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Posts Tagged ‘impressions’

First impressions of the Sony 50mm F1.2 GM

17 Mar

First impressions of the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM

It seems that every camera company is flexing its optical muscles these days to churn out F1.2 lenses. Sony, not one to be left behind, just released its first F1.2 prime, the FE 50mm F1.2 GM. One can’t help but ponder if Sony made this lens, at least in part, to dispel the myth that the smaller lens mount diameter – compared to its mirrorless peers – makes such fast lenses impossible (Sony claims F0.63 E-mount lenses can be made, but don’t make business sense).

Either way, while the Planar T* FE 50mm F1.4 ZA optic was impressive in its own right, offering a very flat field of focus and minimal aberrations, the 50mm F1.2 appears to exceed it in nearly every respect.

Click through for a closer look.

Size and weight

The FE 50mm F1.2 GM is surprisingly compact and lightweight for what it offers. Next to the Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA, it’s nearly the same size and at 778g weighs exactly the same, despite offering half a stop more light gathering and shallow depth-of-field capability. Both lenses are exactly the same length: 108mm. The F1.2 GM has a slightly larger diameter, with the largest section of its barrel measuring 87mm compared to 83.5mm for the F1.4 ZA. This can be explained by the approximately 36% increase in surface area required for an F1.2 aperture compared to F1.4. Still, the filter diameter is a modest 72mm.

Mount each lens on a camera body, close your eyes, and you won’t be able to tell which lens is attached. Well, save for the nicer rubberized manual focus ring on the F1.2 GM.

The Sony optic is the smallest and lightest of its competitors, weighing 18% less than Canon’s RF 50mm F1.2 and 30% less (and 30% shorter) than Nikon’s 50mm F1.2 S.

Build quality and sealing

Despite its compact size, the 50mm F1.2 GM feels very well-built. Similar to other lenses in the GM-series, it’s rated as ‘dust and moisture resistant’, with seals around all buttons and rings. A rubber gasket around the mount should help protect against moisture and other elements entering the camera body. Sony says that hybrid metal and engineering plastic has been used for durability and to reduce the weight of the lens. Finally, a fluorine coating on the front element should make water, oils, fingerprints and dirt easy to clean off.

External controls

The FE 50mm F1.2 GM lens offers a number of external controls. A focus mode switch allows you to quickly switch between auto and manual focus. Two focus hold buttons can be customized to any function available to all other custom buttons on the camera body. The manual focus ring has a nice rubberized texture that makes it easy to grasp and that also differentiates it from the aperture ring. The focus ring offers a linear focus response for intuitive focus pulls in video and stills…

External controls (continued)

The aperture ring has a texture similar to the lens barrel but with ‘teeth’ to make it easy to grasp and turn. F-stops are marked in 1/3 EV steps. The aperture ring can be ‘clicked’ or ‘de-clicked’, with the latter setting making it easier to smoothly change the aperture if you wish to vary the depth-of-field while shooting video.

Optical design

The optical construction comprises 14 elements in 10 groups. Three extreme aspherical (XA) elements – shown here in orange – help minimize aberrations and reduce the overall size of the optics. These XA elements also play a role in maintaining high resolution across the frame at wide apertures.

Bokeh

Enhanced surface precision of the molds used to create those XA elements in the last slide helps ensure smooth bokeh. Pictured at the top left in this image (courtesy of Sony) is a conventional aspherical lens surface, leading to an undesirable circle of confusion (top right). At the bottom left is a surface trace of one of Sony’s XA lens surfaces with 0.01µm surface precision, creating a clean circle of confusion (bottom right) and generally pleasing bokeh.

Sony claims that spherical aberration has been carefully controlled at the design and manufacturing stages for smooth foreground and background bokeh, and the comparative images Sony showed us against competitors were convincing, though we’ll reserve final judgement for after our own testing.

Bokeh

An 11-bladed aperture ensures circular out-of-focus highlights even as you stop down. In the image above you can see perfectly circular discs even after stopping the lens down 1.7 stops, which would be difficult for a lens with 9 or 10 aperture blades to do. Though there are many other factors that contribute to pleasing bokeh, this should help the F1.2 GM pleasantly render out of focus lights and produce smoother, more Gaussian bokeh.

There’s some mechanical vignetting that leads to cat’s eye effect wide open as you can see on the left, but it mostly disappears as you stop down to F1.8 and is completely gone by F2, as you see on the right.

