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Posts Tagged ‘Test’

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens

05 Mar

If you’re a mirrorless camera shooter on the market for a fast wide-angle lens, look no further than the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 lens. While this lens is indeed manufactured by a third party gear company, Samyang of Korea, don’t let brand names fool you. This unique little lens gives you an ultra wide point of view and is relatively inexpensive.

Read on for more!

Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 lens details

Introduced in 2014, the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 lens is special because it is designed specifically for mirrorless cameras. With its maximum f/2.0 aperture, it is noted as the fasted 12mm lens for APS-C (crop) sensor cameras. At this time, the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 comes in either black or silver from about $ 299-399.00. Lens mounts exist for the following mirrorless cameras:

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Lens

  • Sony E-mount
  • Fuji X-mount
  • Canon M
  • Samsung NX
  • Micro four thirds (Olympus and Panasonic)

The Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 is an APS-C lens, meaning it was designed to provide a 35mm (full frame) equivalent focal length of 18mm. Although specifically designed for crop sensors, this lens can be used on full frame sensor and micro 4/3 cameras, but with a different effective focal length.

The only catch is that this is a Manual Focus only lens, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. More on the lens focusing below.

NOTE: Check your manual – for some camera models you may need to set it to “Fire Without Lens” as is the case with Fuji X cameras. As the camera and lens do not talk, the camera needs to know it’s okay to take a photo.

Lens build

Considering this is a relatively inexpensive lens, it’s no surprise that much of its build is plastic. The aperture ring, manual focusing ring, and 67mm filter ring are all made of plastic. Thankfully, the lens mount is metallic. Despite being made mostly of plastic, the lens has a really solid feel and it weighs in at 0.47 lbs (215 g).

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens

Image quality

This lens performs surprisingly well for its size and price. The center of the Rokinon 12mm is very sharp at f/2.0, peaking at around f/5.6. While the corners can at times be rather soft at f/2.0, they are quite sharp at f/4.0.

Vignetting, or light falloff, is visible when shooting at just about any aperture, but it is especially strong when shooting at f/2.0. Despite being an ultra wide angle lens, there is very little distortion in the images.

When to use this lens

Given its 12mm focal length and fast f/2.0 aperture, the Rokinon 12mm is best suited for real estate, architecture, and landscape photography. Perhaps the most popular reason why photographers buy this lens is to shoot the stars. That was my reason for purchasing it, and so far it has not disappointed.

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens

Manual Focusing Tips

Probably the biggest challenge about shooting with the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 is getting used to shooting with its manual focus settings. Personally, this was both the very first third-party lens, and the very first manual focus lens I’ve ever purchased.

If you’ve used Rokinon lenses or manual focus lenses, then all of these observations may not apply. But if you’re also new to Rokinon and manual focusing, you’ll probably relate to these challenges.

1. Practice, practice, practice

The Rokinon 12mm has two plastic rings that you must toggle in order to set your own aperture and focus. Both rings rotate pretty smoothly. There’s no way to control aperture or focus via your camera body, and this can be a big adjustment for some people.

The best way to overcome this challenge is practice. You’ll get used to it, eventually.

2. Turn on Focus Peaking

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens

Focus peaking in action on the Sony a6300

While manual focusing a lens might sound intimidating, many mirrorless cameras are equipped with features that help you out tremendously. One such feature is focus peaking.

This focusing aid can be viewed when shooting in Live View or with an electronic viewfinder. When enabled, focus peaking places colored highlights on the in-focus edges of your image. It is a huge help to making sure your manual focus lens is focused on the right places.

3. Use the Focus Magnifier

Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens

Another way to ensure accurate focus with a manual focus lens is to enable your camera’s focus magnification system if it exists for your model. For Sony cameras, this feature is called Focus Magnifier, and it enables you to magnify your screen four times. This helps you really nail your focus.

In Conclusion

Rokinon 12mm wide angle lens

Overall, the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 wide-angle is a compact, relatively cheap lens that is a great addition to any mirrorless shooter’s gear kit. It delivers superb photos without adding too much bulk or breaking the bank.

