Getting back into photography ... used to be f4/velvia guy

Wow this is a lot to think about. Thanks!!

 

I think I have not thought clearly enough about why I want to use that lens. It's not the price or anything, I just like it. And I guess the way of shooting that went with to for me, using and taking the time to compose with a super wide lens, always using a tripod, using a lot of grads to control the exposure. I don't need to use that particular lens, I think I just bring it up cause its the one I shot most of my best prints with.

 

I want to come close to that experience, without putting blinders on and missing what new gear can give me. Thanks for the reply.

The manual focus AI / AIS Nikkor wides are a mixed bag on digital, esp newer high-res bodies of 36MP and 40+ MP. You will read many conflicting opinions: some feel they are utter unusable dogs with anything but film, others have a more nuanced opinion depending on the specific lens, example of that lens, and subject/shooting conditions. When initially migrating from film to digital, it is perhaps easier and less confusing to start with latest AF version of your favorite focal length that you can afford.

 

There is an inexplicable alchemy between AF Nikkors and Nikon's digital bodies: when I first moved to DSLR, I was floored at the outrageously better results I got from a lowly AF kit zoom than from my wonderful fixed focal length manual Nikkors. Some of it is due to AF vs MF getting that nth degree better focus needed by sensors, some of it due to the metering and white balance electronics of the digital camera being just a little too ridiculously dependent on electronic feed back from the lens.

 

It makes no sense, but in many cases the plastic Nikon kit zooms can superficially blow prestige manual Nikkors like the 28mm f/2.8 and 35mm f/1.4 out of the water (no matter how carefully and slowly you shoot at optimum aperture and focus sweet spot). Its as if the camera spitefully holds back some quality and consistency if it doesn't sense an electrical connection to the mounted lens: even simple-minded screw-drive AF Nikkors that don't transmit anything but their focal length and aperture. With time and practice, you learn how to subconsciously outwit the camera when using manual Nikkors, and many of us love the results once we get a handle on the differences between their film and digital performance envelopes.

 

Using your 20mm f/3.5 for example, there are ways you can get away with using it on film that won't work as well with digital. This lens has great flare resistance when shooting into the sun, an advantage it still holds over many similar modern lenses, and is particularly well-suited for dramatic perspectives where you have a main subject closer to the lens framed by an expansive background. But for infinity edge-to-edge landscape, it can fall apart on digital due to its field curvature being unable to bring the entire frame to the same flat focus point required by a sensor. Depending on the size and type of your print, this may or may not be significant.

 

Also, like several other manual wide AI / AIS Nikkors, the 20mm f/3.5 has a peculiar inconsistency in color/contrast from sensor to sensor. With some Nikon DSLRs, it renders much as it did on film like Velvia, while with other Nikon bodies/sensors the images can seem flat, dead, dull. This can usually be fixed in post processing, but is annoying if you prefer more baseline-ballpark straight-out-of-camera images. All you can do is try it on your eventual body choice: maybe you can continue to use it productively, or maybe you'll feel the need to replace it.

 

In the 20mm range, a very popular compromise for fans of manual-focus lenses is the Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 (available in Nikon F mount as either a ZF.2 version or Milvus version: same optics, slightly different barrels). This is a stunning lens, among the best wides ever made regardless of AF or MF, but much larger than your petite 20mm Nikkor. The 16-35mm AFS Nikkor has roughly the same bulk as the Zeiss, but offers AF and of course zoom flexibility (if not quite the same optical performance). The lightweight Nikkor AFS 20mm f/1.8 is very fast, which can help with dark interiors etc. If you opt to go with the mirrorless Z series, the current 14-30 zoom is remarkable, while the upcoming 20mm Z lens is likely to be spectacular enough to merit waiting for.

Edited December 23, 2019 by orsetto

ab3,

The D7200 for the price and image quality is a very good starting point for reentry into photography. It will make your 20 mm into a 30mm equivalent angle of view. It's got lots of resolution and has outstanding dynamic range that is as good if not better than many full frame bodies. It's image quality is smokin. When I shot Provia and Velvia I would expose Velvia at ISO 40 and could push Provia to 200 with grainy results. Now days you will see many full frame images shot at ISO 6400 and DX crop sensor images shot without much penalty at ISO 1600. Dx will be more forgiving of your older lens because of the narrower angle of view.