Sharpness

MTF traces provided by Sony suggest impressive performance wide open (leftmost MTF graph), with over 90% contrast retained for higher resolution 30 lp/mm detail (green) at the center of the frame continuing out at least 6mm from the center of the imaging circle. Meanwhile, this 30 lp/mm trace, indicative of lens’ sharpness, never dips below 60% anywhere in the frame, typically hovering nearer to 70% at image peripheries.

The fact that the sagittal and tangential traces generally closely follow each other indicate that astigmatism is well-controlled, which suggests that bokeh should have a pleasing rendering, which bears out in our initial impressions.

A quick note on reading these graphs: sagittal or radial traces are solid while tangential traces are dotted. Orange traces are for 10 lp/mm detail, often indicative of lens’ contrast performance. The higher the traces, the better.

Sharpness

What does sharpness at F1.2 look like in real-world shooting? Have a look at this image at 100%. Depth of field is razor thin at F1.2, but Sony’s Eye AF is generally accurate enough, and AF speeds with this lens are responsive enough, that hit rates are high. Which brings us to…

Autofocus

Two independent floating focus groups allow for close focusing distances, and are driven by four ‘extreme dynamic’ linear motors (two per focus group). We’re told by Sony that these linear motors are very efficient at generating linear motion, as they don’t require any translation of rotational motion to linear motion, as ring-type and stepper motors do. The results speak for themselves, both in this demonstration video from Sony and in our own independent tests that confirm the 50mm F1.2 GM is the fastest-to-focus lens of its type. We measure only a mere 0.65s for the lens to rack from minimum focus distance (0.4m) to infinity, and 0.5s to rack from 0.7m – still a very close working distance for the 50mm focal length – to infinity.

In comparison, the tiny FE 35mm F1.8 optic takes a similar 0.5s to rack from its minimum focus distance to infinity, while the Nikkor 35mm F1.8 S takes a bit over 1s to do so. And those lenses are more than a stop slower.

The minimum focus distance of 0.4m (15.8″) yields a maximum magnification of 0.17x. Unfortunately, focus breathing, or a change in magnification with focus distance, is pretty significant and might be an issue for video shooters.

Longitudinal chromatic aberration

When it comes to fast lenses of this type, longitudinal chromatic aberration, abbreviated simply as LoCA, is one of the major aberrations we tend to worry about, especially as it tends to be hard to remove in post-processing and can be distracting. It shows up typically as magenta and green fringing in front of and behind the focus plane, respectively, around high contrast objects in the image.

There is almost no such fringing to speak of with the FE 50mm F1.2 GM, not even after drastic contrast adjustments that would exaggerate any LoCA present in the image, as we have done above (+45 in Adobe Camera Raw).

Sony tells us the lack of this aberration is due in part to the XA elements, as well as the use of the latest advanced simulation technology.

Flare, ghosting and sunstars

Sony’s ‘Nano AR (anti-reflective) II’ coating helps reduce flare as well as the appearance of distracting ‘ghosts’, both caused by reflections off of the internal elements. Nano AR II was developed specifically for application to large optical elements with highly curved surfaces, such as the XA elements increasingly found in Sony’s lenses.

The image above was shot by pointing the camera at the sun and angling it in such a way as to introduce as much flare and ghosting as possible. Results are impressive: there is very little loss of contrast, and the 2 or 3 visible ghosts (the purple and blue circles at upper right) aren’t too distracting or unsightly, instead appearing rather diffuse.

The 11-blade aperture produces 22-point sunstars with point light sources in the frame, if you stop the aperture down (pictured here is F11).

Lateral chromatic aberration

As is the case with many modern, well corrected lenses, lateral chromatic aberration, which shows up as magenta and cyan or green fringing at image peripheries that does not improve significantly upon stopping down, isn’t much of an issue, particularly because it’s taken care of digitally. Above, the left half of the image is identical to the right half, except that it’s had any lateral CA removed using the included profile embedded in Sony Raw files (processed here in Capture One). Noticeable mostly at high contrast edges, lateral CA simply isn’t an issue after it’s been removed, either in your favorite Raw converter, or in-camera by selecting ‘Auto’ for ‘Chromatic Aberration Comp’ under the ‘Lens Comp’ option in the camera menu.

This particular example is a crop from an extreme corner of the frame, so even if you leave lateral CA uncorrected – which you shouldn’t – this level of aberration is nothing to concern yourself over.

Distortion

We don’t tend to worry about distortion on 50mm prime lenses, but we do find it interesting that there is a noticeable amount of pincushion distortion if you go looking for it by comparing uncorrected vs. corrected images. The left half of this image is corrected while the right half is not; note the slight inward bend of the right edge of the stone wall on the right compared to the straight edge on the left. And the magnification of the rectangular tiles on the left relative to those on right, particularly obvious if you look at the center of the image.

