hours’ drive away from DPReview’s home base of Seattle. The cameras only showed up a couple of days before we were due to head to the reserve, so it was essential that D500s didn’t fail or present any major surprises on location. If that had happened, there wouldn’t have been enough time to troubleshoot.

The broad width of the D500’s autofocus coverage, and its impressive 3D AF Tracking mode combine to offer unparalleled accuracy when it comes to tracking subjects around the frame. Even flying against a similarly-colored, cluttered background, the D500 had no trouble accurately tracking birds of prey on the Montana video shoot.

For instance, had the D500 been susceptible to dust or high temperatures, or had it simply presented too steep a learning curve for Ronan and me to pick up and use more or less straight out of the box, we would have been in trouble. Similarly, if it had been incapable of focusing on the fast-moving birds we were pinning our hopes on capturing, or if its autofocus system gave out in low light, we might have been forced to scrub the shoot for lack of coverage.

That’s the gear, but the concept itself also presented some risk. When you center a video shoot around wildlife photography, it’s a good idea to build some extra time into the schedule as insurance against the unexpected. With such a tight window, multiple extra shoot days weren’t an option. Things were further complicated by wildfire haze and a 30mph wind on the day of our shoot, which threatened to reduce both air quality and audio quality, as well as keep the birds we were hoping to photograph on the ground or tucked away in the branches of trees.

Ominously, a frequent visitor to the reserve told me when we arrived that he had seen fewer birds during his vacation this year than any previous year he could remember. Gulp.

This image is one of a sequence taken after dark. Even in such low light, the D500 accurately tracked these swans landing on a lake, and at ISO 258,032 the images are grainy, but after careful processing they still contain plenty of detail and natural color.

Fortunately despite the wind and the haze, we did find some birds, and although the wind blew out a lot of our audio, we still managed to record plenty of usable sound. Ronan was great on camera and quickly got to grips with the D500, and the D500 itself shrugged off the dust and heat and did everything that we asked of it. And we asked a lot.

In a 24-hour shoot we baked our three D500s in the sun, froze them overnight taking time-lapse shots of the stars, covered them in dust, and repeatedly asked them to focus track small, distant birds at long focal lengths. Even more challenging was shooting after dark, when we attempted 10 fps AF tracking bursts of trumpeter swans flying at night, and grabbed unplanned images of an owl, lit only by the headlamps of our truck.

Sharp Focus

The reason we were able to get all of those images with relatively little trial and error is that the D500’s autofocus system seems to have been sent from the future by benevolent aliens, whose mission – apparently – is to help us take better photographs.

In 3D AF tracking mode, the camera managed to accurately follow our small, erratic subjects around the frame, even in very low light. When 3D AF tracking didn’t work so well, one of the several other autofocus modes invariably delivered the results we needed. Group Area AF, for instance, proved especially useful for the smaller birds.

The D500’s 1.5X crop turns a 500mm lens into an effective 750mm. This is very handy when shooting skittish birds like this hawk.

Once we’d wrapped the shoot and Ronan had left, I spent a couple of hours the next day on my own, getting some additional images in the bag before we left the wildlife reserve. With the film crew otherwise occupied, I posted up near a fence where we’d seen hawks the previous day, and waited to see if they’d come back. They did, and I spent a pleasant couple of hours shooting them wheeling around the sky, with the D500 accurately tracking them around the frame even as they moved in front and behind of low trees and bushes.

If you make the mistake of getting too close to one of these birds of prey, you might end up regretting it. This image is one of a sequence of shots which show a juvenile hawk diving at me, at a closing speed of roughly 100mph. This image shows the bird starting to open his wings to pull out of the dive a few feet above my head.

Less pleasant was a diving attack from one of the juveniles, which dropped on me from a hundred feet or so, folding its wings and coming straight for the camera, like a beaked dart. I fired off a few shots before losing my nerve but remarkably, despite the incredible closing speed of the bird and my shaking hands, the D500 nailed several sharp images of the hawk before it pulled out of the dive at close to 100mph, a few feet about my head. I took the hint and moved on.

I headed to a small lake and shot an unbroken sequence of images of a pelican taking off and circling around the lake. With an XQD card installed, the D500 can maintain its 10 fps continuous shooting rate almost indefinitely, while maintaining accurate focus the entire time. I like pelicans. They’re very sedate. Less… attacky.

Although there are higher-resolution cameras on the market, 20MP is enough resolution for high-quality landscape imaging. Raw files from the D500 also offer a wide latitude for post-capture adjustment.

With these sequences, plus Ronan’s shots from the previous day, we knew we had enough images to really show the D500 at its best. Despite the challenging shooting conditions, the D500 did everything we asked of it, and more. After more than ten years writing about digital cameras, I’m not easily seduced by impressive-sounding specifications or fancy new features. I knew the D500 was good before the Montana video shoot, but I didn’t know how good. That experience impressed me enough to make the Nikon D500 my pick for Gear of the Year 2016.