If your shooting landscape you will get the best "dynamic range" shooting low ISOs. Of course with a tripod. You can continue to use your Singh Ray grads though with the increased dynamic range compared to film you can get by with carrying fewer grads and adjusting in post. Maybe needing only a 2 and a 4 or a single 3 stop hard or soft. If you really want to start with a new system you should consider mirrorless. I just started with a Fuji mirrorless advanced point and shoot X100F (dx) last spring and I think it has image quality that is outstanding. I am adjusting to the electronic view finder and kind of like it though still have the option of optical. Fuji cameras have Velvia and Provia film emulation. I print 17x22 and like what I am getting. I own both full frame and dx late model Nikon dslr bodies and would not dissuade you from dx. Also the current version of Lightroom has noise reduction, sharpening and grads built into the soft ware that are seamless. I am a Photoshop user but think it would be better and more efficient to start with Lightroom and its organic lossless file system. I still enjoy scanning my slides with my Nikon cool scan 4000.

Good hunting.

On the other other hand. don't overthink it. If you like taking photos, especially if you use a tripod, a D750 or D810 or whatever used with "Live View" lets you focus to taste. Live View reads right off the sensor so lets you see the exposure, depth of field, etc.

I have not had a big problem focusing manual lenses on the Dxxx cameras. I am more landscape so f5.6-8 mostly with wider depth of field. I actually find the little green focus light in the optical viewfinder to be useful at these apertures.

A major plus of digital is that extra shots don't cost you anything. Take lots. Vary the focus point, and f stop. To paraphrase Galen Rowell, throw most of your images away. They aren't that good.

I have found that when looking critically, the corners on many of the old, good manual lenses aren't up to snuff. Really annoying given how heavy the newer lenses are.

Its all fun. Look up KEH camera and start buying used lenses and selling them back, just to play with them. Accumulate the ones you like. Keeps us off the streets (unless you like street photography).

This has all been so helpful - thanks so much! It seems to me I'm not ready to appreciate mirrorless, and that I'm maybe being too narrow minded in wanting to use my old glass. The D810 and the new 16-15 nikkor might be the best way back for me.

 

Will I have any issues using a P square filter holder with that lens?

If You want to embrace what is Velvia in digital domain, why not to look for Fujifilm X-T100 plus 14mmF2.8 R. There is all that jazz in marketing, but there often is little bit of truth in every marketing phrase.

This has all been so helpful - thanks so much! It seems to me I'm not ready to appreciate mirrorless, and that I'm maybe being too narrow minded in wanting to use my old glass. The D810 and the new 16-15 nikkor might be the best way back for me.

I would try the existing lens for yourself on whatever digital body you buy before deciding one way or the other. Meanwhile, check out what others have done with the 20 f/3.5 on various cameras here: Nikkor 20mm f/3.5 UD/AI/AI-S

DXO Filmpack makes digital output somewhat looks like film. I rarely used it as digital looks just fine to me. :-)

Thanks for this very detailed and interesting reply! I work in software engineering, and I want to minimize the time I need to spend using a computer to make prints and manage my images. That's one reason I got tired of scanning my slides, and took refuge in my darkroom. But I'm back because I miss photography, and I perceive that things have matured to the point that I could have a pretty streamlined digital workflow. I'm the opposite of a gear-head - I love making photos, I hate messing around with gear. I race bikes and am the same way with that ... I'll always just go with my team's gear, and how my shop sets it up. I just wanna ride. haha.

 

Your remark about distortion is very interesting. I don't mind spending money for more compact gear, so long as I'm not losing quality. These distortion corrections, is this something easy to add to one's workflow? What post-processing software are you talking about?

 

Thanks again for all the amazing replies. I can see the community is as amazing as I remember it.

 

You want to streamline the digital workflow then simply write the software to do it. You're a software engineer aren't you?

I think still your best bet is the D850 because it would work with all your lenses that you used on the F4 (except the Pre AI lenses but I doubt you have one of those). It would give images of the same angle of view and depth of field.

Will I have any issues using a P square filter holder with that lens?

 

ab3 not sure about the filter size of the lens you mentioned. The Cokin P holder’s largest adapter ring will accommodate a 82mm lens thread. I still shoot Singh Ray and Hitech grads that fit a Cokin P holder. Big investment to replace. If I were starting over I would go bigger than a P mount. My Zeiss 15 mm requires a very large Fotodiox Wonderpana filter system for oversized Fotodiox, Cokin Xpro and Lee grads, and oversized polarizer and ND filters. The Wonderpana fits over a fixed lens hood of large wide angle lenses.

Merry Christmas

The 16-35 f4 has a 77mm filter size. I used to use graduated neutral density filters for sunrise-sunset on Velvia. It had what, 5 stops of light to work with?

However, with digital, you can shoot multiple shots, bracketing exposure and merge to a high dynamic range (HDR) image in software. Alternatively you can take two images at different exposures and blend a properly exposed sky into the lighter foreground image. I haven't used grad filters in many years, although I still have them.

Still need a polarizer since that can't be done in software. Other filters can be mimicked in software. I don't do much of that but its there.