These artifacts are all due to distortion correction having been applied to the left half of the above image only. For whatever reason, Sony has chosen to leave some optical distortion behind in the optical formula for, albeit very easy, digital correction afterwards. It’s worth noting that, for now, Adobe Camera Raw allows for no such provision for distortion correction – not until Adobe has profiled this particular lens – while Capture One honors the built-in manufacturer distortion correction profile included in Raws shot with the 50mm F1.2 GM. This is one of the reasons we have chosen to include some Capture One conversions in our gallery of this lens.

Price and availability

The FE 50mm F1.2 GM is Sony’s 60th E-mount lens, its 40th full-frame E-mount lens, introduced right around the 5th anniversary of the introduction of Sony’s first GM lenses. From our initial testing we’d venture to say the FE 50mm F1.2 GM is probably one of Sony’s sharpest, fastest to focus, and most aberration free primes

Expect to see it in the wild mid-May 2021, at an MSRP price of $ 1999 USD.

See our Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM Sample Gallery

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Laowa 9mm F5.6 FF RL sample gallery and impressions

07 Nov

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Venus Optics has made quite a name for itself with its collection of very wide angle lenses, and especially for the Laowa Zero-D series that features optical designs with very little curvilinear distortion. This little 9mm lens isn’t one of the Zero-D range, but it is still remarkable as the widest rectilinear focal length lens available for full frame cameras.
The 9mm F5.6 FF RL lens has an extraordinary angle of view of 135°, so you’ll need to be careful your feet don’t make an unscheduled appearance in the bottom of the frame.

The angle of view is so dramatic that users will have to be careful not to appear in their own pictures when the sun is low in the sky.

In fact, checking what is and isn’t in the frame is more important than ever when using this lens as it seems to want to include the whole world. It isn’t just your feet or the things on the ground near where you’re standing you have to watch out for – your own shadow, or that of your tripod, can cause quite a problem as well when the sun is low in the sky. This restricts the directions in which the lens can be pointed according to the time of day, and turning the other way to avoid your own shadow will almost inevitably include the sun in the frame.

It took me some time to get in the habit of finding the shadow of something else in which to stand so I wouldn’t cast an obvious shadow on the ground and to begin thinking about composition to take this into account. I actually considered buying a tree costume at one point to disguise my human form. You have to find buildings and trees to block the sun from striking the front element, and if you’re recording video, and intending to move around, I recommend doing a practice run to make sure you are in control of the content of the frame is essential.

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The lens is nice and small (62.4 x 66 mm/2.45 x 2.6″) as well as quite lightweight (350g/12.4oz) given its full-metal body. The aperture ring clicks with stops in each full aperture value with no half or third stop positions, and the distance between F5.6 and F8 is about equal to the distance between F8 and F22.

The focusing ring has a throw of about 90° and is marked in feet and meters from 0.12m (0.4ft) to infinity. The depth-of-field scale suggests that a setting of F22 will allow rendering of 0.19m (0.65ft) to infinity in acceptable focus, and that even F8 will deliver 0.33m (1ft) to infinity – so you may feel focusing is somewhat unnecessary.

The underside of the lens features a tab for finger-focusing the lens. The focus ring turns very nicely indeed, so this tab does provide a useful means of focusing quickly. It is hard to rely on peaking though to find focus without the further assistance of a magnified view, as it can seem that the whole world is in focus as the peaking outlines come to life all over the frame. However, with a good magnified view it is possible to see more clearly what is sharp and what only might be sharp.

With the extensive depth of field of the lens, marks on the front element have a significant impact on the image

The front element is extremely bulbous and protrudes some distance from the main part of the barrel. Although protected in part by the petals of the lens hood it is still quite exposed and a magnet for rain, dust and fingers. With the extensive depth of field of the lens, especially when focused relatively closely, marks on the front element have a significant impact on the image, so it’s particularly important to check it regularly. Sharp-eyed viewers will also notice evidence in the gallery that the sensor of the camera I was using wasn’t spotlessly clean – another thing that shows up with an ultra-wide lens.

It isn’t easy to use filters with this lens without the dedicated filter holder from Laowa – and even that isn’t especially easy. It fits over the lens hood and clamps into place. The holder has a striking resemblance to an H&Y filter holder and uses the same magnetic frames and tightening screw. Even though the holder is designed specifically for this lens it needs to be used with caution because if it’s misaligned only slightly, or if the holder isn’t pushed back far enough, the filter will appear in the edge of your pictures.