Nikon D500 real-world samples

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryGridV2({“galleryId”:”4137508448″,”isMobile”:false}) })

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

DPReview Gear of the Year part 5: Barney’s choice – Sony RX1R II

21 Dec

The Sony Cyber-shot RX1R II is a 42MP full-frame compact camera, with one of the best AF systems of any non-DSLR camera on the market. And I want one.

Photo: Sam Spencer.

I’m a sucker for 35mm. I reckon that 90% of the pictures I like to take could be (or are) taken at this focal length. That’s why I have a Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art almost permanently attached to my DSLR, and why when I’m not shooting with that, I can probably be seen out and about using my old Fujifilm X100S. In fact it was the X100S that I wrote about for my last ‘Gear of the Year’ article, way back in 2013 (no offense, noble cameras of 2014. I guess I was just really busy this time last year. I’ll call you).

It’s because I love 35mm that I really wanted to love the original Sony Cyber-shot RX1 and R. On paper they were perfect: a high-quality 24MP full-frame sensor (without an AA filter, in the case of the RX1R), 35mm F2 lens, with full manual control and the option to add a high resolution external EVF, in a compact body. What’s not to like?

I had a love / hate relationship when shooting with the original RX1R. In low-ish light, the camera’s AF system would routinely fail to accurately acquire focus. Both this image (and the one below) were shot in manual focus mode.

Sony RX1R, ISO 640, F2.5, 1/80sec

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Despite high hopes (and to be fair – after taking some pictures that I quite liked) I just didn’t get on with those cameras at all. The external viewfinder was almost essential, but clunky, and made a compact camera into a not-at-all-compact camera the minute it was attached. Battery life was fairly pitiful, and autofocus – dear God the autofocus… Fussy in bright light, unreliable in moderate light and downright unavailable in low light.

Until I tried to take nighttime shots with the RX1R I didn’t believe it was possible for an inanimate object to shrug, but I swear that’s what the damned thing did whenever I half-pressed the shutter button.

Taken by the light of a campfire, this image shows the strength of the original RX1R’s 24MP sensor, but like the previous image I had to resort to manual focus to get a sharp result (focused on the little girl’s face).

Sony RX1R, ISO 6400, F2, 1/80sec

The original RX1 and RX1R were on the market for a long time, and just when I was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing an improved replacement, along came the RX1R II.

Compared to the original RX1R, the Mark II version is a breath of fresh air. Inheriting the same 42MP BSI-CMOS full frame sensor (but with an all-new switchable anti-aliasing filter) and 399 phase-detection AF system from the Sony a7R II, the RX1R II is a significant step up.

What I love

Excellent resolution
High-resolution built-in EVF
Very accurate, flexible AF system
Compact, relatively lightweight form-factor
Large manual controls

Gone is the clumsy add-on FDA-EVM1K, replaced by a built-in, retractable 2.3 million dot OLED finder. I shoot with my eye to the viewfinder almost exclusively, so when Sony representatives first showed us the camera, I nabbed one of the new lockable rubber viewfinder hoods they brought along. The hood prevents the finder from being retracted, but after resorting – twice – to using needle-nosed pliers to loosen the locking screw* I decided just to leave it permanently attached.

With 42MP and a new BSI design, the sensor in the RX1R II is significantly more advanced than the already very good 24MP sensor in the older RX1R. Like all current Sony full-frame sensors it offers extraordinary dynamic range, allowing me to expose just shy of highlight clipping for this ISO 100 shot, and pull up the shadows very significantly in Photoshop. The final result shows a very wide dynamic range from bright to dark without feeling too ‘HDR’.

Sony RX1R II, ISO 100, F6.3, 1/400sec

Just aesthetically, I really like the RX1R II, and it’s a camera that tends to attract admiring glances when I’m out shooting. Like the Fujifilm X100S, more than a few people have commented to me that it looks like a film camera, but the semi-retro styling doesn’t come at the expense of usability (keep walking, Nikon Df…).

Cosmetics aside, the RX1R II also produces great images, exactly as we’d expect from a camera using such a high-quality sensor. Like recent a7-series cameras, Sony has included an uncompressed Raw option in the RX1R II.This gives maximum quality but at the expense of very large file sizes – roughly 80MB each, to be precise, compared to JPEGs which are typically less than ten. This slows the camera down, and eats through memory cards with frightening rapidity.

While I didn’t much care for the original RX1/R overall but I did enjoy that 35mm F2 Zeiss lens. And although it was designed for a 24MP resolution it successfully keeps up with the much higher pixel density of the new sensor in the RX1R II. Sadly though, neither the sensor nor the lens is stabilized so with 42MP in play, even though sometimes I’ve gotten away with 1/30sec, I’m in the habit of treating 1/125sec as my safe ‘slowest’ shutter speed when hand-holding.