Sample Photos

Rokinon 12mm wide angle lens

Rokinon 12mm wide angle lens

Rokinon 12mm wide angle lens

Rokinon 12mm wide angle lens

The post Thoughts and Field Test of the Rokinon 12mm f/2.0 Wide-Angle Lens by Suzi Pratt appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Instagram test lets users re-share content, but there’s a way to disable it

10 Feb

Instagram has confirmed that it is testing a feature for sharing publicly available content posted by other users. In a statement to TechCrunch, Instagram explained that the company regularly tests new ways for users to “share any moment” with their friends. The feature, which some people are referring to as “regram,” allows for public content to be shared within a user’s Instagram Story.

The sharing feature is only available to a small percentage of users at this time. Instagram didn’t provide any sort of time frame for when the feature may launch for all users, nor whether that is certain to happen. However, it seems likely that the feature will see a wider launch due to all users already having the ability to disable re-shares.

Photographers can prevent users from re-sharing their content by opening their Instagram profile, then tapping the menu icon. Within the app’s menu, a new setting option is listed that reads “Allow Others to Reshare” alongside a toggle switch. Toggling the switch off will disable other users’ ability to re-share content posted by that account.

Via: The Verge

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Speed Test: iMac Pro vs Alienware PC, Mac Pro and MacBook Pro

23 Jan

Photographer and Photoshop expert Colin Smith of PhotoshopCAFE recently embarked on a test many photo and video editors have been asking for: comparing the new iMac Pro against some of its main competition. In Colin’s case, he pit a slightly upgraded version of the iMac Pro against an Alienware gaming PC, a MacBook Pro, and the current Mac Pro.

The iMac Pro Smith was testing is a slightly upgraded version of the base model. His unit sports: a 3.2GHz 8-core Xeon W processor, 64GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 ECC Memory, and an AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of its own HBM2 RAM. If you configure it yourself on the Apple website, you’ll find this setup weighs in at $ 6,400.

Going up against the iMac Pro were three contenders at various price points:

  1. A ‘trashcan’ Mac Pro circa December 2014, with a 3.7GHz 4-core Xeon E5 processor, 64GB of 1866MHz DDR3 RAM, and dual AMD Profire D300 video cards with 2GB of RAM each. Cost (in 2014): $ 3,250
  2. The latest 15-inch MacBook Pro, with a 3.1GHz 4-core i7 processor, 16GB of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM, and a Radeon Pro 560 video card with 6Gb of RAM. Cost: $ 3,400
  3. An Alienware Aurora R6 PC, which is running a 4.2GHz 4-core i7 processor, 16GB of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM, and an Nvidia GTX 1070 video card with 8GB of its own DDR5 RAM. Cost: $ 1,600

As you can see, the Apple options are all much more expensive than the PC, but nothing comes close to touching the $ 6,400 iMac Pro. So you would hope, at least, that nothing would come close to touching its performance either. That’s what Colin was thinking too, and he tested each machine using Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop.

Each machine was put through its paces on some very CPU and RAM-intensive tasks in these (already RAM and CPU-intensive) video and photo editing programs, timing each system to see how they ranked. In some categories the iMac Pro really did destroy the competition. When it came to rendering 4K video, the results were eye-opening:

But in other situations, like Ram Preview in After Effects, it actually fell quite short given the sheer amount of power it has to draw from:

Of course, for our purposes, we’re much more interested in how the iMac Pro performed in Photoshop. And that’s where, in 3 out of the 4 tests Colin performed, the PC outperformed all of the Macs. Whether you were opening, upscaling, or saving a massive 815MB Photoshop file, the Alienware PC did best each time.

The only test where the iMac Pro managed to flex its considerable muscle in Photoshop was running the Radial blur filter at Best quality and 100%—a crazy intensive task that the iMac Pro made mince meat of, as you can see from the chart:

You can see all of the test results in the video up top, but the conclusion, at least for us, seems to be clear:

For real-time intensive video editing tasks, the iMac pro can really fly, but for stills shooters it just doesn’t seem to make sense for the money. We spoke to Colin about his test this morning, and asked him if he had anything to add for our readers, and he seemed to agree with us. Here’s what he had to say:

When configuring the base $ 5,000, I wanted to get upgrades that gave me the most bang for my buck. I made the decision to spend $ 1400 (total) to upgrade the base RAM to 64Gb ($ 800) and also the video card from 8Gb to 16Gb ($ 600), as these are the 2 things that will make the biggest difference… especially the video card (PGU)

If you are editing video and have to be on Mac (and budget isn’t an issue) then this is clearly the fastest system around, as you can tell by the encoding and rendering times of the iMac Pro being much faster than the competition. The downside, of course, is getting this level of hardware and not being able to upgrade any of it. I feel that’s a bit disingenuous of Apple, and it will cost them a lot of sales. Having said that, this is one of the best displays I have seen to date.