I used the L-mount version of the lens and found the 47MP resolution of the Panasonic Lumix S1R slightly punishing, though when viewed at less than 100% the majority of the images look sharp enough. Resolution in the center of the frame is very good, but it drops off significantly towards the corners.

The lens generally performs better with a close subject, at F8 or F11 and when used on a tripod. Subject motion towards the edges of the frame is also exaggerated, so a faster shutter speed is needed to arrest movement and to produce clean detail.

And if you think you don’t need to pay attention to the focusing ring, you do. The depth-of-field scale is slightly generous regarding ‘acceptable’ sharpness and I found things looked better when I actually focused on the subject rather than relying on all-encompassing hyperfocal distances.

Vignetting, corner smearing and a color shift at the edges are all issues that you should expect when using this lens. Most of the nasties are right at the edge of the frame so it’s fairly easy to take them into account when shooting. Trimming the edges gets rid of the worst of the problems and vignetting and the color shift can easily be removed in Raw editing software, leaving a very nice result still with an extreme wide angle view.

Exposure is also tricky when using a lens with such a wide view as no camera system is designed to cope with it

Remarkably, it is possible to achieve some differential focus at F5.6 when focused quite close, and there is a definite depth-of-field progression moving up the aperture range. All the shots in this gallery were taken at F8 or F11, but actually the F5.6 position delivers equal resolution and more light, while diffraction reduces resolution at F16 and F22. Vignetting and chromatic errors are most obvious in the wider apertures and gradually lessen, though by no means disappear, when the lens is stopped-down.

Exposure is also tricky when using a lens like this with such a wide view as no camera system is designed to cope with it. Evaluative/matrix/honeycomb/pattern systems will inevitably be confused when used outside by the range of brightnesses and the areas from which they are coming, so spot and selective metering arrangements work best.

Curvilinear distortion is pretty well controlled considering the angle of view of the lens, but it is still a significant characteristic of the lens. When focused on a distant subject, barreling is generally quite mild, but it increases dramatically at closer focus distances, as shown in the clip above.

The lens is available in mounts for Leica M, Sony FE, Nikon Z and Leica L, and it costs £869/$ 799. The Leica M version comes in silver or black and costs £979/$ 899. The optional 100mm magnetic filter holder comes with one set of magnetic filter frame edges and costs £129/$ 149. For more information see the Venus Optics website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Sample gallery and impressions: Lomography Fantome ISO 8 and Babylon ISO 13 BW films

06 Nov

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Lomography recently announced two new low ISO black-and-white films: Fantome ISO 8 and Babylon ISO 13. Both films belong to their ‘Kino’ line, which has been created from cine film stock produced by a German company. These monochromatic films offer some of the lowest ISO on the market at the moment.

The slow speed means that they will produce negatives with very fine grain, but it also means it can be challenging to capture enough light for a proper exposure. With this in mind I loaded the test rolls into my Contax T2 and hoped that New York City would grant me some sunny September days.

Babylon ISO 13 is advertised as BW film that has a ‘high dynamic range’ and can capture very subtle gradient transitions. Fantom ISO 8 falls on the opposite side of the spectrum. This film is a high-contrast stock that renders images with super crushed shadows and bright highlights. It’s incredibly moody and the grain is very fine.

Impressions

For the most part, my favorite frames from these two rolls were ones shot in bright conditions and with a flash. Frames that were captured later in the day or on overcast days just didn’t work as well. Like most of Lomography’s speciality film stocks, the Kino films aren’t necessarily for everyday use, but these black-and-white rolls do seem a little more versatile than some of Lomo’s speciality color films.

Babylon ISO 13 worked nicely for daytime portraits and urban architecture

I love the way that Fantome ISO 8 rendered urban architecture, skies and close-up detail shots. But I found it difficult to get shutter speeds fast enough for scenes with lots of subject movement. As expected, Babylon ISO 13 was a little more forgiving. It worked nicely for daytime portraits, urban architecture and the subtle gradient shifts within a frame are quite lovely.

Recommendations

Both films are definitely best shot with a camera that has automatic metering and a fast lens. Having a camera with a small flash can also be helpful. Lomography recommends that both are processed using D-96 or Kodak HC-110, something you will definitely want to keep in mind if you are dropping it off at a lab.

These low ISO Lomography films certainly aren’t going to be for everyone, and shooters should definitely expect more ‘misses’ than when they are shooting with a standard film stock. That said, I’m happy with the way my frames turned out and would definitely give these films another go. Next time I think I’ll save a roll for an aggressively sunny day at the beach though.