After dark, the RX1R II’s focus system is far superior to that of its predecessor. This shot was hand-held after dark, and shot wide open at F2.

Sony RX1R II, ISO 400, F2, 1/50sec

Alright, so the sensor is great, the AF system is transformed, and the built-in viewfinder is lovely. What about my one remaining major criticism of the original RX1R? – Battery life.

Sadly, the RX1R II’s battery is the same NP-BX1 found in the first generation RX1R and all of Sony’s RX100 series compacts. Even just physically, the BX1 is comically small. Like, lose-it-in-your-pocket small. And while it’s rated for a modest 200 shots, in cold weather I’ve come to expect far less.

In temperatures around freezing, I quickly fell into the habit of holding the battery slipped into a glove, and placing it in the camera only when needed. You know – like we had to do in the 1990s. Fortunately, Sony is shipping the RX1R II with a handy USB-powered charger, which means you don’t need to plug the camera in to charge the battery, as with other RX-series Sony compacts. So that’s one step forward, at least.

Face detection worked well for this shot in one sense – it resulted in a nicely-balanced exposure, in a situation where my subject could easily be backlit. I should have activated Eye-AF though, because focus has fallen slightly short of my subject’s eyes.

Sony RX1R II, ISO 100, F4, 1/125sec

I’ve been using the RX1R II for a while now and I keep on having to remind myself that despite its high price-tag it is still a Cyber-shot camera, with a lot of the same quirks of much cheaper compact cameras in Sony’s lineup. In fact, it’s impossible to ignore. There’s the same lengthy startup time, the same lag – before – you – can – zoom – in to the images you’ve captured, the same confusing, rather passive aggressive error messages when you try to do something before the camera is ready or when it’s in the wrong mode, and the same somewhat confusingly-named array of AF modes.

Exposed to retain the very delicate warmth in the sky just above the horizon, this ISO 320 shot was converted from a Raw file, and the shadows lifted in Adobe Camera Raw. I performed some very slight noise reduction, but could still smooth out the midtones a lot more if I wanted to.

Sony RX1R II, ISO 320, F2, 1/60sec

There are a couple of outright bugs, too. For example, despite not offering any form of SteadyShot image stabilization in still capture, the RX1R II will still blink a reminder at slow shutter speeds that this non-existent feature is turned off.

After shooting thousands of frames with the RX1R II, I’ve learned to live with these minor annoyances but I do with Sony had sprung for a couple of extra components. A more powerful processor would make a huge difference to the overall handling experience (especially in uncompressed Raw mode) and I wish it had a touchscreen. I’ve come to really value touch-sensitive screens over the past couple of years, mostly for AF placement when shooting from low angles.

This grabshot was taken on a tabletop, using live view. The RX1R II’s flip-out screen is very handy for pictures like this, but even handier would be a touch-sensitive screen, which would have allowed me to position the autofocus point precisely, by touch.

Sony RX1R II, ISO 12800, F2, 1/60

All this being said, after a lot of thought, I picked the RX1R II as my personal choice for gear of the year. And I did that because it’s one of those cameras – like my Fujifilm X100S – that is capable of such good results that I am prepared to work around its quirks and largely forgive its faults. I should give an honorary mention to the Leica Q, though. In some ways the Q is a more pleasant camera to use but its sensor isn’t as advanced, I don’t love 28mm as much as 35mm, and my Christmas bonus* wasn’t generous enough to justify its higher cost.

Not that the RX1R II is cheap, of course. But if I have to move into a tent for a couple of months to save up enough to buy one, I’m willing to consider it. Once it’s stopped raining.

* Pliers were resorted to only after I broke a nail trying to do it with my fingers. Yeah, I know. Shut up.
** Ha ha ha ha ha.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Barney’s’

Gear of the Year: Barney’s choice (part 2) – Reflex-Nikkor 1000mm F11

Gear of the Year: Barney’s choice (part 1) – Fujifilm X100V

Gear of the year 2019: Barney’s choice (part 2) Nikon Z 50mm F1.8 S

Gear of the Year – Barney’s choice part 1: Ricoh GR III

Ricoh GR III sample gallery

Gear of the Year 2018 – Barney’s choice: Nikon Z7

Nikon Z7 Sample Gallery

DPReview Instagram takeover: Barney’s photos from Mexico

Gear of the Year 2017 – Barney’s choice (Part 2): Nikon D850

Nikon D850 Sample Gallery

Gear of the Year 2017 – Barney’s choice (part 1): Leica M10

Leica M10 real-world samples

Gear of the Year 2016 – Barney’s choice: Nikon D500

A Tight Timeframe

Sharp Focus

Nikon D500 real-world samples

Nikon D500 Sample Gallery

DPReview Gear of the Year part 5: Barney’s choice – Sony RX1R II

What I love

Pages

Archives

Categories