After my digital Nikon D70, I have gone to a Nikon film SLR and shot Velvia, my last batch was using a USA shop for film and a USA lab while I live in New Zealand since it's so $$$ here. I am a saturation addict hence Velvia. I have also then gone and shot Velvia with medium format.

 

For me it's a bitter pill to swallow b/c slides are so $$ and it's tiresome to collect up my film for 2yrs before I send them to the USA as a single batch. Which i something I have done for a couple of years now. While I probably will shoot some slides in a occasionally it would be a lot lower than the past.

 

Speaking of myself I would get a Nikon Z system if you are going with the Nikon brand. If you want something cheaper and not so concerned about the future then maybe a dSLR.

 

As said I am a saturation addict with patience maybe I will hunt out those surreal sun shots and shoot Velvia. With digital you can shoot at more hours b/c it has more dynamic range, you don't have to scan or purchase a scanner or pay someone else to do it.

I still shoot Velvia 50 but with a medium format camera. Here's old and new shots. Just to stir your memory. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Search: velvia | Flickr

Although I didn't get away from photography for 10 years I did grow up on an F2 and have always preferred the control set up. I have several F2's and a couple of F4S bodies as well and they all get used. For digital and your lens choice I would suggest a D750, 800, 810 or 850. I am not recommending mirrorless at this point since I've never tried one and see no need to go that way. Figure out a budget and choose accordingly. There is no real wrong answer here.

 

Rick H.

...What Rick wrote, is what I'd say almost in similar terms. Replace 'F2' for 'F3 + F4' and there you go! :)

Ab3, Sorry, I didn’t catch that you were talking about the 16-35 f4. I own that lens. It’s 77mm filter ring will definitely fit a P mount adapter of that size.

Lots of landscape folks still using grads these days, even though with the newer software HDR renderings are not as cartoonish as they were when HDR was first catching on. On a different note I got a snap on telephoto lens for my iphone under the Christmas tree, so I am going to sell all my long lenses and use the money to buy a 12 wide mobile home on some swamp land in Mississippi and shoot iPhone fine art images for a living. Merry Christmas

You want to streamline the digital workflow then simply write the software to do it.

A fundamental principle of business is "never build what you can buy." It's hard to imagine anything easier to use than Lightroom, nor more comprehensive in scope. There's no way one person can approach, much less duplicate a product of thousands of man-hours.

A fundamental principle of business is "never build what you can buy." It's hard to imagine anything easier to use than Lightroom, nor more comprehensive in scope. There's no way one person can approach, much less duplicate a product of thousands of man-hours.

The OP seems to think the digital post processing is too involved and he wanted to streamline it. So I take that no commercial available software meets the OP needs. So he should develop it himself.

FWIW I have a few grad filters. With digital, less mucking around I just shoot 2 consecutive images at different exposures, me also not liking the HDR look too much. I just use Photoshop and blend the two files with the gradient tool. Then the single image is back into Lightroom where I do some overall (global) editing adjustments.

In the OP's case, the elephant in the room was scanning, then trying to make something of the results. Digital cameras need much less fussing. Adobe has a 35 year head start on the "fussing" part.

Re the "burden" of digital processing: Way back yonder in film days, there was little or no post-processing because there was no way to post process (or too much effort to do it in the wet dark room). The most one could do was cropping by covering part of the image on the slide. Now, just because there are software available to "improve" the image, it does not mean that one needs to use it. Using a tripod, one can compose carefully. The image can be amazing right out of the box - just like the old days. Now most people post-process because they believe they can make the image better. They would have done the same thing in film if that was possible.

In terms of most of my images including many I share with people online. I just use Lightroom ONLY. At the time of import I attach a "develop" template so the photos get a gentle edit automatically when they are added to my LR library. When I export I also have a online website template.

 

Seriously after going thru and adding a flag to the ones I like. For many of my digital images, I might spend 0 seconds or 45 seconds per image.

If you want to recreate a F4/20mm/Velvia experience, get a Z7 and one of the 21mm Voigtländer color Skopar lenses in an M mount and use an M adaptor. If you set the cameras picture control to vivid, the out of the camera jpegs will recreate velvia pretty well. The weight and bulk of this setup will be the same or less than your old setup and about as convenient to use with many added features. The current Z lenses are excellent but bulky and heavy though 28 and 40 pancake lenses are promised. However, if you don’t mind giving up autofocus, there are many rangefinder lenses which make Z’s a compact system. Once you are accustomed to the pluses of mirrorless digital - scene preview and vibration reduction for all lenses did it for me - you’ll wonder how you managed without them.

An F4 and Velvia continue to work as well as they always have :)

 

To be fair, I've been increasingly discontent with the "new" Velvia 50 and find that I can actually get results more similar to what I use to get from the original Velvia out of Velvia 100. I use to also be adamant about shooting Velvia at box speed and still shoot my dwindling stash of it at that, but find that Velvia 50 seems to fair well with a tiny bit(maybe 1/3 stop) of over-exposure.