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Laowa 15mm F4.5 Zero-D Shift sample gallery and impressions

31 Oct

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Those looking for a lens to help with architectural photography don’t have too many choices. Canon and Nikon provide tilt-and-shift lenses for the F and EF mount systems but it’s fair to say these are quite costly – as specialist products usually are. Samyang makes a 24mm that comes in a wide range of mounts, but beyond that options are limited to the adapters various independent brands, such as Fotodiox, offer.

This new lens from Laowa is currently the widest shift lens for full frame users. Where this lens also differs from those others available is that it only shifts – there is no tilt option. All other lenses in this segment offer tilt as well as shift, but Laowa says it hasn’t offered tilt in this 15mm model as it is designed for architectural photographers and they don’t need or use tilt features.

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As expected from Laowa, the lens is well made, solid and offers smooth mechanical movements. The barrel is all-metal and the lens comes with a metal twist-lock lens cap to protect the extremely bulbous front element. The 15mm focal length delivers an angle of view of 110° and the 17 elements-in-11-groups design produces curvilinear distortion corrected well enough for Laowa to include this in its Zero-D range of wide angles.

An image circle with a diameter of 65mm allows full frame users 22mm of shift in total – 11mm either side of the neutral position. And the shifting section of the lens can be rotated about 360° with click stops every 15°. The shift is achieved by unscrewing the locking pin and then turning the shift ring that sits between the camera and the aperture ring. Rotating this ring by 45° is enough to take the lens from the neutral position to the extreme of its shift at 11mm from Normal, and 45° the other way takes the barrel in the opposite direction.

As expected from Laowa, the lens is well made, solid and offers smooth mechanical movements

The mechanism for shifting the lens is smooth and, once unlocked, very easy to turn but with enough resistance to make it comfortable to control. A scale on the side of the barrel where the two sections meet makes it simple to measure the movement and then to repeat the same degree of movement in future shots. Conveniently, the lens clicks into place at the neutral position so you’ll know it has come home without looking at the scale.

The aperture ring clicks only at the full stop positions but allows users settings anywhere in between them, and the iris has only five blades – the same as the Laowa 9mm. At F4.5 the iris is round as the blades are fully retracted, but looks very pentagonal as the aperture is closed down. Considering this lens’ traditionally large and distant subjects, maybe the out-of-focus rendering isn’t as important as it might be in longer focal lengths.

Tilting the camera upwards while using ‘rising front’ or ‘drop front’ makes it possible to exaggerate or minimize converging verticals. Here from left to right we have extreme drop front, the lens in the normal position and then raised to its highest position. When the front is dropped down we have to tilt the camera back more to get the top of the building in, which exaggerates the ‘looking up’ perspective

Obviously the main target for this lens is photographers wanting to avoid converging verticals in their architectural work, but it is also very good for exaggerating convergence as shifting the front of the lens down allows for angling the camera up more – a range of effects can be achieved.

Twisting the lens to the 90° position and using the shift to move the lens from side to side is an easy way to create a panoramic image that will stitch easily, and using the shift diagonally allows four images to be taken that can be stitched to make a high resolution super-wide view. With the camera upright side-to-side shifts again allow high resolution stitches to be made with a squarer format.

This image is made from two pictures stitched together, and demonstrates the full horizontal movement of the lens. The lens was mounted on the tripod and I used the full shift to the left and took a picture. I then shifted it to the full extent to the right and took the second shot. They align very easily in software and have a large overlap in the middle. The combined angle of view is somewhere between 160 and 170 degrees.

I found the full 22mm side-to-side shift allowed me to create an image 13314 x 5499 with the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R – that would allow a 44″ print at 300ppi. Single pictures from this camera are 8368 pixels on the longest dimension so the shift allowed me to add approximately 1.6x to the width of the frame. You don’t get double the width as there is a lot of overlap with such a wide lens. But overlap is good as it makes it easy to remove the aberrations at the edges of the frame – though vignetting is the only real issue.

As you’ll see from the samples the lens is pretty good, and retains decent resolution and sharpness through all but the most extreme movements. At the edges of the imaging circle you should expect a loss of clarity and some slight smearing in the corners, but if you keep away from the +/-11mm settings and don’t push it beyond 8 or 9mm you’ll have good performance right across the frame.

I was a little surprised and disappointed at first to find this lens doesn’t offer tilt, but in use I have come to appreciate why that movement hasn’t been included

All the pictures in this gallery were shot at F8 and F11, but F5.6 also gives good performance. There’s a slight drop of sharpness at F16 and a more noticeable decline at F22, as diffraction takes over. Vignetting is well-controlled and only comes into play at the more extreme settings and, as the Zero-D marking indicates, there is little curvilinear distortion.