On the other hand, if you are a photographer and your needs revolve around editing still imagery, I think you are better served to save your money for other things.

That’s some pretty pragmatic advice. To see the full test, check out the video up top. And if you want to see more from Colin, subscribe to PhotoshopCAFE on YouTube, check out his website, or give him a follow on Instagram and Facebook.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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‘Water Torture Test’ compares Canon, Nikon, Sony and Olympus weather sealing

10 Jan

As part of their Camera of the Year comparison between the Nikon D850 and the Sony a7R III, Imaging Resource decided to test the cameras’ weather sealing with their very own “water torture test.” And just to spice things up a bit, they threw in the Canon 5D Mark IV and Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II for good measure.

All four cameras were subjected to a “brief, moderately heavy rain shower and misty conditions,” and despite what you may think about all top-tier cameras being more alike than different on the weather sealing front, not all four bodies coped well. You can watch the test above or visit Imaging Resource for an in-depth report on their weather sealing tests, but if you want the TL;DR (or DW), it goes something like this:

  • The Canon 5D Mark IV and Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II both passed without so much as a stutter. No water getting anywhere it shouldn’t have.
  • The Nikon D850 sprung a small leak into the viewfinder unless the Nikon BS-3 hot shoe cover was used. Everything else stayed dry.
  • The Sony a7R III performed the worst by far, leaking a significant amount of water into the battery compartment (seemingly from above), and malfunctioning entirely during IR’s 15-minute ‘heavy mist’ test.

Of course, one should be careful making sweeping generalizations based on testing one copy of each camera, but if this test is indicative of all Sony a7R III’s weather sealing, Sony might want to take note of IR’s results as they go about designing the Mark IV.

Check out the in-depth review for more details on how each of the four models performed.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III added to studio test scene comparison

09 Dec

Testing of the Canon G1 X Mark III is well underway, inside of the studio and out. We’ve just added it to our test scene comparison tool, where you can take a look at its performance side-by-side against peers like the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 V.

See the Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III in our studio scene comparison tool

See our Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III sample gallery

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Field Test and Thoughts: Tamron 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 Lens

15 Nov

Ask any experienced photographer what his or her all around go-to lens is, and odds are high that the response will be the 24-70mm f/2.8. Not only does it cover a useful range, but the fast aperture makes it ideal for shooting in low lighting conditions when you don’t have a prime lens handy. The long-standing problem with this lens? It is notoriously pricey. Enter the new Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 lens!

Tamron 24-70mm

Along with Sigma, Tamron has been upping its lens game recently by offering high-quality budget versions of popular lenses. In fact, the original Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (Model A007) was first announced in February 2012 and has been on the market for awhile. This year, a highly anticipated second version was released. Here’s what the specs are and what I think after comparing it to my Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II.

Tamron 24-70mm

The Specs

The official name of this lens is a mouthful: Tamron SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 (Model A032). Let’s dissect some of that terminology.

SP is Tamron’s version of high-end lenses, similar to the Sigma Art series. The Tamron SP 24-70mm joins a handful of mostly prime lenses with this designation. Di stands for Digitally integrated, meaning the lens will perform well on full-frame and APS-C format cameras. VC refers to Vibration Control, which Tamron says is much improved in this new lens, offering around 5-stops of compensation, a big boost over its predecessor. USD stands for Ultrasonic Silent Drive, which is reasonably quiet. Finally, G2 is short for Generation 2; this, along with the model number, differentiates this lens from the original.

This lens is available in both Canon and Nikon DSLR mounts.

Tamron 24-70mm

Price

First of all, let’s talk about price. The original Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 was announced in 2012 with a price of $ 1,300. Somehow, version II came out several years later with the even lower price of $ 1,199.00. Compare that to the current prices of the Canon ($ 1,699)and Nikon ($ 2,397) versions. Price-wise, it even beats out the Sigma version ($ 1,299). While Tamron’s version is still pricey, it’s the least expensive option on the market. That’s good news for photographers on a budget.