 

I have seen a lot of suggestions for the Df in this thread. I finally caved and bought one last September after salivating over them for a while. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of a digital F4(a lot of people want to compare it to the F3 or FM2, but the viewfinder readouts and general controls are more F4-like to me). It's a quirky camera with a few ergonomic decisions I dislike. I also don't like the tiny battery that seems to run down quickly vs. the larger EN-EL15 series used in other more recent non-pro FX cameras, the fact that it has a single SD slot, and the weird location of the slot. It's a capable camera, though, and gives you a huge amount of DR plus relatively low noise at high ISOs. It's the only DSLR that can meter with non-AI lenses, and AFAIK is the only Nikon SLR(period) that can do full aperture metering with both lens types.

 

As much as I like mine and have been using it a lot since getting it, I wouldn't necessarily want it as my only DSLR.

Edited December 29, 2019 by ben_hutcherson

An F4 and Velvia continue to work as well as they always have :)

 

To be fair, I've been increasingly discontent with the "new" Velvia 50 and find that I can actually get results more similar to what I use to get from the original Velvia out of Velvia 100. I use to also be adamant about shooting Velvia at box speed and still shoot my dwindling stash of it at that, but find that Velvia 50 seems to fair well with a tiny bit(maybe 1/3 stop) of over-exposure.

 

I have seen a lot of suggestions for the Df in this thread. I finally caved and bought one last September after salivating over them for a while. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of a digital F4(a lot of people want to compare it to the F3 or FM2, but the viewfinder readouts and general controls are more F4-like to me). It's a quirky camera with a few ergonomic decisions I dislike. I also don't like the tiny battery that seems to run down quickly vs. the larger EN-EL15 series used in other more recent non-pro FX cameras, the fact that it has a single SD slot, and the weird location of the slot. It's a capable camera, though, and gives you a huge amount of DR plus relatively low noise at high ISOs. It's the only DSLR that can meter with non-AI lenses, and AFAIK is the only Nikon SLR(period) that can do full aperture metering with both lens types.

 

As much as I like mine and have been using it a lot since getting it, I wouldn't necessarily want it as my only DSLR.

 

As I recommended to the OP the D850 which I think it's best for someone who comes from the F4. As you know I have the Df and love it but I don't have the problem with the battery like you do. I use 32GB card and shoot the largest RAW and JPEG. I never run out of battery when I go home for the day which I can charge it. I never got the card full either but If I do I think I would fill the card before running out of battery. Perhaps I never used live view. I actually like the location of the SD card because it's out of the way. I dislike doors on the side of the camera. Since I don't run out of either memory card or battery so it's not an inconvenience for me.

May be I shoot the Df like my film cameras that is 360 shots in a day is max (10 rolls of film).

I never run out of battery when I go home for the day which I can charge it. I never got the card full either but If I do I think I would fill the card before running out of battery. Perhaps I never used live view. I actually like the location of the SD card because it's out of the way. I dislike doors on the side of the camera. Since I don't run out of either memory card or battery so it's not an inconvenience for me.

 

I'm not generally a machine-gunner either and usually do act like I'm shooting film. I also rarely use live view-basically my only use for it is when I'm doing lens testing on a tripod to help nail focus, and even that's infrequent.

 

The battery thing I noticed most recently when I was at my future sister-in-law's wedding that had a paid photographer, but I was jumping in for things that the paid guy missed and also so that the family could have certain key pictures they wanted ASAP(it was a few weeks before Christmas and they wanted to have them to use/share).

 

I had a 64gb card in the camera-the last few times I've gone to buy good high speed SD cards, the price difference between 32gb and 64 was so miniscule that I couldn't justify buying the 32gb(like when I went to Best Buy needing some in a pinch and Sandisk Extreme Pros 32gb were $15 and 64gb were $20). With RAW+Jpeg Fine I shot close to 700 photos in the evening, and changed batteries about 600 in because it was showing 1 bar and I didn't want to get caught short at an important moment.

 

One of my other big issues I ran into was I found the 15 shot buffer a bit limiting. A fast card clears it in a couple of seconds, but I found a few times where even a few seconds is too long. It made me wish I'd brought the D500 instead, although I'd have probably drained the battery even faster and spent enough time at 3200-12,800 that I'd have missed the somewhat better performance of the Df sensor in those ranges. To add to that, I was shooting at ~400 in the sanctuary, but the bright spot lights meant that-to someone chimping over my shoulder-it probably looked like I was dramatically underexposed everything. Of course, I was trying to keep the dress from blowing out, and the sensor was forgiving enough to let me bring everything up in post.