I have to say that I was a little surprised and disappointed at first to find this lens doesn’t offer tilt, but in use I have come to appreciate why that movement hasn’t been included. While it would be fun to be able to tilt the lens there isn’t the same depth-of-field advantage in such a wide angle lens as you’d get in a regular focal length – depth-of-field is extensive at all apertures – and it likely won’t be used for product photography.

The lens was ideal for shooting the interior of this summer house in my neighbor’s garden. The wide view allowed me to fit it all in, and a bit of drop front allowed me to position the camera high up to could show the tops of the furniture while maintaining upright verticals. Rising front when shooting the outside let me position the camera low down so it could ‘look up’ and include more of the lit ceiling.

Tilt would offer a few fun tricks, but its absence isn’t likely to put off the target market of those shooting the interiors and exteriors of buildings. In use I found the 15mm focal length too wide for many of the applications I was expecting to use this lens for, but was able to make the most of its charms shooting interiors rather than exteriors – though it did allow me to shoot tall buildings when there wasn’t much room to move backwards.

This is a very interesting, if somewhat specialist, lens that should find a place in the kit bags of those looking for its width, its lack of distortion and its ability to take an altered perspective while maintaining a parallel relationship between the imaging sensor and the subject.

The lens will ship from late November in mounts for Nikon F and Canon EF, and costs $ 1199. Other mounts will follow next year. For more information see the Venus Optics website.

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DPReview TV: Fujifilm X-S10 first impressions review

16 Oct

The Fujifilm X-S10 may have a less retro design than some of its siblings, but it’s a very capable camera for both stills and video. Watch our review to find out why Chris and Jordan think this camera hits the sweet spot.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get new episodes of DPReview TV every week.

  • Introduction
  • Complaining about the weather
  • Sample images
  • Controls
  • Stabilization
  • Grip
  • AF-on placement
  • Displays
  • Film simulations
  • Burst shooting and autofocus
  • Video capabilities
  • Video overheating test
  • Video autofocus and stabilization
  • Waterfalls!
  • Who's it for?

Sample images from this episode

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Hasselblad 907X and CFV II 50C sample gallery and impressions

08 Sep

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It has been a while since the Hasselblad 907X was launched. It didn’t go on general release at first as the company made a limited edition all-black kit to commemorate the moon landing, but now the chrome-edged production version is finally available to purchase.

The concept is a tiny, slim body that acts as an interface between the CFV ll 50C digital back and Hasselblad’s XCD lens series, to create a very small lightweight kit that is highly portable, fun to use and, most importantly, beautiful to look at. As the sensor in the CFV ll 50C is the same as that used in the X1D ll and the lenses are the same, in theory we should expect the same image quality, so really choosing this camera over the more conventional X1D ll is a matter of the handling experience.

Hasselblad CFV II 50C digital back and 907X

The kit is very small for a medium format setup, though certainly not tiny by general camera standards. It is, however, very comfortable to hold and pretty simple to use. Most operations are conducted via the rear screen as there are few control points on the actual body. The shutter release is surrounded by a dial for changing exposure values and a single press button that accesses exposure compensation or shutter speed in manual exposure mode. In landscape orientation this is all very comfortable and easy, but working in portrait orientation takes a bit of getting used to.

The rear screen flips up to make shooting from low angles easy, but doesn’t twist for low angles when the camera is flipped over. A small flap opens below the screen to access flash, headphone and mic sockets and iOS users will be able to use an app for remote control and image previews.

It’s a very fun camera to use and a kit does (just) fit in a coat pocket or a small bag

The shape and style of the 907X is reminiscent of the V series film cameras, and the experience of using it is strangely similar too. It’s a very fun camera to use and a kit does (just) fit in a coat pocket or a small bag, and returns first class results. There is a big difference in image rendering between Adobe Camera Raw and Hasselblad’s Phocus software, so as awkward as Phocus is to use I recommend processing these files in that rather than the application most people will automatically reach for.

There is an accessory optical viewfinder coming soon as well as a grip, but neither were available at the time of shooting. The optical finder looks cool, but it won’t necessarily be essential since the rear screen is clear and bright even in sunny conditions. The grip though will make it easier to hold the camera still when shooting video.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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DPReview TV: Panasonic Lumix S5 first impressions

05 Sep

Is the Panasonic S5 a camera for still photographers or videographers? Chris and Jordan answer this burning question with a resounding, “Yes.” Okay, that’s not really an answer. But after spending some time with a nearly-final S5, they’ve come to the conclusion that this is a highly versatile hybrid camera at an attractive price point.