Lens Hood

This feature was so good it deserves its own heading.

Like most lenses, the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 comes with a lens hood. Unlike most other lenses, the hood is solidly built and snaps into place very tightly. Once the hood is on, there’s almost no way that it will accidentally fall off as it inevitably does when shooting with other lenses.

Tamron 24-70mm

Build Quality

Following in the tradition of other Tamron SP lenses, the 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 is very solidly built. Its outer barrel is made mostly of metal instead of plastic and has moisture resistant construction. As a trade-off for the lens’ solid build, it is pretty big and bulky at nearly 11 cm (4.3″) long and 900 grams (approx. 2 lbs) in weight. That’s 75 grams (2.6 oz) heavier than the original! As a result, this lens might be tough to balance on small, lightweight camera bodies. During this test, the lens was paired with a Canon 5D Mark III, where it felt reasonably well-balanced.

Lens Switches

There are several switches located on the sides of the lens. One is an AF/MF switch making it easy to go from Autofocus to Manual focus. Nearby is the Vibration Control (VC) switch. Whether you choose to turn VC on or off depending on what you’re shooting, but it definitely helps with handheld shots.

The final switch is unique to Tamron zoom lenses: a Lock switch that holds the lens at 24mm, preventing it from extending. I have this unintended lens extension problem (it’s called zoom creep) with my Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 II (probably from prolonged use) and would love to see this feature on every zoom lens.

Tamron 24-70mm

Image Quality

Tamron’s SP lenses come with a special coating that significantly reduces ghosting or lens flare. In the case of the 24-70mm f/2.8, there was little evidence of flare when shooting into the sun or into bright light.

Tamron 24-70mm

When shooting wide open at f/2.8, there’s noticeable light fall-off in the corners of the image. It’s hard to get rid of the vignette without using an f-stop of f/5.6 or smaller.

Tamron 24-70mm

Shot wide open at f/2.8, there is a noticeable edge vignette on the corners of the image.

Tamron 24-70mm

Shot at f/11. Little to no vignette.

Image sharpness was comparable to what you would get from a 24-70mm f/2.8 of another brand. Shooting handheld wide open at low shutter speeds produced a reasonably sharp image with the Vibration Compensation activated.

Tamron 24-70mm

Shot handheld at 1/15th shutter speed and f/2.8.

Below, the lens was used in a controlled studio environment with off-camera flash, thus reducing camera shake and noise. The resulting images are sharp with nice coloring.

Tamron 24-70mm

Food Photography Tamron 24-70

Some users have reported distortion from shots taken at the 24mm focal length. When shooting interiors, I did notice a bit of distortion on the edges, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed in post-processing if you really wanted to.

Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8

Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8

In Conclusion

If you’re on the hunt for a great 24-70mm lens, the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 is a great option. It produces great image quality with a solid build, and most importantly, it won’t break the bank.

Do you own a 24-70mm lens? Would you try Tamron’s version? Or do you prefer to stick with your camera’s name brand lenses? Tell us about your experience below.

The post Field Test and Thoughts: Tamron 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 Lens by Suzi Pratt appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Real-world test: Long exposures with Panasonic G9’s high-res mode

12 Nov
Out-of-camera 80MP JPEG using the Panasonic G9’s high-resolution mode. Lots of detail, and some strange-looking pedestrians.
Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/500 sec | F4

New to Panasonic’s G9 flagship is a high-resolution mode, which shifts the sensor by half-pixel increments eight times, and generates an 80MP final image. As with similar technologies from Ricoh and Olympus, it’s not necessarily recommended for scenes with moving subjects in them. But we wanted to see if we could make it work.

You’ll notice in the above image, the pedestrians are sharply ‘ghosted’ in the foreground; this is due (obviously) to the eight exposures being taken, but also partially the 1/500 sec shutter speed. What if we purposely chose a slower speed, so that they would blur more naturally into each other?

These are only initial findings on a gray Seattle day, but we’ve got some interesting results.

Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/30 sec | F8

For this situation, in order to get a proper exposure without either an ND filter or stopping down to diffraction-inducing levels, I figured I’d give 1/30 of a second a try. As you can see, there’s a little ‘repetition’ around portions of the pedestrians in the foreground and across the street, and while there’s lots of detail in the scene, you may want to just use the normal 20MP file for this one.

What if we go with a little longer of a shutter speed, though?

Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/8 sec | F8

This looks to our eyes to exhibit some improvement. We overall found that a shutter speed between 1/4 sec and 1/8 sec gave a reasonably natural look to the average pedestrian in motion – of course, for faster and slower moving objects, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. Do take note, though, that there are some interesting colorful streaks in our moving subjects, and a reduction of resolution in static objects that can be seen behind them.

If you’re thinking about an even slower shutter speed, once you get down to 1/2 sec or so, pedestrians largely just disappear from your frame, leaving barely a shadow for you to notice. Of course, this could be an advantage if you’re wanting to eliminate people from your photos, without necessarily needing an ND filter and a 30-second exposure.

There were some people on these stairs, I promise.
Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/2 sec | F8

We tried an even longer exposure to see if we could get the motion artifacts to ‘disappear’ with subjects moving fast enough across the scene, but we still could see some – check out the car taillights and the ground surrounding them in the below image. The rest of the image, predictably, shows good detail, but once you start inspecting the areas of motion too closely, the image starts to look a little strange. That said – you’d probably have to have someone point it out to you to really notice it in real life.

Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1.3 sec | F4

In any case, the high res mode on the G9 is something we want to continue to look into as we progress with our review. Raw support is coming shortly, and we’re looking forward to examining the Raw files from both real-world shooting as well as our test scene.

For now, we’ve added these images and their corresponding ‘normal’ 20MP equivalents onto the end of our existing image gallery for you to inspect.

Scroll to the end of our sample gallery to see our updated high res images

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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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First iPhone X hands-on field test with sample photos

31 Oct

iPhone X pre-orders only just started, but our friend Chase Jarvis of CreativeLive somehow got his hands on one of the very first smartphones out in the wild. Naturally, he took this amazing opportunity to run around New York City like a maniac and create the first hands-on field test of the iPhone X!

We spoke to Chase in New York before any of this went public, and he was kind enough to share some sample photos and his just-published video with us first.

Keep in mind that this video and the photos below (more on the CreativeLive blog) are not for pixel peeping or deep technical dives. We’ll be getting our own review unit and you can be sure we’ll test that stuff with the same technical fervor you’ve come to expect from DPReview. Instead, what Chase wanted to do was share his first impressions and a few snapshots after using the device for just a couple of hours.

The good news? Those impressions were extremely positive. No device is perfect, but Chase writes time and again that the iPhone X “felt like the future.”

The point is simple. Just like the first iPhone helped us see the future we couldn’t quite put into words, so does the X. It’s more than just an incremental upgrade from the previous versions. With the iPhone X you can feel the future again in the smartphone.

Check out a few sample photos from Chase below, and then head over to the CreativeLive blog for more of his thoughts on the phone and a few more photos.

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Nikon D850 in-depth autofocus test

13 Oct

We’ve spent some serious time assessing the autofocus system on the D850; from portraits to bicyclists, we’ve found out just how precise this camera’s focus is, and how well its subject tracking will keep up. Check it out for yourself in our updated First Impressions review.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lens Rentals test shows all circular polarizing filters work great, price doesn’t matter

20 Sep
Photo: Roger Cicala/Lens Rentals

Our friend Roger Cicala over at Lens Rentals is at it again: buying up super expensive optical testing equipment because someone asked him why LR carries the circular polarizing filters they do. The answer, until now, was simple: make the expensive one on the market their high-end rental, and the cheapest one their “basic.” But is there really any difference?

That’s what Roger set out to figure out, and the answer might save you a little bit of cash.

You can read the full post and see all of the detailed results on the Lens Rentals blog, but the most surprising and positive conclusion was this:

All circular polarizers, regardless of price, are 99.9% effective at polarizing light.

Translation: if you’re looking for a circular polarizer because … well … you want to polarize light then save your money because the cheaper ones work just as well as the more expensive ones.

In addition to their ability to do what they say they do, Cicala and LR team tested CP filters for overall transmission (how much light to they let through) and transmission by wavelength so you can see what effect each filter has on the colors your camera sees. Check out the results here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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