I read recently on a well known photography website a list of “the best cheap lenses” for Nikon F mount and was surprised that I didn’t agree with any of the choices. This inspired me to write my own list of cheap(ish, perhaps “reasonably priced” would be more accurate) but great primes for F mount. …
Category Archives: Reviews
A contender? Sony A7 II
The Sony A7 II is much better than the first two A7 series cameras I used (A7 and A7R), but still not perfect. It’s about the best mirrorless camera available, but still not up to the level of leading DSLRs. I know it’s not a popular view amongst the people who chatter via the Internet, …
Thoughts on the Nikkor 20mm F1.8 G
This has been a long time in coming as I’ve been using the Nikon 20mm F1.8 G for a while. It’s undoubtedly become my favourite ultra wide angle (UWA) lens, the most used, but it’s not the best one I own. I began my odyssey with the 20mm F1.8 G back in September, when my …
Classic Cars and the Joy of Bands
I absolutely love classic cars. There’s something about the shape of the body, the lights, the colours etc that make them amongst my favourite things to photograph. So I was delighted that when a group of classic cars arrived outside my office when I was equipped with my Nikon Df, some manual focus primes and …
Shooting with the D750
What am I doing with another DSLR? Aren’t mirrorless cameras undoubtedly the future? I think they are part of the future, because they offer certain advantages, particularly in terms of judging exposure through the EVF (electronic viewfinder). But I’ve moved towards preferring to use an OVF (optical viewfinder) over the last year principally because of …
Read all about it: Nikon D810 User Impressions
I’ve been wanting to write about the D810 pretty much since I got it. It the most exciting camera upgrade in a long time where almost nothing has changed, but the few changes that have resulted are so significant that it actually surpasses other cameras which are a radical reworking of the original concept. As …
What the hell?!?: Thoughts on the Sigma 50mm ƒ/1.4 Art lens
I was actually in two minds about getting this lens. I have too many 50mm lenses, although I did sell my Nikon 50mm F1.4 G earlier this year. This lens promised performance approaching that of the Zeiss Otus, which would be high praise indeed given the off the chart performance of the Zeiss. “Testing”* the …
A tale of extremes – Fujifilm X-T1
That’s about the best I could come up with for the title of a piece dealing with my impressions of the Fujifilm X-T1. This is a flawed camera, with some gaping omissions and dropped balls, at the same time as being the best X series camera yet. Confused? I certainly was! I found my initial …
The problem with Sony… Some impressions of the Sony A7
So let me start with a negative. I really didn’t like the Sony NEX-7. I hated the menus, the controls, the image quality above ISO 800, the display icons, the ergonomics yah-de-yah. 😉 . OK, a bit strong, but I did feel like the NEX-7 was a disappointment to me as a photographer. I never …
More Df fun…
This camera is distractingly good. I’m actually struggling to think of a camera where the fun has matched the final results so well. The original X100 and the X100S come close, but they aren’t as consistent, nor as quick to focus. The eye catching features of this camera are its high ISO ability (which is …