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  • Introduction
  • Build quality and design
  • Sample images
  • Displays
  • Battery
  • Stabilization
  • Drive speed and buffer
  • Autofocus
  • Video specs
  • Video autofocus
  • Video overheating
  • Slow motion
  • Audio
  • Compared to the S1H
  • Upcoming firmware
  • Video conclusion
  • Image quality
  • Who's it for?

Sample images from this episode

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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First impressions: ON1 360 is a cloud-based alternative to Lightroom’s ecosystem

12 Jul

Smartphones not only introduced the ability to capture photos anywhere, they also opened us to the idea of accessing our photo libraries on any device we’re carrying. Apple’s Photos and Adobe’s Lightroom ecosystems enable you to view and edit images that have been uploaded to their respective cloud services.

ON1 360 is a cloud-based service that links the ON1 Photo RAW desktop software with a new ON1 Photo Mobile app

Now, add ON1 to the any-device club. ON1 360 is a cloud-based service that links the ON1 Photo RAW desktop software with a new ON1 Photo Mobile app on iOS or Android devices. (I tested the macOS and iOS versions on a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, 2019 iPad Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro.)

System requirements:

  • iOS: iPhone or iPad with iOS 12.3 or higher
    • Recommended: iOS 13 or higher
  • Android: Phone or tablet with Android 7 (Nougat) or later with current maintenance releases (64-bit only)
    • Recommended: 64-bit Android 9 (Pie) or later

Sync Infrastructure

The cloud approach taken by Apple and Adobe is to automatically upload everything added to Photos and Lightroom. ON1 360 isn’t as aggressive, leaving it up to you to decide what gets synchronized between devices. (Lightroom Classic also takes this approach.)

In ON1 Photo RAW on the desktop, image sources can come from any folder, connected drive, or mountable network volume, and the software leaves the originals in place. To publish photos to ON1 360, you specify a folder as a Cataloged Folder, create an album, or add existing cataloged folders or albums.

Choose which cataloged folders or albums to sync with the ON1 360 service.

The images can be uploaded in their original formats or using ON1’s Editable Preview format, a compressed Raw format that is smaller in size but retains the same tonal information. In the ON1 Photo Mobile app, there’s no indication that you’re working with a format other than the original; the filename appears the same. A setting also lets you choose to upload only the Raw portion of Raw+JPEG pairs.

This photo was uploaded using ON1’s Editable Preview format, but it retains the same .RAF file name extension as if it was in its original Fujifilm raw format.

In the ON1 Photo Mobile app, images you import or capture using the app’s Camera feature are automatically uploaded (in their original formats) and made available to your other devices.

This structure is designed to differentiate all of the sources. Tapping the 360 icon in the mobile app displays the other devices sharing your account; in the desktop app, the other sources appear in a list under My Catalogs.

ON1 360 leaves it up to you to decide what gets synchronized between devices

What’s missing is the ability to view all shared images at once. If your goal is to keep the desktop app as the primary photo source, the approach transitions well. But if, say, you leave the computer at home and import lots of photos onto your tablet, soon you need to maintain a mental model of where images are stored; they’re all there, but you may still end up hunting and pecking to locate the ones you want to edit. Lightroom and Photos prioritize that everyone-in-the-pool approach, which can often feel crowded, which is why ON1’s more targeted approach will probably prove a refreshing change for some photographers. Having the option to switch between views would be a helpful addition in the future.

What’s missing is the ability to view all shared images at once

Syncing, for the most part, happens quickly among devices. Your internet speed is a huge factor when initially uploading images, but edits transfer as small instructions and are quite limited in terms of bandwidth. In my testing, thumbnails sometimes didn’t update correctly and images occasionally came up blank, so there are still some rough edges.

As for the infrastructure itself, ON1 is securely distributing the online storage among large providers (Microsoft Azure and Backblaze S2). Unlike Adobe’s CreativeCloud approach, ON1 is not using users’ images to feed its machine learning algorithms.

Editing and Metadata

The editing features of the ON1 Photo Mobile app cover the basics of tone, color, and detail adjustments, plus a single-slider AI tool for one-stop improvement. A handful of effects are also included, such as adding a vignette and converting to black and white.

Editing a photo in ON1 Photo Mobile on an iPad Pro. Editing a photo in ON1 Photo Mobile on an iPhone 11 Pro.

Not everything in ON1 Photo RAW is represented, which isn’t a surprise for a first release. There’s no histogram, for instance. In one area, though, you have to be careful: If you apply any edit in the desktop app that isn’t supported on mobile, you’re locked out of all edits. For example, the Vignette effect in both versions let you set opacity, brightness, size, feather, and roundness attributes. In the desktop version, you can also click a shortcut such as ‘Subtle’ that applies preset values for those sliders.

If you apply an adjustment control in ON1 Photo RAW that isn’t supported on mobile… … you’re locked out of all edits (ON1 Photo Mobile on iPad Pro shown here).

However, when you try to edit that in mobile, a message says, “This photo has settings applied in ON1 Photo RAW that are not supported in the app yet.” The only option is to tap OK; you’re not able to edit supported adjustments, such as any of the tone tools.

Be careful: If you apply any edit in the desktop app that isn’t supported on mobile, you’re locked out of all edits

As for metadata, the only visible information is an image’s filename, star rating, and like/dislike flag. That also means there’s no way to filter images based on rating or even see, in the thumbnail view, which ones you’ve marked to work on later. It would be nice to sort the images, too, since by default the photos are listed based on file names.

ON1 Camera

The advantage of incorporating a camera into the mobile app is twofold: first, the images you capture are automatically added to ON1 360, bypassing the need to import them into ON1 Photo RAW; and second, it records photos in raw format by default, with the option to invoke manual control over shutter speed, ISO, focus, and white balance. (You can also choose to shoot in JPEG or, in the iOS version, HEIC formats.)

Adjusting manual focus in the camera feature of ON1 Photo Mobile.

Dragging up or down on the screen adjusts the exposure compensation, but if you leave your finger on the screen too long, the app assumes you want to use that spot as auto-focus and auto-exposure. Another annoyance is that if you’ve set manual settings such as shutter speed or ISO, tapping the screen to set focus reverts everything back to automatic.

Pricing

ON1 360 is a subscription add-on for existing owners of ON1 Photo RAW, or the two can be bundled as a subscription. For 200 GB of cloud storage, the service add-on costs $ 5.99 per month or $ 59.99 per year. The service/software bundle costs $ 7.99 per month or $ 89.99 per year.

A no-subscription perpetual license for just ON1 Photo RAW is also available for $ 99.9

The next tier up is 1 TB of storage, which costs $ 9.99 per month or $ 109.99 per year for the add-on plan, or $ 15.99 per month or $ 179.99 per year for the service/software bundle.

A no-subscription perpetual license for just ON1 Photo RAW is also available for $ 99.99. The ON1 Photo Mobile app for iOS or Android is free.

Conclusion

When you look back at the first mobile steps taken by Apple and Adobe’s photo offerings, they started basic and broadened their features over time; the mobile version of Lightroom is close to being in parity with the desktop version (though still not comparable with Lightroom Classic).

Sometimes a thumbnail doesn’t accurately reflect the edit (though the underlying image adjustments are intact). The ON1 360 sync status says everything is up to date, but a few thumbnails are lagging.
Before: Editing a photo on the iPad. After: Bizarre streaks appeared when activating the AI Auto adjustment.

ON1 360 is taking its own first steps. I did run into a few glitches, ranging from inconsistent thumbnails to images sometimes showing up blank and one instance of odd streaking when applying the Auto adjustment on mobile. However, the basic infrastructure is in place and extends the ecosystem beyond the desktop for photographers who use ON1 Photo RAW.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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DPReview TV: Panasonic Lumix G100 first impressions

26 Jun

Chris and Jordan got their hands on a pre-production Panasonic G100 and have been able to do some preliminary testing on features like the camera’s new OZO directional audio system. Bearing in mind that this isn’t a full production unit, their impressions of the camera so far are… not outstanding.

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  • Introduction
  • Design and Handling
  • Displays
  • Controls
  • Video Handling
  • OZO Audio
  • HD Vlogging Tests
  • 4K Vlogging Tests
  • Audio inputs/outputs
  • Record Limits
  • Video Profiles
  • Video Quality Analysis
  • Video Quality vs. Z-V1
  • Video Autofocus
  • Image Stabilization Performance
  • Audio Quality
  • Who is it for?

Sample images from this episode

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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DPReview TV: Panasonic 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 first impressions

10 Jun

The new Panasonic S 20-60mm F3.5-5.6 is smaller and lighter than a constant aperture zoom and could be a great option for wide angle shooters using L-mount cameras. Chris and Jordan got their hands on a pre-production unit and tell us what they think.

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  • Introduction
  • Physical size
  • Sample images
  • Flare and sunstars
  • Chromatic abberation and bokeh
  • Sharpness
  • Video performance
  • Sunset samples
  • Who's it for?

Sample gallery from this episode

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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